“In Wyoming, politics is not political, it is personal” is an old saying that I first heard from retired U. S. Sen. Al Simpson of Cody. He probably coined the phrase. It describes our unique interpersonal situations in the Cowboy State.
We are a very big place with 97,000 square miles of territory but we are home to fewer people than any other state, 585,000 people. That is about the size of Fresno, CA
Thus, you can live in Evanston and have good friends in Sundance. Those two towns are 500 miles apart. Cody and Powell folks know lots of people in Laramie and Cheyenne because of UW and the State Capitol.
As former Gov. Mike Sullivan of Casper always said: “Wyoming is like a small city with extremely long streets.” He may not have coined that phrase but I heard it from him first.
In Wyoming it seems all politics end up being local. My point in all this is that elections can be difficult times because of personal relationships. You can find yourself being friends with both candidates. Especially when the races turn nasty, it is truly unpleasant.
I am going through this here in Fremont County where my old friend Lloyd Larsen is being challenged by my former bookkeeper (and good friend) Tina Clifford.
Tina is a good person. She helped our little company a lot and just did excellent work. I admired her when she quit so she could increase her education as she wanted to become a high school business teacher.
I had not seen her for a while until she showed up at a talk by Secretary of State Chuck Gray here in Lander last year.
Clifford Versus Larsen
She told me she was interested in getting into politics but I was stunned to see her running against Lloyd, one of the most effective legislators in the entire legislature.
To make this more complicated, she is sponsored by the Freedom Caucus. That super conservative group is spending thousands of dollars attacking Larsen for allegedly not supporting former President Donald Trump, for favoring Chinese communists, and for helping illegal aliens. What???
I am sympathetic with many of the political positions of the Freedom Caucus. But not when it comes to this race.
Lloyd is a former Mormon bishop. He might be the most conservative person I know. He is arguably the most effective legislator in Wyoming.
Here is what I do know. Lloyd almost single-handedly kept our Wyoming Life Resource Center in Lander from closing. That brings $25 million a year to our community and is our second largest employer.
With his leadership, he changed the focus of the institution so that $80 million in state and federal money was spent on new facilities. It is now an amazing asset both to Wyoming and to Lander. He deserves that credit. Our State Sen. Cale Case worked mighty hard on this project, too.
Dean McKee, a retired CPA here in Lander, said that without Lloyd’s intervention, our local nursing home was in trouble and could have closed. Lloyd was able to get state payments increased which helped all nursing homes in the state.
I have lots of friends in the legislature. They tell me we are so fortunate because Lloyd is the hardest working member down there. He is the first one at work in the morning and the last to leave at night.
Is this the kind of person you want to replace?
Tina, sorry old friend, my wife Nancy and I are voting for Lloyd.
For this column, I called Tina, but she did not return my call.
Al Simpson And JD Vance
I reached out to Al Simpson about that quote at the beginning of this column and he was full of news.
He is a no fan of Donald Trump but said he met JD Vance (Trump’s Veep choice) some years ago. It was at an exclusive California get-together called the Bohemian Grove, which operates for two weeks each summer north of San Francisco.
Former AOL head Steve Case is a friend of Simpson’s and brought a young JD Vance (then a successful author) to a gathering. Simpson remembers Vance being critical of Trump back in those days. The young man was sharp and articulate, Simpson recalled.
Al also spent a little time with the Democrat presumptive nominee Kamala Harris in the White House two years ago when President Joe Biden gave him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
He asked Harris if she gets a little tired of all this formal “sh*t?” He said she laughed her famous laugh and replied: “You bet.”
Also, receiving a medal that day was the diminutive Simone Biles, for all her Olympic glory, which she just duplicated again in Paris. It would be funny to see a photo of the 6-7 Simpson towering over the tiny 4-8 gymnast, who would barely come up past his waist.
Simpson had a stroke a while back, from which he says he is sufficiently recovered. He is going to be 93 in September but is still active along with his wife Ann and his brother Pete who is now 94.
I will wrap this up with two more of Simpson’s quotes:
On how news tends to repeat itself: "We just keep gnawing on it. It's like bear meat. The more you chew it, the bigger it gets."
And finally: “If you have integrity, nothing else matters. If you do not have integrity, nothing else matters.”
Bill Sniffin can be reached at: Bill@CowboyStateDaily.com
