CHEYENNE —“The centre cannot hold,” the Irish poet William Butler Yeats wrote l05 years ago.
His assessment of the arc of history, written one year after the end of the First World War and the beginning of Ireland’s war of independence, sort of fits the current dilemma facing Wyoming’s Republican Party.
I suspect it also describes political events in other red Western states.
The Wyoming Republican Party’s party’s center — the moderates, the traditionalists — is in danger of becoming irrelevant.
Their power is being siphoned away by the party’s hard right wing.
Tuesday’s primary election was a stunner with the Freedom Caucus of the Wyoming house picking up about nearly enough seats to give them a majority.
The final count will be determined by the November elections.
You get the feeling that something has to give here. To use an over-worked word, the situation is fraught.
During the live video broadcast of the primary on Cowboy State Daily, former Gov. Mike Sullivan, a Democrat, told of the dismal experience of looking at a Natrona County primary ballot that had no Democratic candidates listed. His only option was to vote for a senior citizens project.
He emphasized the need for a two party political system in Wyoming.
But how? Many Wyoming residents considers Democrats a crazy, bunch of liberals, a description Sullivan, a conservative Democrat, resents.
A two party Republican system is possible, suggested Sullivan who served two terms as chief executive and was subsequently ambassador to Ireland.
Moderate Republicans in the Wyoming house, in effect, have already created such a split on a much smaller scale.
Last year they established the Wyoming Caucus in the house for traditional Republicans as opposed to the Freedom Caucus, an older group that includes the hard right Republicans —the ultra right.
Meanwhile the list of Wyoming moderates who were GOP primary x included a frightful amount of experience and institutional memory.
Losing to the Freedom Caucus candidates were Rep. Al Sommers of Pinedale, the affable, outgoing house speaker who was running for an open seat in the senate; Clark Stiith of Rock Springs, currently third ranking House Republican and in line to be the next speaker; Dan Zwonitzer of Cheyenne, who has served since 2005. and David Northrop of Powell.whose father, Don, served many years before him; both of them interested in education.
Zwonitzer’s father, Dave, also from Cheyenne, was another casualty.,
These people all ran committees or otherwise held key positions.
The primary election was marked by the infusion of out-of state money and mailed flyers often filled with misinformation about the candidates.
“It was a big food fight,” former Gov. Dave Freudenthal a Democrat said Tuesday night.
Sullivan said, “We lost civility and good bit of integrity.”
What will also be missing in the Legislature next year were the half half dozen or so Republicans who knew how to push back against the Freedom Caucus people. Like Dave Zwonitzer said, according to online sources, these lawmakers, including himself, were targeted for defeat in the primaries.
If the Frontier Caucus gets enough votes to secure a majority in the house you can expect a lot of time spend on social issues some of whom have no connections whatsoever with Wyoming but are dictated by the national group in Washington D. C. the group that calls the shots.
Tom Lubnau said on the video that when he was house speaker he set aside a day or so early in the session so members could discuss the social issues. The senate did likewise.
That was all the time they needed then and that was only a few years ago.
Now social issues are paramount and consume hours and hours of debate and votes.
Maybe this will all clear up with the general election Maybe voters will even elect a Democrat or two, to help work things out. Democrats are good at that; they are used to compromise.
Yeats also wrote about things falling apart and mentioned the possiibliiy of “anarchy” or chaos with the center crumbling. Just sayin.’
Contact Joan Barron at 307-632-2534 or jmbarron@bresnan.net
