Time's a-wasting before Wyoming's all-important primary election this month, so I better clear off several items building up on my opinion-writing workbench.
- A guy in Casper had this to say about how Wyoming chooses its governors:
“Wyoming people won't vote for someone for governor that they wouldn't feel comfortable inviting over for dinner.”
If you ask me (and I notice you didn't), the old Marine Ed Herschler would have been a pretty intimidating guy to invite over for dinner. But Wyoming elected him governor a record three times. I met Mike Sullivan at a party at the local editor's house in Casper years ago, before he became governor, and I can't imagine a more charming dinner guest.
Dave Freudenthal – the last Democrat I ever voted for – would be an interesting dinner guest. (My older brother once said guys named Dave almost always have a good sense of humor.) And I covered a legislative committee meeting once at which his wife Nancy, before she became a federal judge, talked about the challenges of fixing up old, historic homes. We'd have plenty to talk about over dinner with those two.
Not sure where this current crop of governor wanna-bes score on the dinner guest scale, but I bet the discussion would be lively with any one of them.
- My theory on how Wyoming elects governors takes me back to auto shop days in high school, where we learned about how small engines work.
The function of the governor on your lawnmower is to keep the speed of the motor from revving up too high and running wild. It keeps a lid on things.
Seems to me that Wyoming's political governors do the same thing. They tend to be milder guys (at least lately), who keep things from getting too frisky upstairs in the Legislature. They represent the folks in Wyoming who don't want a long list of new laws to obey.
It can be frustrating dealing with them when you've got some bill you particularly like. But Wyoming voters prefer fewer laws, not more, and they tend to elect governors willing to serve as the governor on the legislative lawnmower.
- Last week on my way down the mountain from my cabin (I'm thinking of calling it my pied-a-terre) I nearly ran into a road grader working on the Forest Service road up in the Medicine Bow National Forest.
This is a good thing. For years we didn't see any maintenance on the road that goes past the little island of private land where my cabin is located, and provides access to folks camping, fishing and hunting on a huge swath of public land.
Two years ago we wrote to Rep. Harriet Hageman about the road and an abandoned camper that had been sitting in a little public campsite for at least eight years. I called it the “haunted campsite,” because the mashed-down, trashed-out camper made the place look like a crime scene. Nobody used that campsite for years, because of the mess.
About a week after we wrote to Hageman, a neighbor spotted a Forest Service crew hauling off that abandoned camper. And not long after that we noticed a grader doing some much-needed work on the road.
And the grader was back last week.
Harriet Hageman cut through the bureaucracy.
And what was the haunted campsite is now clean as a whistle, and the public can camp there for up to 16 consecutive days. It has a wonderful view of the meandering Medicine Bow River down below, and a marshy area that tends to attract deer. It's one of my favorite places to stop and cogitate about stuff in the late afternoon.
So, if you're one of these folks who see Harriet Hageman as some kind of threat to public lands, I've got an entirely different view of her performance.
And I could show you a better road and a cleaned-up campsite to make my case.
- And lastly, two weeks ago I noted that Taft Love, who is running for re-election as state senator in my southeast Wyoming district, sent a flier showing him standing in front of the Tetons. I pointed out that you can't see the Tetons from Laramie County.
Got another flier from Love this week, this one showing him standing in front of what I'm pretty sure is Medicine Bow Peak.
He's getting closer, but you can't see Medicine Bow Peak from Cheyenne, either.
Dave Simpson can be contacted at DaveSimpson145@hotmail.com
