Now that moderate Republicans and their Crossover Democrat pals have given the heave-ho to the most conservative members of Wyoming Legislature, you have to wonder if Donald Trump's most faithful state has gone wobbly on him.
There are signs that the bloom is off the rose, when it's increasingly all right for Republicans to take shots at the president, even though 70 percent of voters here supported Trump in three presidential elections.
In fact, given the lopsided results of the primary election, in which those crusty conservatives were sent packing, some candidates may think it's a good idea to put distance between themselves and the Orange Man in Washington.
Last I heard, the governor was investigating the episode in which the federal government dared to send election observers to Laramie County on primary election day.
He and the local county clerk said observers could have disrupted the election, and that they didn't give folks warning that they were going to do something crazy like come here and observe.
Problem is, other than Crossover Democrats, Spumoni Republicans (they like lots of different flavors in their bowl of ice cream) and the governor, I don't know anyone who is upset about someone observing.
I suspect this is just the latest chapter in the blood feud between the governor and Secretary of State Chuck Gray, who has been hounded for just about everything he has done in office, by those who claim election security is silly, and voter fraud doesn't happen here. (Probably not, but why treat voting less seriously than buying a six-pack of beer?)
I don't know anybody who is upset about showing an ID at the polls, and President Trump is huge on election security.
So Gray is more in tune with Trump than newly-frisky Republicans who figure the primary election gave them free rein to get prickly with the president.
You can bet Trump never saw anything “draconian” about prohibiting boys from playing girls sports, like our governor did, until Gordon had some kind of epiphany and joined the president on the issue.
Same with primary-victor Sen. Ogden Driskill, who says he supports the president, but says nobody listens to him about beef when he goes to Washington, and rips the president for increased imports and a 90-day tariff reduction to maybe make Brazilian beef less expensive.
The meat counter is expensive these days, and it looks like Trump is trying to do something about it. Are we upset about that?
But, it's apparently increasingly OK to rip the president. The thrill, apparently, is gone for some Republicans when it comes to Donald Trump.
I suspect some never liked him in the first place.
A presidential endorsement didn't feed the bulldog for Megan Degenfelder for governor, as voters preferred a more liberal Eric Barlow, who once sponsored a bill to expand Medicaid.
Wyoming's wishy-washy Republicans are feeling their oats.
The question is how this all shakes out in the next sessions of the Wyoming Legislature, where newly-elected members, and returning members who weren't Freedom Caucus members, shape a less conservative future for our state.
With the courts slam-dunking the repeated, clearly-stated wishes of Wyoming people on abortion, and now claiming that the state significantly under-funds education, my guess is that some of us will be missing the crusty conservatives who were shown the door in August.
We're even hearing rumblings about Medicaid expansion.
Who knows how this new crowd – schooled in the danger of being an actual conservative - will respond to the age-old temptation to “take the money,” even when the federal government offering the temporary funding is $40 trillion in debt.
I used to think that there was some kind of magic in the ability of voters to make the right choices.
But, the recent choices of voters in California, New York City, Chicago, Virginia and many other bat-guano crazy blue states have disabused me of that belief.
I suspect we'll come to miss those more conservative voices in the Legislature.
And the bottom line is, has the average Wyoming Republican – who may or may not have voted in August - really gone this wobbly?
I doubt it.
Dave Simpson can be contacted at DaveSimpson145@hotmail.com
