Daddy's coattails

Fresno CA

Description

The roots of Cheney’s loss were planted long before Tuesday’s primary. And in some cases, the seeds were planted during the factional battles within the Wyoming GOP that date back to the tea party era, when Cheney was still a resident of Virginia. The state’s GOP, with no real competition from Democrats, has divided into two factions, with a more moderate establishment wing butting heads with a more conservative faction that has increasingly wrested away control. The establishment wing retains some power in Wyoming. Gov. Mark Gordon, a part of that wing, won Tuesday. But the conservative faction has seized control of the state Republican Party and many of its local organizations. “In Wyoming, we don’t necessarily embrace the idea of a big tent,” Wyoming GOP Chairman Frank Eathorne said on Fox earlier this year. Wyoming Republicans’ reservations about Cheney were first evident in 2016, when she won her House seat after winning just 39% of the vote in the GOP primary against a fractured field. She was cast as too close to the establishment by some rivals, and as a carpetbagger by others – including Tim Stubson, a former state lawmaker who now supports Cheney. But, she was by far the best-known candidate in the race thanks to the decade her father spent representing Wyoming in Congress prior to becoming secretary of defense and later, vice president.