Obama Wins Wyoming Caucuses

Wyoming held its presidential nominating caucuses on Saturday, and in a very Republican state, Democrats were lined up early to vote. As most predicted, Senator Barrack Obama won the state with 61% of the vote. Wyoming is the smallest state in population, so it only had 12 delegates to elect. Senator Obama got at least 7 of them, and as Wyoming Democrats go through their state convention, he may pick up one or two more. The clock continues to tick away for the Clinton campaign.

Naturally, the Clintonistas put a smiley face on things. “We are thrilled with this near split in delegates and are grateful to the people of Wyoming for their support,” their statement read. “We worked hard to present Senator Clinton’s vision to the caucus-goers and we thank them for turning out today.” A “near-split” is as positive a spin as one could put on a “we lost ground” story.

And this was a caucus process, which the Clinton camp has claimed (ever since it finished third in Iowa’s) are undemocratic. However, to win a caucus, a campaign actually has to be highly organized and able to bring out the passionate backers. This is actually a useful way of measuring the depth of a campaign’s popularity as well as its breadth. Will people give up a few hours on a week night or part of their week-end to make sure their candidate carries the day? If so, one can expect they will do likewise during the general election. A primary, by contrast, measures none of that.

Wyoming’s race also underscored something that few analysts have noted. Senator Obama is quite popular in the Rocky Mountain states. He won Idaho, Utah, Colorado and now Wyoming. The pundits are talking about how Ohio and Florida a key battleground states, but the most important fact of the last decade is the rise of the West in American electoral politics. The old Confederacy is largely a Republican lock, and the Northeast and rustbelt belong to the Democrats. The West used to be solidly GOP as well, but because people can’t afford to live in California, there is a large migration of Democrats into the nearby states. Mrs. Clinton would have trouble carrying these states in a general election against Mr. McCain. Westerners like mavericks.

In 2004, 160 Democrats11:38 AM 3/10/2008 participated in the caucus in Laramie County. Saturday, 1,532 turned up. Laramie County Democratic Chairman Mike Bell opened the caucus with a bang of his gavel and this greeting, “Good morning, Wyoming Democrats! I got a question for you: Where in the hell did you come from?” Nancy Freudenthal, the governor’s wife, said, “At Democratic events in Wyoming, you tend to see the same worker bees over and over. Today I see tons of new faces. This has great potential to revive the Democratic Party.” When Wyoming’s Democrats get excited about the race, something new is happening that the apparatchiks ignore at their peril.

© Copyright 2008 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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