The "Equality State" gets ready to caucus

How fitting that Wyoming, with a state motto proclaiming "Equal Rights," gets to finally play an important role a presidential primary, and it's this groundbreaking one. Wyoming takes its nickname and motto from its vaunted history as the first government in the world to grant women the right to vote, serve on juries and hold public office, and that was before it was even a state. In 1869, Wyoming's territorial legislature granted "female suffrage" by enacting a bill granting Wyoming women the right to vote.

You might remember that, in an effort to be relevant, Wyoming Republicans held their caucus back on January 5, where a paltry 1,200 participants--statewide--decided to throw eight of their 12 delegates to Romney. So much for relevance.

Tomorrow the state's Democrats, who make up about a quarter of the state's electorate, make the decision of how to allocate their 12 delegates. Despite being hugely outnumbered in the state, the party is gearing up for the kind of overflow caucus response neighboring Idaho and Colorado experienced on Super Tuesday.

Some Democrats in Wyoming say they have never seen a political mood swing so overwhelming or so fast - from the status quo of irrelevance to full kiss-kiss campaign embrace, in nothing flat.

"I have never had a period of compressed political intensity like these last 48 hours," Kathleen Karpan, a longtime Democratic activist and former Wyoming secretary of state, said Thursday. Karpan, who supports Clinton, took a week off from her law practice to help with last-minute details before Saturday.

Around the state, caucus locations are being moved from living rooms to meeting halls. In Laramie County, the most populous, Democrats reserved the Cheyenne Civic Center, which will seat up to 1,500 people for an event that in the past has drawn maybe 250.

"People are excited that it would actually matter," said Margaret Whited, the party chairwoman in Park County in the state's northwest corner. Whited said she thought all the energy and attention swirling around the caucuses could help in the fight against her biggest enemy: apathy among Democrats who think their voices do not count.

About that campaign embrace: Clinton has an office and five staffers on the ground there, Bill and Chelsea were there yesterday, and even Hillary will be there today. Not to be outdone, Obama will be in Casper and Laramie today. He's been running radio and newspaper ads geared toward Wyoming-specific issues like energy development, and has the same ground game that gave him such an advantage in Idaho and Colorado.

The caucuses are limited to registered Democrats, but apparently there's been some cross-over registration by moderate Republicans. Wyoming is probably the most extreme example in the Mountain West region of the vaunted "independence" of voters, where ticket-splitting is just how you vote. Consider this: the state has had a Democratic governor for 24 of the last 32 years—three decades that have been unkind to Democrats there. They haven't sent a Democrat to Congress since 1976. Wyoming voters, who reelected Democratic Governor Mike Sullivan easily in 1990, with 65 percent of the vote, sent him to the curb just four years later, when he lost by 20 points to Craig Thomas for a Senate seat.

Not that being a Democratic governor in Wyoming means being a partisan Dem. NPR reports this morning that the current Dem governor, Dave Freudenthal, doesn't particularly like either of the presidential candidates, and that they'll have to meet with him in order for him to determine where throws his superdelegate support. It's apparently good to be king in Wyoming, once the state finally matters.

This is one caucus state that Obama might not steamroller, because Clinton has apparently caught up on the importance of having a ground game--putting actual bodies on the ground and deploying a real retail oriented campaign. Organizing makes all the difference. It will also be interesting to see the results from this closed caucus--all participants have to have been registered as a Democrat as of February 22. Obama still has the advantage in this state, and I expect him to carry it. But I doubt it will be by the 60+ margin that he carried neighboring Idaho.

The challenge for Wyoming Democrats, just as it is for Idaho Dems, will be to capture the enthusiasm of new and reinvigorated Wyoming voters in actually being relevant in a presidential campaign, and to harness it to carry through November and beyond. An invigorated and involved Democratic base could make this the election that sends Blue Majority candidate Gary Trauner to Congress.