Just who the hell do you think you are? In the 2006 election, it took you forever to endorse Gary Trauner. He lost to Barbara Cuban by less than a half a percent. Where the fuck were YOU? Even when you did endorse him it was luke warm and we felt like you're heart wasn't in it.

Now, you're embarrassing us again. And not just because you look amazingly like Peter Griffin on Family Guy.

Now, you're saying you "don't like" either of our Democratic presidential candidates.

LINK

Meanwhile, the state's top Democrat, Gov. Dave Freudenthal, has said he doesn't like any of the candidates, Republican or Democratic.

When Rep. Barbara Cubin, Wyoming’s lone U.S. House member, announced her retirement Saturday in Casper, she began with a few comments about "the need of my family to have me come home."

But she couldn’t wait to launch into a tirade against Democrats. That’s odd, considering that Wyoming Republican voters have a two-to-one edge over Democrats, and outnumber Dems by the same margin in the State Legislature. Our entire Congressional delegation is Republican. Bush won Wyoming by huge margins in 2000 and 2004.

That’s a Republican trait. The more power they get, they more paranoid they become.

Via TPM:

Roll Call is reporting that Congresswoman Barbara Cubin (R-WY) will reportedly announce her retirement tomorrow.

Cubin, who made headlines during the 2006 campaign when she told her wheelchair-bound Libertarian challenger:

If you weren't sitting in that chair, I'd slap you across the face.

...went on to beat Democratic challenger Gary Trauner by barely 1000 votes. With a primary challenge from state House Majority Leader Colin Simpson and a repeat challenge from Trauner, it seems that Cubin didn't want to stick around to get slapped around by both parties.

Race tracker wiki:  Wyoming

Race tracker wiki: WY-AL

It's not very often that poor fundraising by a House incumbent is bad news, but in this case, it is.

Persistent rumors that Wyoming GOP Rep. Barbara Cubin might not seek an eighth term as the state’s sole House delegate are likely to continue in the wake of unusually low third-quarter fundraising numbers.

Cubin reported raising $11,000 for the quarter and $62,000 for the year with $9,000 on hand by the end of September, which is substantially lower than totals from July through September in previous off-cycle years. In the third quarter of 2005, Cubin raised $69,000 and had $71,000 on hand, while in 2003 she raised $64,000 and had $113,000 on hand, according to her filings with the Federal Election Commission (FEC).

Cubin previously has said she intends to run for re-election in 2008, but talk about her possible retirement has continued. She faced a fierce battle in 2006 in which she staved off Democratic challenger and first-time candidate Gary Trauner by 1,012 votes.

This seat is much more winnable with Barbara Cubin than it is with a "fresh start" replacement. Let's hope she picks things up in the coming months.

On the web: Gary Trauner for Congress

Race tracker wiki: WY-AL

Gary Trauner--netroots hero, Kossack,  YearlyKos attendee, and the most amazing door-to-door campaigner I have ever seen--announced today that he will run again for Wyoming's at large Congressional seat next year.

At his announcement today in Casper, Trauner said he’d been mulling over whether he should run again as the Democratic candidate when a recent incident pushed him into running again.

"I had gone to the grocery store when I heard my name called," Trauner said. A gentleman having coffee in the grocery store pointed to a newspaper and asked Trauner if he’d read about the growing controversy over expanding the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), which Congress had approved, President Bush had vetoed and had that veto sustained by a Republican minority.

Trauner said the gentleman having coffee was upset with the partisan politics, and said "I’ve been a Republican all my life, but don’t we deserve something better?"

Trauner, after long discussions with his wife, decided the answer was "Yes."

"I’m running again for the same reasons I ran before," Trauner said. Critical issues like health, energy and immigration haven’t advanced in the past year, he said. "Wyoming deserves better."

Trauner's loss in 2006 was a heart-breaker--in this deep red state, he lost by just 1,012 votes. The state knows him now, and like what they saw. Cubin has said that she's running again, but hasn't filed yet. She could be waiting to see if State Rep. Colin Simpson (former Sen. Alan Simpson's son) decides to join Swede Nelson of Cheyenne and Kenn Gilchrist of Casper in challenging her in the primary. A four-way primary for the Republican nomination for this seat would be only good news for Trauner, but there's been some talk in the national party of trying to convince Cubin to retire. She's missed nearly half of the votes in the House this session, and given Trauner's near upset last year is largely seen as one of the GOP's most vulnerable incumbents.

On the Web: Trauner for Congress (2006)

Update: Ultrageek has more here.

Race tracker wiki: WY-AL

Cross-posted at An Enduring Democratic Majority.

The Democratic wave that swept out of the Atlantic across New England and the Midwest in the 2006 midterms ran out of steam as it lapped up against the foothills of the Front Range, with the Dems only scoring one Senate (Tester in Montana) and four House (AZ-05, AZ-08, CA-11, CO-07) pickups on the Pacific side of the Continental Divide. Revision: The four seat total requires me to move the Divide a couple of hundred miles east, as CO-07 technically sits on the eastern side of the divide.

The Democratic Party's new majorities in both the House and Senate were built primarily on victories in the Northeast and Midwest. Only 9 of the 30 House seats and 3 of the 6 Senate seats won were west of the Mississippi.

Can Democrats score more wins by looking West in 2008?

If you are at least 30 years old, a citizen of the U.S. for at least the past nine years, and live in Wyoming, you can fill out an application, and throw your name into the hat to be considered as replacement for Sen. Craig Thomas. Since the governor is supposed to choose from among three Republicans to fill the seat, I suppose that should be included in the list of requirements. Interest in the seat is high, according to GOP Chairman Fred Parady, who said he's gotten too many phone calls to count.

Should a large number of candidates apply for Thomas’ seat, Parady said, each will be given an opportunity to speak before the committee winnows the field down to eight After that a series of votes will be held in which each member of the central committee votes for three different candidates. After each vote is tallied, the candidate with the least number of votes will be dropped and the committee will vote again.

"I don’t get a vote," Parady said, "and that makes my job easier."

That same process repeats until there are three, final candidates who will be forwarded to Gov. Freudenthal no later than June 20, he said.

A handful of state legislators and officeholders have been mentioned as among those interested, and Lynn Cheney's name doesn't seem too prominent in the local press. There aren't any huge names listed, but keep an eye out for former U.S. Attorney Matt Mead ("former" as of Friday; he might have resigned in order to be eligible for the seat) and former Assistant U.S. Attorney General for the Environment Tom Sansonetti of Cheyenne, a past Republican National Committeeman. It could be a gift to the potential Dem running for the seat in November to run against a former representative of this Justice Department.

November '08 is going to be interesting in Wyoming, with this an essentially open Senate seat, the second seat currently held by Republican Mike Enzi up, and the always vulnerable GOP Rep. Barbara Cubin potentially defending her at-large House seat. Potentially because after her close shave against Gary Trauner in last year's election, the GOP is rumored to be trying to force her out.

The Senate 2008 Guru looks at potential Dem candidates for any or all of these seats, including state Sen. Mike Massie and former gubernatorial candidate Paul Hickey. The Guru also speculates about whether the current Democratic Governor, Dave Freudenthal, might give up his newly re-elected seat in the capitol for a run at Enzi. Seems highly unlikely to me, but the off year is all about speculation, and Freudenthal hasn't ruled it out. Holding this governship is important, but he'd be about the only person who could take out Enzi, and his leading the ticket would be a great boon to the candidates for the other two seats. Freudenthal is not really known as the kind of guy to put party first, however, so don't expect that argument to hold much sway in getting him into the race.

Race tracker wiki: WY-Sen

I have to give credit where credit is due.  This weekend dengre continued the long, drawn out story of one of the worst periods of corruption in the history of Congress.  And, in his typical style, he gives full credit to Josh Marshall and the hard workers at TPM/TPM Muckraker for their following the story of Alberto Gonzales and the political firing of a group of prosecutors.

And, it typical fashion, I will continue to point out that Jack Abramoff was not the sole source of sleaze in Washington and that the Republicans are not the only party that has sleazy members.  

Let me repeat this:

It’s The Corruption, Stupid

That is what we need to understand if we wish to end the War in Iraq, stop George W. Bush, elect a Democrat as President in 2008 and increase our margins in the House, Senate and State Capitals across our Nation.

Corruption is the tipping point!

This should be a simple concept to grasp after the 2006 midterms.

It isn’t.

Some folks seem be too Stupid to get this simple concept.

And by Stupid, I mean the elected Democrats, DLC types, DC-based consultants, lobbyists and even some of our Candidates for President, who seem committed to switching the Republican Culture of Corruption for a Democratic Culture of Corruption.  

We have to stop them. We need to keep corruption front and center.

We have to act now. We need a netroots drumbeat that gets loud, persistent and intense until Real Lobbying reform is passed.

Without it, everything else fails.

To the Jump...

After Gary Trauner's heart-breakingly close loss in 2006, many political eye has turned to Wyoming, not generally considered a must-win for the GOP, but Trauner changed all that. He hasn't made his intentions known for sure, but that doesn't keep any of us from speculating about his intentions for 2008. He's keeping his hand in and his visibility up, speaking to the Democratic House caucus and writing op-ed columns for NewWest.net.

His efforts haven't escaped notice, either from the Wyoming GOP or from national observers. CQPolitics surveys the race:

It seems more likely than not that Trauner, a businessman, will make the race. He told CQPolitics.com on Wednesday that he needed to make sure his family was prepared for the rigors of another election. But he said his original reasons for running in 2006 "haven’t changed really all that much...."

Cubin’s political standing has been complicated by her husband’s long illness, which has caused the congresswoman to miss votes from time to time — including more than one-third of those cast thus far in 2007. Cubin’s frequent absences became an issue in her 2004 primary campaign, in which Cubin took 55 percent of the vote against four Republicans....

Nonetheless, Cubin could face a primary challenge in 2008, as she did in 2004. "What I’ve heard is that somebody will be running against her because the party’s really concerned about losing the seat," said B. Oliver Walter, the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at University of Wyoming.

Though Cubin has done some fundraising, including one sponsored by Boehner, my guess would be that the party does everything it can to force her retirement. Her husband's illness, which is quite serious, provides the perfect cover.

Consider this: in the list of Rove's "priority defense" seats is Cubin's, the only seat which he notes the incumbent might not run again. If Karl Rove says you're not running, chances are, you're not running. Or are sure to face a tough primary opponent.

Race tracker wiki: WY-AL

As we celebrated our victories on Election Day, a few races remained undecided. High on that list was WY-AL where Gary Trauner trailed Barbara "I'd-slap-you-across-the-face" Cubin by about 1%. Throughout that first week, people braced for a recount but, when the official results were certified, Cubin had a 1,014 vote edge out of 193,369 cast, about 100 votes over the trigger for an automatic recount. Under Wyoming law, an automatic recount occurs when the difference is less that 1% of the winner's total.

Trauner, saying "it is time to put this election to rest and look to the future," conceded despite his concerns about "statistical anomalies" in Sheridan County. That may have officially been the end of the race but now, a group of Wyoming citizens is determined to check the ballots and they're going to get their chance.

Details on the flip.

I am not sure how many sports fans we have in the DKos community, but if you'll allow me I'd like to steal a segment from ESPN's Mike and Mike in the  Morning. The segment is called "Just Shut Up." Essentially, the segment is exactly what it sounds like. The guys get a bunch of moronic athletes, commentators, owners etc. and once a week hold a vote on who should really shut up.

More Below

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) -- Democratic newcomer Gary Trauner decided Thursday not to seek a recount in his narrow loss to Republican Rep. Barbara Cubin.

The State Canvassing Board on Wednesday certified the Nov. 7 election results, in which Cubin beat Trauner by 1,012 votes out of 193,369 cast.

The margin was too great to mandate an automatic recount, and Trauner had until Friday to request a recount, which he would have had to pay for.

"But the 970 vote spread between her and Trauner would not trigger an automatic recount by the state. The vote spread would have to be no more than 931 for a recount to take place."

MORE

Cubin                 93,197       48.3%
Trauner              92,227       47.8%

Gary Trauner is a great man.  He is intelligent, likeable, trustworthy, and energetic.  He is a leader.  The reason why Gary lost this election is because he has placed too much trust in the advice of the moron who ran his campaign; former Wyoming State Democratic Party Chairperson Linda Stoval.

Linda Stoval convinced Gary to not run a "negative" campaign.  We all don't like negative campaigns, but we know that it is necessary to be tough with an incumbent who has fallen short for the people of Wyoming for several years.  We know that in order to unseat an incumbent, you need to prove that you are the better candidate.  That includes reminding people of the incumbent's short comings.  Gary Trauner refused to do so.  Admirable, but stupid.

Turnout is up, apparently higher than 2002. The Trauner campaign met their goal of increasing turnout by 1,000 in Fremont County. Since that's mostly Native American, that's probably an extra 700 votes for Trauner.

CW is that Trauner would benefit from a low-turnout election. That's not happening. But the Wyoming Democratic Party, thanks to money from the 50-state-strategy and new staff, have put together their strongest GOTV operation ever.

Phone banking in Teton county has made 3,000 phone calls into Cheyenne, Laramie, etc after they finished Teton. They feel good about GOTV. If turnout is higher, it's hard to see that being for any race other than the House race. Since Cubin is so disliked nobody is really thinking that a high turnout would be for her.  

Race tracker wiki: WY-AL