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Wyoming Hits the National Radar, Hillary Campaigning There Too

By Jeralyn

This is an update to my late night post last night, which at the time seemed just an amusing late night tidbit.

Wyoming is turning serious. There are 23 county caucuses in the state Saturday. In addition to Bill, Chelsea and Obama, Hillary's going too:

• 03/07: In Cheyenne - Hillary Clinton Attends “Solutions for America” Town Hall
• 03/07: In Casper - Hillary Clinton Attends “Solutions for America” Town Hall
• 03/08: Election Day

Does the outcome matter? The AP reports:

The number of registered Democrats has grown by more than 1,000 since the start of the year, the secretary of state's office says. Republicans have 136,000 registered voters, compared to 59,000 Democrats.

[More...]

I guess it does for delegate totals. But I can't imagine any superdelegates outside Wyoming will be swayed by Saturday's vote. And in November, the state will vote Republican. The state's Democratic Party Chair is anti-Hillary and sounds like a Republican.

"I feel a lot of conservative Republicans may not show on Election Day to vote for Sen. (John) McCain, but they may show up to vote against her," John Millin, the state Democratic Party chair, said of McCain, the Republican nominee-in-waiting.

His comments sparked some controversy in the state. "I think Chairman Millin is wrong. And I would go further. I would say it ill behooves the chairman of the Wyoming Democratic Party to rule out one of the two leading contenders for the office," said Kathy Karpan, who was in charge of an Interior Department office during the Clinton presidency.

Wyoming does have a Democratic Governor, who's not taking sides. He doesn't like either Hillary or Obama. Wyoming has a lot of Independent voters, which when added to the caucus factor, may help Obama.

The Casper Tribune backed Obama and McCain back in December.

Here are the state's demographics.

Wyoming is known as the "Equality State" for women's rights:

Wyoming is also known as the "Equality State" because of the rights women have traditionally enjoyed here. Wyoming women were the first in the nation to vote, serve on juries and hold public office.

In 1869, Wyoming's territorial legislature became the first government in the world to grant "female suffrage" by enacting a bill granting Wyoming women the right to vote. The act was signed into law on December 10 of that year by Governor A.J. Campbell.

There's also a gay community in Wyoming. Bill Clinton, as President in 1999, was a strong backer of hate crimes legislation in the wake of the Matthew Shepard murder. Who will they support? In California, " Clinton won gay voters 62-32 over Obama. They made up 4 percent of the vote."

In unrelated but important Wyoming news, the legislature is considering a bill for medical parole:

A Senate bill that would grant temporary parole to inmates with terminal or severe medical conditions that could not be treated within the Department of Corrections is currently up for debate in the Wyoming House of Representatives.

SF0088, sponsored by Goshen County Sen. Curt Meier, provides several criteria for inmates to be granted this parole, including whether or not the inmate is likely to flee or violate any laws if freed and whether or not the inmate’s condition would endanger the public. Inmates sentenced to death or life in prison without parole would not be eligible for medical parole.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on March 06, 2008 (boomark / email).