Posted on 06/13/2007 3:49:31 PM PDT by Clintonfatigued
The Wyoming Republican Party will know by Thursday who plans to vie for the U.S. Senate seat opened by the death of Craig Thomas. It has scheduled a public meeting June 19 to select the party's three nominees.
Fred Parady, the state party chairman, said Monday that the party would take applications until 5 p.m. Thursday and would announce each morning who has applied.
"Our goal is simple - to put forward the three very best possible candidates for the office of senator," Parady said.
Within hours of Parady's announcement, a handful of Wyoming politicians announced that they intend to apply for the job, including state Rep. Colin Simpson, R-Cody, son of former U.S. Sen. Alan Simpson.
Thomas, R-Wyo., died June 4 while undergoing treatment for leukemia. He was 74. Funeral services were held Saturday in Casper, and Thomas was buried Sunday in Cody.
State law gives the party's 71-member central committee until June 20 to submit the names of three nominees to Gov. Dave Freudenthal, who will then have five days to choose Thomas' successor.
The agenda for the upcoming party central committee meeting will be announced Friday, and the party is working to set up a televised candidates' forum on Sunday, according to Parady.
(Excerpt) Read more at billingsgazette.net ...
Is Colin Simpson pro-abortion, as is his father?
My first choice would be John Sansonetti, who is Assistant Attorney General for Natural Resources. He is the most conservative of those who indicated interest.
I don’t know the answer to that. I know that another contender, state Senator John Barrasso, is pro-abort.
Ex-State Treasurer Cynthia Lummis has thrown her name in. I’d personally like to see her take out or succeed the personally unpopular Barbara Cubin. Wyoming has never had a female Senator and Cubin was the first female Congressmember, though Wyoming was one of the first states to have female officeholders (including electing a woman Governor in 1924, Nellie Tayloe Ross).
We already have two female senators from Maine, who might as well be Democrats. Cubin would probably be the same way.
Not all female elected officials are dreadful. Where I live in Nashville, the bulk of the GOP elected officials here and in the suburbs are nearly all Conservative women (although my State Rep and State Sen are two dreadful liberal rodents).
Actually, I think that (based on what I know, which isn’t a great deal) Cynthia Loomis would be a very good candidate. Also, I’m not yet convinced that Governor Freudenthal is all that interested in being a Senator.
I voted for a female senatorial candidate last year, Katherine Harris, who had the right ideas, but ran a weak campaign.
Only Jeb could’ve won that race.
Lummis has clashed with Freudenthal in the past. She claimed that HE threatened her. Freudenthal would not nominate her. Putting up Lummis’ name would be like reducing the choices from three to two.
If Freudenthal appoints a pro-abort, pro-amnesty RINO, than she could challenge him in the primary.
I don’t think any Bush could win now. And you can’t blame the voters for that, either.
I meant last November. Jeb was the only candidate who led in all the polls against Nelson. I don’t know what Jeb’s personal popularity is at this moment, but he left office with high marks. You’re right in that his last name is a liability if he were to run for President. If he wasn’t a Bush, he’d be a lead candidate to be the next President. Had Jeb not had the office stolen from him by Lawton Chiles’s fraud with the seniors in ‘94, he, and not Dubya, would probably be President now.
That’s true, although I dunno who would have been governor if that had happene. Our current governor is Arlen Specter with a tan
Tom Feeney would be the Governor now. He was Jeb’s first running mate.
Here is some background info from Lummis’ bio:
After high school, Lummis enrolled in the University of Wyoming in Laramie, her state’s only four-year degree-granting institution of higher learning. She obtained two bachelor of science degrees in animal science in 1976 and also in biology in 1978.
She was a member of the Wyoming State Senate (1982-1994) and the Wyoming House of Representatives (1979-1982). Thus far, she is the youngest woman, at twenty-four, to have been elected to the Wyoming House. Lummis is the first woman to have served on the Cheyenne Frontier Days rodeo board. She also won the title “Miss Frontier” in 1976. While she was a legislator, she received her Juris doctor degree in 1985 and also clerked for the Wyoming Supreme Court.
In the legislature, Lummis concentrated on issues of taxation and natural resources. On leaving the Senate, she served as transition director for Republican Governor Jim Geringer and then worked for two years in Geringer’s office. In that capacity she spearheaded the Governor’s Open Spaces Initiative and edited Wyoming’s Open Lands Guidebook. She also served on the board of the Institute for Environmental and Natural Resources at the University of Wyoming. She is a former interim director of the Office of State Lands and Investments.
Served as the Wyoming state treasurer from 1999-2007 — the 29th person to hold the position. In that capacity, she handled nearly $5 billion in annual funds and was elected president of the Western State Treasurer’s Association. State revenues increased sharply during her tenure, and she was able to increase the income on investments. Elected in 1998 and unopposed in 2002, she was ineligible to seek reelection in 2006 because of Wyoming’s term limits law. She was succeeded by fellow Republican Joseph B. Meyer, previously the secretary of state.
Lummis actually sounds like the strongest candidate to hold the seat, so Freduenthal probably won’t want her. If the Wyoming GOP SCC was smart, they’d make sure she checks out on all the right issues like pro-life, pro-gun, pro-family, pro-WOT, anti-tax-and-spend, anti-illegal alien, etc. If so, they’d forward her name to the Governor individually. If she was the sole person on the replacement list, I’m assuming he’d have no choice but to submit her as the replacement for Thomas.
As for Barbara Cubin, she is a reliable conservative vote, but she’s just an awful, foot-in-the-mouth candidate. She is the Katherine Harris of Wyoming (fortunately for her, Wyoming is so ultra Republican she’d managed to hang on her to job all this time). It would be nice if we could just get Cubin out of the way by getting Bush to appoint her to some token position.
Well he's term-limited, he's very popular, and he's probably the only RAT in that state with a prayer of being elected Senator. Even if he doesn't want it, the Wyoming RATs will probably draft him.
They’re required by law to submit 3 names to the Governor, so just placing her name on the list alone would be technically illegal.
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