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Friday, June 29, 2007
726 The John Barrasso-Craig Thomas connection
She’s the love of my life. New U. S. Sen. John Barrasso describing his long-term relationship with Bobbi Brown.
No, it’s not that Bobby Brown.
Wyoming’s Bobbi Brown is definitely not the estranged husband of singer Whitney Houston.
Our Bobbi is an amazing and effective woman who has been the statewide director of the late U. S. Sen. Craig Thomas’ Casper office. She’s one of those uniquely smart and attractive women.
One of the untold stories of this past three-week campaign to replace the late senator was Sen. Barrasso’s connection with the late senator, in the form of Bobbi.
Now her role becomes very interesting. Dr. Barrasso has already said he will retain the late senator’s staff, but will Bobbi head to D. C. with him or stay in Casper?
It took the doctor a decade to finally achieve his goal of becoming a senator. For the incredibly impatient Dr. Barrasso, this ten-year wait has actually worked out very well.
If you think he is energetic now, you should have seen him at the age of 43 when he first ran for senator in 1996.
He, the ultimate winner Mike Enzi and Curt Meier of LaGrange were in an often angry and frenetic race to replace the retiring Sen. Al Simpson.
I had fun with both Mr. Enzi and Dr. Barrasso when they visited me at the local newspaper in Lander. I was in the middle of coaching my son’s tournament baseball team and asked each of them to tag along with me (at different times) while fulfilling my coaching responsibilities.
Both men were great company and obviously outstanding candidates to be senator.
As for the campaign itself, most of the orneriness was from Mr. Meier toward Dr. Barrasso.
And now, here we are. It is an amazing and wonderful coincidence for Wyoming that we now have these two effective men (Sen. Enzi and Sen. Barrasso) as our senators.
One of my issues with Dr. Barrasso at the time of that 1996 campaign was how could he leave his kids, aged 7 and 10, back in Wyoming if he was elected? It was hard to fathom doing that to my own kids and he really never could answer that well. The kids were living with his former wife, Linda Nix of Casper, at the time.
Now, both children have graduated from high school and his son is even a college student at Georgetown in the D. C. area.
Wyoming Senior Senator Enzi is one of the most effective senators in the Congress, although he prefers to operate quietly. He is proud of all the bills he has gotten passed, frankly, without the fanfare they deserved.
“It is not Republican. It is not Democrat. It is a third way,” is how Sen. Enzi explains it. “And when we disagree, we disagree agreeably.”
And now we will see Sen. Barrasso’s style on a national stage. It’s easy to predict that he will quickly establish a high profile. You just cannot keep him down – his style will be different from both Sen. Enzi and the late Sen. Thomas. He will be out front more and will make his constituents very proud of him.
It is a great time for Wyoming.
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Hard to believe that we could write anything new about the late, great Sen. Thomas, but I have gleaned these items which are pretty darned interesting.
• He grew up as Lyle Thomas, his dad was Craig. His parents were teachers in Cody and young Lyle learned his love of the parks and outdoors by working at a camp the parents ran in the summertime.
• A scan of Wyoming papers during the week when the late senator died showed a great many of them running their photos of Craig astride his horse in local parades. Best one was in the Powell Tribune. It was an impossibly good photo showing Craig looking up at red, white and blue puffs of smoke in the sky.
• The National Park Service is building a big new visitor center north of Jackson that came into being through a lot of hard work by our late senior senator. Sen. Enzi is working to get it named for our late senator. Good work, Mike.
• Great quote in Planet Jackson Hole from Teton County GOP Chairman, Bill Scarlett. “It’s funny, I always refer to Sen. Thomas as an uncle,” Mr. Scarlett said. “He’s kind of like an uncle to the entire state.”
• If you want to hear more about Craig’s love of our parks and state, check out the podcast he did with yellowstonepark.com last fall. Amazing stuff. He was strong then but perhaps aware of his own mortality.
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Friday, June 22, 2007
724 High drama .. it`s going to be Barrasso
Gosh, it’s Sunday and instead of relaxing at the lake, I probably should be nervous as a cat while waiting to face the state Republican Central Committee as it works to find a new U. S. Senator to replace the late Craig Thomas.
But then again, I did not apply.
But just about everybody else did – 31 men and women have signed up. You might consider this the wish list of every potential state GOP candidate for the next ten years.
The initial group of applicants is meeting today (Sunday) in Casper. These lucky devils will get their brief moments to impress the 71-member committee.
It’s easy to admit that it was a temptation to be with that group except for a promise made to my wife after our last race. Her final words: “Hope you got that out of your system!” are still ringing in my ears. (It was the 2002 GOP governor’s primary)
But after participating in a statewide race, it was easy to put myself into the shoes of these earnest folks as they agonized over how they could win this seat and the three big questions they have to deal with:
1. Am I a viable candidate?
2. Can I make the cut with the GOP central committee?
3. Would Gov. Dave Freudenthal appoint me if I was one of the selectees?
Perhaps a fourth question is: how to keep from looking like an idiot? With the event getting statewide media attention, well, the potential for a screw-up is high.
Despite how well-organized the forum appears to be, we would anticipate that this get-together Sunday could be long and grueling for both the candidates and for the committee.
To the credit of some of the candidates, they have been barnstorming the state meeting with these committeemen and women in their hometowns.
Both State Rep. Colin Simpson, Cody, and former U. S. Attorney Matt Mead of Cheyenne freely announced they were doing this. Both men could argue the seat is their birthright since one is the son and grandson of a U. S. Senator (Al and Milward Simpson) and the other is the grandson of a U. S. Senator (Cliff Hansen).
Give them both credit for hustling. Not sure this committee is star struck with the past, though. Over half of the committee is new and the leadership of Fred Parady is a pleasant breath of fresh air after the foul odor of the devious previous chairman. Drake Hill.
Other candidates include Sen. John Barrasso of Casper and former governor candidate Ray Hunkins, Wheatland. There are scads of others including former House candidates Bruce Asay of Cheyenne and Sen. Cale Case of Lander.
Former House Speaker Randall Luthi of Freedom and former GOP chairman Tom Sansonetti of Cheyenne are in it as is former State Treasurer Cynthia Lummis.
Without a doubt the most dominating presence there Sunday will be former pro basketball star, Paul Kruse of Lusk and Cheyenne, who towers over seven feet tall.
There are a lot of very eloquent politicians in this group of 31. The sheer number could have an impact on how the final voting shakes out.
Sure would be fun to be there to watch all the speeches and to see which candidates stand out. But, alas, it is Father’s Day, and I have a date with a fishing pole (and my wife).
My prediction, by the central committee: Colin Simpson, John Barrasso and Ray Hunkins, all veteran GOP workhorses.
The lack of political experience and his youth will work against the very worthy Mr. Mead.
Rep. Simpson could be hurt by the news that he and U. S. Rep. Barbara Cubin got into a big spat because he personally told her he was going to run against her in her next campaign.
Ray Hunkins has a good chance just because he has been a hard party worker and carried the torch in the governor race last time out. His strategy of saying he would not run in 2008 might actually hurt his chances, but he still looks like a potential final selectee to me.
My prediction of the final selection, as picked by the governor: John Barrasso.
Of everyone running, only Dr. Barrasso has run for the U. S. Senate, narrowly losing in the primary to Mike Enzi ten years ago. Plus his centrist credentials should appeal to this new central committee and I assume he gets along fine with the governor.
These predictions are based on not talking with anyone in a position of real know-how. And it is appropriate to thank all these folks for demonstrating that they want to do what is best for Wyoming and the country.
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Wednesday, June 6, 2007
723 Wyoming coal for the world
I know the cause of global warming. It’s pollution, carbon dioxide and other chemicals. Look, the world’s temperatures going up, weather patterns are changing, storms are getting more violent and unpredictable. What are we going to tell our children? Former Vice President Al Gore
The swirl of both good news and bad news concerning our Wyoming coal is all around us these days.
On one side, it is easy to get excited about Rocky Mountain Power spending $4 billion to build electricity power lines that will haul Wyoming electricity to Utah, Idaho, Oregon and the SW United States. This power will be generated in our state by coal-fired power plants.
On the other hand, you can read an editorial in the New York Times called “The Coal Trap,” which lambastes Congressmen who have had the temerity to promote huge incentives for coal-to-gas technologies.
And then on Monday of this week, a powerful Wyoming voice was silenced when U. S Sen. Craig Thomas succumbed to leukemia. He was always fighting for Wyoming during his time in Congress. He was a good friend and we all will miss him.
Nearly 400 million tons of coal is being dug out of the ground in our state as fast as it can be done in a typical year. It is then loaded on gigantic trains and zoomed off in all directions to feed the unquenchable thirst of more than a hundred similar coal-fired power plants in dozens of states.
With the shadow of global warming looming over our coal harvest, perhaps someone might question why coal fired plants seem to be expanding rather than contracting during this time?
It is also easy to take on a Chicken Little attitude and worry about the diminishment of this important Wyoming industry.
A recent report that Wyoming leads the country in Carbon Dioxide emissions per capita has some folks upset, too.
Here is one view of this reality.
These coal-fired plants are operated by big utilities in most cases. And big utilities are monopolies. And energy monopolies can have a tranquil existence except for one thing: They never get to turn the power off. No matter what.
That is why they have been given monopoly power.
This becomes a fierce conundrum for the power companies. Sure, they want to eliminate pollution. Heck that Texas outfit even shut down plans for seven new coal-fired plants to appease environmentalists.
Back to reality. The utilities are not allowed to have a brown out or a blackout. They cannot shut the power off. If they do, they can lose their monopoly status and go out of the business.
With no new technology on the horizon to take the place of coal, these utilities are in a lose-lose situation. If they cut back on the power they produce, they risk their customers going without power. If they build more plants and put more carbon dioxide in the air, they are ridiculed as polluters.
It appears they have not choice. They must keep the plants burning and the electricity flowing. Sure, they can promote conservation by their customers, which should be their number-one mission. But will their customers listen?
We have written before here about the lack of will in this country to be more conservation-minded. Sorry, changing your light bulbs and occasionally riding your bike does not cut it. It would take huge changes to truly cut back on the amount of power being used in this country and thus reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
The outlook for the next ten years means more power plants and more coal mined. Sometime around 2017, there may be enough coal-to-gas plants on line to start to make a difference. And there might even be a few new nuclear power plants on line.
But for another decade, at least, coal burned in big plants will be the primary energy source for this country. And pollution will be generated.
As for Al Gore, well, he won an Academy Award and he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. He might even be elected president. And to his credit or blame, depending on your point of view, he will have marshaled the world’s forces to do something about global warming.
Whatever happens to Mr. Gore, as he goes forward doing everything he can to cut carbon dioxide emissions you have to give him credit for that.
But the utilities, despite spewing pollution into the air, will not be shutting down the power to peoples’ homes. Not in the near future, anyway.
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