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Wednesday, August 4, 2010
032 - Moe, Larry, Curly . . . and Ted?
It is probably totally unfair to characterize the candidates running for Wyoming State Superintendent of Public Instruction as the Three Stooges, Moe, Larry and Curly, but, alas, I cannot help myself.
Playing Moe is the incumbent, Dr. Jim McBride, who should be the driving force in this campaign and yet at the same time is slipping on errant banana peels every so often.
He has had five years to get the annual school progress tests right (PAWS), but that testing system is a huge mess. He still blames the problems on his predecessor, Trent Blankenship.
McBride has the power of incumbency working for him. He’s won this statewide race once before four years ago.
Yet this former military careerist has bumped up against some serious obstacles. Some legislators support him but one prominent member of the education committee said he just cannot deal with him.
McBride’s military bearing allows him to appear decisive. He contends that with four more years, he can get it right. This has been a true test of voters’ patience. In his favor is the quality of his competition.
Former State Supt. Blankenship, who I shall call Curly in this episode, resigned and vanished in 2005 after being elected in 2002. He ended up in a part of Alaska so barren, the official tree there is the telephone pole.
Trent was a great campaigner when he first won the state job. He has a great family and no one can argue about loving kids more than he.
He told the Associated Press that he found himself in financial trouble after the 2002 election and, frankly the pay for the state job was so meager, he was falling farther behind. The big bucks in Alaska lured him away. He traded his cowboy boots for mukluks.
Now Trent is back and has jumped back into the race. We have seen the spectacle of an almost “he said, she said” argument going on between him and his successor. Trent wants to fix the mess that he says his protégé McBride created.
Moe (I mean Jim McBride) says not so fast. He inherited a department of education that was in such disarray that he deserves some points for cleaning it up.
But, and this is a very big but: how many years should voters give McBride to fix something like this?
Meanwhile there is Larry, the scold of the campaign, Cindy Hill of Cheyenne. She is a former assistant principal with minimal executive experience. But she has campaigned harder than anyone and is madder than hell.
And this has resonated with voters. Many voters are madder than hell, too.
Hill could very well win this race in August and again in November if the expected Republican rout occurs.
She is the wife of Drake Hill, the former state Republican chairman, whose aggressive attacks on Gov. Dave Freudenthal backfired in 2006 and alienated many of the current Republican office-holders, McBride included.
Because of the interesting mix of candidates, though, Mrs. Hill could find herself in the catbird seat on primary election day.
Oh yeah, there is a fourth candidate.
Ted Adams is the retired Superintendent of Schools of Cheyenne and probably is a good prospect. However, he appears to not understand how to run a political statewide race.
Not sure if we should hold that against him or not, but it makes him sort of an extra player in this race.
Waiting in the wings is legislator Mike Massie of Laramie, who is running as a Democrat.
Massie may have the best chance of any Democrat of breaking through in the general election this year, but then again, that will depend on how Moe, Larry and Curly handle these final two weeks of their GOP primary.
With the national trend of a big GOP year in the general elections, here in the state that is the most Republican of all, well, it seems like Massie would have a steep uphill battle no matter whom he is facing.
If you had to pick a front-runner to win this primary, it would be hard to bet against the incumbent although his campaign strategies and tactics have left even his friends confused.
And finally, we want our candidates to know that we appreciate their willingness to run for office. And we apologize for sticking them with monikers like Moe, Larry and Curly, during times as serious as these.
But then again, like I said earlier, when it comes to this race, I just can’t help it.
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