Foster Friess Running For Governor Of Wyoming-- Likely To Change The State's Name To Zoowanatou

The two states that bought into Señor Trumpanzee the most fully were West Virginia and Wyoming-- 68.5% of West Virginia voters and 67.4% of Wyoming voters. Both are big coal mining states. Hillary did the worst in Wyoming-- 21.63%-- than anywhere else. Teton was the only county in the state she won-- and none of the others were close. And Bernie beat her in Teton-- and in every other county in the state. In Niobrara County, Bernie got every vote-- he beat Hillary 100% to 0%. In the general some of those Bernie voters switched to Hillary-- though not many. Trump took Niobrara 86% to 8.9%.

Wyoming's a pretty red state. Only 3 of the 30 state senators are Democrats and only 9 of 60 in the state House are. Liz Cheney is the state's sole member of Congress The last Democratic U.S. senator, Gale McGee, was elected in 1958, reelected in 1964 and 1970 and defeated in 1976. The last Democrat Wyoming sent to Congress was in Teno Roncalio (first elected in 1964; he resigned in 1978).

But it wasn't always that way. In 2002 Dave Freudenthal was elected governor and he was reelected in 2006 (with 69.9% of the vote). This year the Democrat running for the open seat is former state Rep (and House minority leader) Mary Throne. Until Friday there were half a dozen Republican contending for their party's nomination-- state Treasurer Mark Gordon some businessmen, Bill Dahlin, Sam Galeotos and Harriet Hageman and a couple of perennial candidates, Taylor Haynes and Rex Rammell. But on Friday, everything changed when right-wing evangelical and GOP sugar daddy Foster Friess announced he wants to buy the governor's mansion for himself. Friess, who is nearly 80 and known to be pretty senile, is widely seen as a crackpot with oodles of money to spend on fringe far right candidates. He and his super PAC-- the Red, White & Blue Fund-- gave Rick Santorum and Scott Walker millions of dollars and he's been an easy touch for 6-figure donations to all kinds of right-wing extremist groups, from Freedomworks to Let Freedom Ring and Patriot Voices

Friess, who made his fortune in investing and is active in national politics, said he felt called to serve the public by running for office.

“I just think it would be kind of irresponsible or ungrateful for me to brush off all the things God has done for me,” Friess said. “I’m going to have to give up an awful lot to take this position.”

Friess is little known within Wyoming’s statewide political scene but flirted throughout the fall with challenging Wyoming’s U.S. Sen. John Barrasso, mostly in comments to national news outlets.

His announcement regarding the governor’s race came following a confusing scene during a convention luncheon that Friess was sponsoring. In a press release late Thursday, Friess said that a “big announcement” would come during his speech at the lunch. But while Friess said that he would not be running for Barrasso’s seat, he added that he was told shortly before he took the stage that it would be inappropriate to announce his candidacy for governor during the lunch, because other candidates did not have the opportunity to speak.

Instead, he delivered a wide-ranging talk largely centered on his current public campaign to return “civility” to political discourse in the United States. Friess also addressed seemingly random issues, including the importance of arming the Kurdish soldiers, who he referred to as ‘my Pershmerga pals’, the poor quality of government health care on Indian reservations and how to improve the Republican political message (say “reallocate” Planned Parenthood’s funding rather “defund” it).

He also went on some decidedly uncivil tangents, including a suggestion that President Barack Obama had funneled money intended to mitigate climate change to relatives in a foreign country that Friess said he did not know how to pronounce.

“Zoowanatou ... it’s some little country I’ve never been,” Friess said. “It probably ended up with the president’s cousins.”

Friess alluded to his plans to enter the governor’s race during a question-and-answer period. He said he could not confirm a Politico article published shortly before he took the stage saying that Friess intended to run, but he did weigh in on what he would do as “CEO of Wyoming.”

“The next governor’s ... number one priority is traveling around the world to bring companies here,” Friess said. He also cited the need to improve returns on Wyoming’s more than $20 billion in investments.

Immediately following the event, Friess held court in the hallway for a group of roughly one dozen convention delegates and reporters to make his announcement official. A former varsity athlete, Friess towered over the crowd wearing a long, tan leather jacket while behind him a young aide with slicked-back hair stood erect and held Friess’s cowboy hat.

“I agonized,” Friess said of his decision to run. “It’s going to be some unpleasantness-- I love my golf.”



Though he is little known within the statewide Wyoming Republican scene, Friess said it “should be very, very easy” to spread his message because only 300,000 people participate in the GOP primary and Gov. Matt Mead won the nomination with just 28,000 votes.

“I plan to do it by traveling around and listening to people,” Friess said.

(Mead won the 2010 primary with 30,272 out of the roughly 120,000 ballots cast.)

Friess said he still needs to learn a lot about the issues facing Wyoming because his hometown Jackson Hole News&Guide has not been an adequate source of news.

“I would say in Jackson Hole the paper is very left-wing so they give a perspective on what some of the issues are-- but we hear about the grizzlies, we hear about the coal issue,” he said.