Top GOP Donor/Crackpot Defeated Hours After Trump Endorses Him

Yesterday's kiss of death-- in Wyoming!

The two states that bought into Trump's bullshit the most fully in 2016 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 worse 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 hasn'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. Tuesday was primary day. Early Tuesday morning, before his world started crumbling, Señor Trumpanzee, tweeted out one of his one-size fits all endorsements: "To the incredible people of the Great State of Wyoming: Go VOTE TODAY for Foster Friess-- He will be a fantastic Governor! Strong on Crime, Borders & 2nd Amendment. Loves our Military & our Vets. He has my complete and total Endorsement!" Fuck Up, Jr. had already endorsed him.

By early this morning only one of Wyoming's 482 precincts hadn't reported and it was clear Wyoming Republicans had not taken Trump's advice. Friess had put over $2 million of his own money into the race, a blatant attempt, not lost on Wyoming voters, to buy the governorship. 25% of the vote is a very poor return on investment. State Treasurer Mark Gordon beat him pretty substantially-- and every single thing Trump said about Friess is equally true of Gordon-- as Wyoming Republicans are well aware. Trump's bullshit endorsement may well have been the kiss of death for Friess. In fact, the last poll had shown Friess narrowly beating Gordon.

A few months ago, on the day Friess announced he wasn't going to run for the U.S. Senate against Republican incumbent John Barrasso and hinted he would run for governor instead, he told a large crowd of elite GOP activists that President 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. It probably ended up with the president’s cousins," he said... "The next governor’s ... number one priority is traveling around the world to bring companies here." He said it would be a great sacrifice for him to serve. "I agonized. It's going to be some unpleasantness-- I love to play golf." So 75% of Republican voters decided to let him continue playing golf.

Aside from the 2 Trumps, Friess was also endorsed by all the regular far right extremist groups plus Rick Santorum, whose presidential campaign Friess had underwritten, and pro-Putin Kentucky Senator Rand Paul.

Perhaps even in Wyoming, the Trumpiest region of Trumpland, it is sinking in that Trump is an illegitimate "president," with, as Max Boot wrote in the Washington Post today, an election tainted by fraud. "Trump probably would not have become president without his victory in seven of the 11 primaries held on Super Tuesday, March 1, 2016. Now his presidency is in danger of being undone by Terrible Tuesday-- Aug. 21, 2018... In short, there is growing evidence that the president is, to use the word favored by Richard Nixon, 'a crook.' Even buying the silence of his reputed playmates could by itself have been enough to swing an exceedingly close election decided by fewer than 80,000 votes in three states. Trump certainly would not have authorized the payments unless he thought it was politically imperative to do so. There is also considerable evidence, as I previously argued, that Russia’s intervention on Trump’s behalf affected the outcome. Even more than Nixon, Trump is now an illegitimate president whose election is tainted by fraud."

I'd like to think that even Republican voters in Wyoming have come to understand that Trump and his cronies "have gotten away with it because the congressional leadership has allowed them to do so. Judging by House Speaker Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) cowardly and cautious statement on Tuesday-- 'We are aware of Mr. Cohen’s guilty plea to these serious charges. We will need more information than is currently available at this point'-- there is no sign that the Republicans in Congress will ever provide any serious oversight of the Republican in the White House. The voters of the United States must now say to this Congress what Oliver Cromwell said to the Rump Parliament in 1653: 'Ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government. . . Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation. You were deputed here by the people to get grievances redressed, are yourselves become the greatest grievance. . . Go, get you out! Make haste! . . . In the name of God, go!'"