I assumed the establishment R’s were with us. They are everywhere else. And the outgoing House Speaker, Lubnau, signed the RSLC pledge. I met Rep. Norine Kasperik in Dallas, and she said the next Speaker is going to be Majority Leader Kermit Brown, a 71 year old Laramie lawyer. There’s a tradition in the Wyoming House that if you’re elected Speaker you retire from the legislature after your two years in the chair. So this is it for Brown.
I called him and he was practically hostile — claimed that balanced budget amendment would hamstring the feds in national emergencies. Turns out, in my mind, that wasn’t his problem. He hates the Tea Party, and he thinks we’re aligned with it.
These two groups of R’s in the Wyoming legislature really hate each other, and we cannot be identified with either side. But the Tea Party people, so far, have enthusiastically embraced us — and we can’t spurn their embrace. This is tricky. Tomorrow I’m calling NFIB’s Wyoming lobbyist, Tony Gagliardi, to help me figure this out.
Nothing’s easy.
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