Public Editor: GOP tent party

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

By Mike Bressler

Jackson Hole, Wyo.-I attended the Teton County GOP candidate party on the lawn of the Virginian, hoping to exchange my vote for free food and gather gossip for my column. Overall, it was a disappointment: no beer or even wine. Joe Schloss had T-shirts with his name on them; Ruth Ann Petroff had an empty basket. Good thing I’m not in their district - I’d have to leave the ballot blank. Lummis, having no primary competition, offered only pre-packaged rhetoric … er, I mean cookies. Meyer in a contested gubernatorial campaign, had good homemade chocolate chip cookies.

I scored a hot dog from Mead, my second from his campaign this year, so I voted for him. Coroner was a tougher choice. Who to vote for when campaign promises can’t be kept until you’re dead? There were five who met the rigorous qualifications required for coroner: You need to have lived here only a minute. Allen John’s campaign was offering brownie sundaes, the least one should give for a $40,000 part-time job, so he got my vote.

John Barasso gave a quick speech explaining when Republicans controlled the White House and Congress — even though they increased the federal government’s size, power, bureaucracy, changed a record surplus into a record debt, bankrupted and then bailed out financial intuitions — it was not necessarily a bad thing because Republicans can blame it all on Obama. Republicans, he claimed, are the party of fiscal restraint and freedom. Somehow he was able to maintain a straight face, even showing righteous indignation tempered with firm dedication to cause. Good for him!

As a journalist, I share with him the common principle of abandoning outdated Victorian virtues of truth, honor and integrity. Should Barasso ever leave the Senate and become a columnist for the Weekly, I will be out a part-time job. I guess I could always run for coroner. JHW


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