Fortress Wyoming Needs Champions

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to participate in one of those decisive battles that changed how we view ourselves as a people? Have you ever spoken with or read about those who were there at a great turning point in history? Have you ever dreamed of having something like that to tell your grandchildren about?

Wyomingites, here’s your chance. On November 4th, 2008, you can vote. Better yet, you can run for office and rally your troops. You’ll have to file between May 15th and May 30th, so decide SOON. Sit this one out and you’ll regret it.

You laugh? I’m not talking about politics at the national level. No, the excitement in America is at the state level, and there is no state at a more important crossroads than ours. This year, Wyoming is like Waterloo or Gettysburg: an obscure spot on the maps, hitherto ignored or unknown, destined to enter the popular imagination as the place where something big happened, where something changed forever, where everybody, at least once, wished they had been there to see it, if not to have had a hand in it.

The stars in their courses are aligning above our high windswept desert where, as with those other confrontations, a few hundred thousand warriors and their leaders will contend upon unforgettable terrain for history’s verdict. The warriors are you the voters of Wyoming; the leaders are you the candidates, incumbents and prescient newcomers alike, eager for the day to come, confident of the rectitude of your cause and the inevitability of your vindication.

The situation is this: After a quarter century of struggle, the Democratic Party is on the cusp of mopping up the last remnants of the Reagan Revolution, which had very nearly vanquished New Deal liberalism and returned the United States to its constitutional republican foundations. But the modern American addiction to big government proved strong, and the Democrats battled back, entrusting the Clinton Administration to restore them to their former power and glory.

It was not so easy. Electoral setbacks were to plague them for the next 16 years. The Democrats had restored their mastery over the teeming cities, then New England, up and down the coasts, along the borders, and into the Rust Belt. But there the Democratic counter-reformation stalled, unable to crack the South, the Heartland, or the Rocky Mountain West. Year after year of stalemate ensued. America settled in to a new identity as a “50-50 nation,” evenly split between liberal and conservative electorates: skirmishing, sniping, fortifying, watching, waiting.

Now, eight years into the Third Millennium, A.D., the stalemate appears to have reached a tipping point. After decades of wasted effort in the solid South, liberal field marshals have discovered easy pickings in the soft underbelly of the West. A demographic accretion of liberals--transplants from California and the cities of the East, speculators, trust-fund loafers, illegal aliens, neo-hippies and government employees--have been willingly fashioned into an ideological vanguard that has comprised a Maoist “Long March” up through New Mexico and into Colorado.

Now this army of Democratic restoration is massing against Wyoming’s southern border, eager for its definitive push. Democratic strategists know that the West is the key to their hegemony over the nation. And Fortress Wyoming is the crown jewel of the West. Here awaits their new liberal frontier, with vast stores of minerals to be nationalized, energy resources to be sequestered, wildlife to be mollycoddled, casinos to be built, water to be diverted, guns to be confiscated, parks to be overrun, babies to be aborted, hunters to be harassed, homesteads and workers to be taxed, gays to be married, smokers to be fined, children to be indoctrinated, government to be expanded, and lawsuits to be multiplied.

The Democratic battle plan is in place, its goals are clear, its funding is bottomless, and its candidates are lined up for every office on the ballots. Despite a huge numerical superiority, the Republican defenders can claim none of these advantages. Lazy from too many years of supremacy, infiltrated and betrayed by RINOs, compromised by economic expediencies and collusion with the Governor, unable to articulate their party’s principles, and paralyzed by their fears, Republican leaders and foot soldiers alike survey the barbarian hordes at our gates and many panic, making ready to abandon their posts, throw down their arms, and run for their mommies.

There it is. All you Democrats need to do to make history is to repair to the polls every year until there are enough of you to throw open the gates of Fortress Wyoming and await those fabled crumbs from the tables of your new masters. You Republicans have it tougher, as voting isn’t enough. As of this writing, some 14 state legislative offices don’t even have GOP candidates. You Republicans need to find some brave leaders to incite defiance, from the bottom and from the top, to stand against great odds and cost the invaders dearly before our bastions. (Buy us conservatives some time and we’ll be able to deal with those liberal/moderate Republican cheese-nibblers who got us into this mess!)

The coming siege may not be resolved for decades, but this is the year that seals our course. Fortress Wyoming awaits its champions: our Churchill; our Horatius; our Wellington; our Crockett; our Stonewall Jackson. Register to vote. File your candidacy. Win, lose, or draw, you can tell your grandchildren what you did.

Who says politics ain’t fun?