Gov. Dave Comes Out

For that very considerable portion of the population of Wyoming who do not feel the slightest compulsion to watch NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday mornings, I am here to report that you missed the exceedingly rare occurrence of Governor David Freudenthal going out on a political limb.
In a cozy interlude during a confab of the Western Governors’ Association in the shadow of the Grand Tetons, Governors Freudenthal of Wyoming and Bill Ritter of Colorado did their level best to lend the desired air of inevitability to NBC’s thesis that the Democratic Party is taking over the West, and thereby, the United States of America.
Drive-by media emeritus Tom Brokaw was brought out of retirement for this mission, breathless as ever, and flush with leading questions, which the governors compliantly adapted to their more specific ambition of installing, as chief federal executive over themselves, their states, their lands, their peoples and their futures, the single most radical left-wing U.S. Senator out of the whole 100. President Barack Hussein Obama, these supposedly “conservative” Democrats agree, is exactly what the West needs and deserves.
On its face, their claim is ridiculous, but knowing what’s going on along the Front Range in Colorado, we can probably expect that Governor Ritter will get away with it. Governor Freudenthal, however, is another kettle of pemmican. Stop your average Wyomingite on the trail and ask if they want an ultra liberal big city Chicago machine politician running America and they’ll tell you no. Ask if they appreciate the fact that their own governor is doing everything in his power to help to foist precisely such a character upon them, and their reply cannot be printed in this fine family newspaper.
During the course of the interview, Mr. Freudenthal confirmed that he thought Senator Obama understood western energy and environmental issues far better than Senator McCain, that Obama was correct in assuming the Second Amendment need not be respected by urban authorities, that Obama would know best what to do about the War in Iraq when the time comes, that Obama would “make a great president”, and that he was proud to have endorsed him.
That Mr. Freudenthal will be backing such an extreme liberal is not surprising to anyone who has followed his career. What is surprising is that he is finally beginning to lower his guard and talk like an extreme liberal himself. As late as last December, he was still not sticking his neck out, and said he didn’t like either Hillary Clinton, or Barack Obama for president. It took until April, when it was safe to assume Obama had the nomination in the bag, for Freudenthal to jump on the bandwagon.
This would be obligatory for any Democratic governor, and thus forgivable, but further elaboration would inevitably put Mr. Freudenthal’s considerable powers of cautious obfuscation to the ultimate test. Under Mr. Brokaw’s huffing out of powder puff questions, our governor retained his customary methods even as he “Obamafied” his meanings. He hemmed and he hawed, avoided answering most questions directly, went off on folksy tangents, transformed evasion into evenhandedness, and made slipperiness sound like common sense. You had to listen between all those distractions to hear what he really thought, but there it was, coming out like a liberal, big-government genie impossible to get back into the doggone bottle.
Mr. Freudenthal has crossed the Rubicon. He’ll be saying plenty more before the election and appears to be gambling his own political future on the hope of an Obama presidency.
But Mr. Freudenthal didn’t get where he is today by taking big risks. Becoming a two-term Democratic governor in a very Republican state required holding the loyalty of most all of the Democrats while capturing the confidence of a decisive portion of the Republicans at the same time. He did this by perfecting the art of reassuring Democrats and RINOs that he was a good liberal, even as he persuaded just enough regular Republicans that he was actually a conservative.
So why does he appear to be signaling his regular Republican supporters that they have been useful suckers all along? There is one simple explanation that ought to be considered: Mr. Freudenthal is auditioning for a permanent transfer to Washington, D.C. and doesn’t need them anymore. After passing up his chance to run for one of the two U.S. senate seats up for grabs this year, and being legally prohibited from seeking a third term as governor in 2010, he’s running out of respectable options for his hitherto invincible political talents.
Sure, there’s his ongoing hobby of turning Wyoming into America’s preeminent graveyard of taxpayer dollars through the coming carbon sequestration boondoggle, but few men are satisfied to grow old with extraordinary wealth when they can grow old with extraordinary power. Indeed, most men would rather grow old with both. And how better to do that, than as a domesticated westerner in President Obama’s cabinet? Secretary of Energy, for instance, or Secretary of the Interior.
Yes, the beauty of that sort of a promotion is that “Gov. Dave” would never have to answer to the people of Wyoming at the polls again. He could start talking as liberal as he pleases about piling on more federal regulations, controls and taxes, and help Obama to pick the West as clean as a rib cage in the Red Desert. All Obama has to do is win. Every scheme has its flaw.