CHEYENNE, Wyo.—The Wyoming Democratic Party chairman, a backer of Barack Obama, warned on Friday that a Hillary Rodham Clinton nomination could threaten Democratic gains in the West because she would drive Republicans to the polls.
“In Wyoming, if Democrats are going to have a chance, the race is decided by moderate Republicans and independents,” John Millin said Friday. “The extreme radical, right-wing Republicans … will show up to vote against her. And those people, of course, while they’re there, are going to vote for all the other Republicans on the rest of the ballot.”
Millin’s comments came a week after Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal, also a Democrat, expressed frustration with all the presidential candidates—both Democrat and Republican.
“None of them have actually spoken to issues that matter in the West,” Freudenthal said in a Dec 5. interview.
Millin wrote a letter to The Denver Post in which he made it clear that he supports Obama.
“If Hillary Clinton is our party’s nominee, every Democratic candidate in Wyoming will be painted with that same liberal, big government brush,” Millin wrote in the article. “We will also be the target of locker-room jokes that rightfully belong to Bill Clinton.”
Clinton spokesman Isaac Baker defended the candidate in an e-mail to the AP.
“As poll after poll shows, Hillary Clinton is clearly the most electable,” Baker said. “She knows when to find common ground and when to stand her ground, and that’s what it will take to win in 2008.”
Wyoming Democratic Party spokesman Bill Luckett said Millin was free to endorse whoever he wants but the state party won’t back anyone before the nomination. Freudenthal’s office declined comment.
Millin said that although people’s perceptions of Clinton might be unfair, Republicans would use that to their advantage.
“It’s something—a tool—Republicans know how to use effectively, and Democrats don’t seem willing to admit,” Millin said, pointing to Wyoming’s 2004 U.S. House race.
That year, Rep. Barbara Cubin’s campaign compared Democrat Ted Ladd to Sens. Edward Kennedy and John Kerry because Ladd was born in Boston. Ladd had lived in Wyoming for 20 years but Cubin won by 13 points.
Millin conceded that it could be hard for a Democratic nominee to win Wyoming.
“I’m not saying Obama can win Wyoming or that Wyoming’s three electoral votes are in play. I don’t think they are. But the point is what the effect people at the top of the ticket are going to have on some of our other candidates,” he said.
Millin stressed it was important for Democrats to build on recent successes in Wyoming. Last year, a little-known Democrat, Gary Trauner, lost to Cubin by just half a percentage point. Also last year, Wyoming’s Democratic governor, Dave Freudenthal, won re-election by a 40-point margin.
“If that’s how it’s going to come down, if it’s going to come down in part by party lines, obviously in states like Wyoming where there’s 2 1/2 Republicans to every one Democrat, it’s going to hurt us here,” Millin said.
