Vote for effectiveness, not special interest groups, on Tuesday

Seven more card stock election mailers arrived in my mailbox on Tuesday. Seven. In one day.

That makes around 75, I figure, in the weeks leading up to the Primary Election, many of the mailers vicious attack ads urging citizens to vote against a particular candidate rather than for themselves.

Is that the kind of leader we want representing us, someone who campaigns primary by bashing his or her opponent? I don’t get it. But that kind of national politics has trickled down to Wyoming in a big way.

There is a long tradition of newspapers endorsing candidates before an election, but I haven’t done so in many years, primarily because I figure that people would react, “Who does he think he is telling me how to vote?!” 

But I would like to pass along my thoughts on this particular election year. I ask our readers, probably 99 percent of them voters, to put individual character, integrity and the ability to govern effectively over partisan, national politics. Choose the candidate you know, the candidate who cares about you and will represent you earnestly and with effectiveness. Choose the candidate who can govern and get things done for you – here in Big Horn County – and not have to be steered by a national special interest group.

Of course, that “local effectiveness” approach to voting is in the eye of the beholder, but I can tell you that I would much rather have someone who may not check all of the political party boxes but has a history of helping the community over a political party and national issue darling.

Frankly, what the so-called Wyoming Freedom political action committee and the Make Liberty Win organizations are doing to Sen. R. J. Kost, a really good man who grew up on a farm in Big Horn County and was a very effective and hardworking state senator, is disgusting. The “give no quarter” and “my opponent is my enemy” national approach to “winning” has landed hard in our neck of the woods, mudslinging at its finest.

It’s happening in statewide races, as well, of course. Candidates who apparently have nothing to stand on resort to fire-bombing their opponents with misleading attacks. Just who I want serving me, someone directed by a Washington puppet master.

Of course, the PACs claim the mailers are “not authorized by any candidate or any candidate’s committee.” Oh, surely not!

It has really gotten ugly this year, which is truly sad to see.

Don’t let the political mudslinging get you down. Get out and vote on Tuesday if you haven’t already done so. Use your voice, the power of the ballot box, and may the truly best person win.