Lifetime Republican begs his party's hardliners: Please don't cancel the Cowboy State's primary

BY ROD MILLER

There’s a rumor around the ol’ campfire that more than few state Republican partisan machines are making plans to scrap their primary elections next year.  

The intent is to insulate President Donald Trump, and other incumbents, from our pluralistic, democratic political system and to sandbag any challengers’ chances of  an upset.

Several news organizations, among them Fox and Business Insider (neither of which can be accused

of left-leaning tendencies), report that Nevada, South Carolina and  Kansas are on board with the movement, all canceling their primaries in the past several days. Arizona is reportedly lining up as well.

So far, I haven’t heard Wyoming mentioned in that rumor, and I hope I never will. But I wouldn’t put it past any state Republican Party to try to pull off a stunt like this. I truly don’t think the zeal for monolithic, one-party control can be overstated during these strange times.

Our own Wyoming GOP bent their shovels in the last legislative session, trying to pinch down the participation of anyone but anointed, party-approved voters in the Cowboy State’s primary elections. They failed repeatedly in that effort. So I’ll bet a dollar to a donut that the party apparatus is at least lending an interested ear to this knot-headed notion and calculating its chances of success here.

Why is the Republican Party, both in Wyoming and nationally, afraid of choice and healthy debate within the ranks? That’s not a rhetorical question. As a Republican, I am not hopeful about the future of my party if it keeps circling the wagons tighter and tighter. 

This brittle parochialism will end up wounding, rather than strengthening, us. We are essentially telling voters that they are not welcome unless they fit neatly into this strict little profile, believe and act as they are told and, for heaven’s sake, don’t ask any questions.

We Republicans are committing that most fatal of political errors: believing out of self-delusion or hubris that the majority thinks exactly as we do. This is an open invitation for another, more hungry political party to exploit our narrow-mindedness and scoop up all those voters who we offend by our exclusivity.

You may ask, rhetorically or not, why I even stay in the GOP. Simple. If the above was written by a Democrat, Libertarian or anyone else, party leadership would dismiss

Ex-S.C. Gov. Mark Sanford is among those taking on Trump. 

it as socialistic, Maoist drivel from a rainbow Berniecrat. They say bad enough stuff about me as it is, but they sure as hell know that I certainly don’t fit that description. 

So I hope that coming from inside the tent, from someone who loves the party, that my fellow Republicans will realize that when I say, “Come on, guys ... we’re better than that,” it’s out of real affection and loyalty.

Let other state Republican zealots scrap their primaries or constrict their memberships to just a chosen cadre. We are better than that, much better. There are so damned few of us in Wyoming that we can’t afford to act like bigshots and neglect everyone who is a tad different.

Wyoming needs the Republican Party right now; the state we all love needs the party to step up to the plate. The to-do list of crucial chores is long, and we’ve placed the power to get things done in the GOP’s toolbox.  

Consolidating political power in fewer and fewer hands is not on that list! Here is where we ride for the brand, my friends. And the brand ain’t an R or a D, but a great big, brown and gold W.

Rod Miller is a citizen, father and grandfather and a proud former Rawlins Outlaw living in Cheyenne.