Politics

Freudenthal Won’t Seek Re-election, Doesn’t Suprise Anyone

By Brodie Farquhar, 3-04-10

	Gov. Dave Freudenthal. Photo by Josh Hallett and used here under Creative Commons. To see more of Josh's work, visit his Flickr page.

LARAMIE—Viewed from the disciplines of political science and history, Wyoming Governor Dave Freudenthal’s announcement today that he will not seek a third term, is not a big surprise.

That’s the assessment of two professors at the University of Wyoming—political scientist Jim King of and historian Phil Roberts.

“The only thing that surprised me is that the announcement came this week,” said King, who’d believed that it would happen next week when the current legislative session was finished.

King said he’d been picking up on little hints and signals from the governor, that Freudenthal was at least leaning against running for a third term.

“My second thought is that without Freudenthal running for governor, this gives a clear advantage to the winner of the Republican primary,” King said.

(Currently, there are three GOP candidates for governor: former U.S. Attorney Matt Mead, State Auditor Rita Meyer and former legislator and Fort Bridger rancher Ron Micheli.)

Wyoming GOP Chair Diana Vaughn said today, “I can’t speak for the Democrats, but I know we will have a spirited and healthy primary election in our party and we will have a terrific candidate to run this fall to succeed Governor Freudenthal.”

King said there is no “heir apparent” among Democratic legislators or local officials, nor is there a state-wide Democratic office holder who’d hold any obvious advantage in a state-wide race.

Bill Luckett, executive director for the Wyoming Democratic Party, said that while no Democrat has explicitly said he or she would run if Freudenthal didn’t, several people have been considering a run if Freudenthal wasn’t in the field. 

He also said in a statement today that whoever takes a run for Freudenthal’s spot has a precedent to follow.

“Gov. Freudenthal could not have provided a better living example of how a Democrat can successfully govern this state, by focusing solely on what’s in the best interests of our people, rather than blind adherence to partisan dogma. Wyoming’s next governor, no matter what his or her party affiliation, would do well to learn from Dave Freudenthal’s excellent example.”

King said that the 2002 gubernatorial race between Freudenthal and GOP candidate Eli Bebout was close, but that Freudenthal had invested a year-and-a-half of preliminary campaigning around the state that made the difference.

“He went around the state and met a lot of people and lined up support,” said King, well before the final campaign against Bebout.

“Nine months (until the November election) is not a lot of time” to crank up a strong campaign from scratch, King said. For a Democratic gubernatorial candidate to have a real shot, King said, he or she would have had to have been working the campaign hustings for several months now.

No one’s been doing that, he said, as everyone was waiting for Freudenthal to decide whether he wanted a third term.

King said that it is an “accurate statement,” that by waiting so long to announce a decision, Freudenthal has handicapped any would-be Democratic candidate and given the edge to the Republican candidate.
Still, said King, the unexpected can and does happen from time to time.

“No one was looking at Dave Freudenthal back in 2000 as the next governor of Wyoming,” King said.

Before Freudenthal could have formally run for a third term, he would have had to challenge a state term limits law. That probably wouldn’t have been difficult to do, since the Wyoming Supreme Court had already overturned the law as it pertains to legislators.

History’s view

Phil Roberts, the dean of Wyoming historians, said he wasn’t surprised by Freudenthal’s decision either. After all, there was only one governor before Freudenthal that had ever served three terms—Ed Herschler, 1975-1987.

And Roberts has heard Freudenthal comment that Herschler’s first two terms were considered successes—the third, not so much.

Roberts speculated that based on Freudenthal’s close observation of the Herschler administration (Freudenthal was an economist and later state planning director for Herschler), he figured that two terms were enough.
Roberts noted that only one other governor, Leslie Miller (1933-1939), had ever tried for a third term. Miller failed and lost to Nels Smith (1939-1943). The only other governor who gave a third term serious consideration, but didn’t go for it, said Roberts, was Stan Hathaway (1967-1975).

Roberts declined to pronounce a verdict on the Freudenthal administration. “Historians like to wait for the dust to settle,” he said.

Yet at first glance, said Roberts, the Freudenthal administration has enjoyed a fair amount of success, riding the tail-end of a bust period into an energy boom period. Roberts said that Freudenthal enjoyed pretty good relations with the Republican-dominated Legislature, and vice-a-versa. Roberts said the governor had obviously learned a lot while in the Herschler administration—lessons that stood him in good stead when the Legislature was in session.

“We may look back on this as the era of good feelings,” said Roberts, in contrast to national politics.

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