Will Herbert Play Spoiler in Wyoming House Race?

By Charles Pelkey and Reese Jenniges, WyoFile.com, 11-03-08

	Photo Credit: Wyoming Tribune Eagle

“Everything is possible, Especially this year.” W. David Herbert

Laramie—On the eve of Tuesday’s general election, it appears that a Libertarian may again be poised to play the spoiler’s role in 2008.

No stranger to running for office, W. David Herbert, of Riverton, ran against Michael Enzi and Kathy Karpan in 1996, competing to fill the seat of retiring Senator Alan Simpson. That means Herbert is also no stranger to defeat.

This year, too, Herbert concedes that his chances of winning outright on November 4 are “not realistic at all.” Herbert says his main reason for running is “to keep my party on the ballot.”

But that doesn’t mean that the burly Libertarian can’t throw a wrench into the 2008 House race between frontrunners Cynthia Lummis, the Cheyenne Republican, and Gary Trauner, the Jackson Hole Democrat.

The polls have already indicated that the ‘08 House race is going to be another close one. An early October Research 2000 poll called the race a virtual tie, but the survey did not measure the effect of undecided voters or Herbert supporters. A more recent SurveyUSA poll (October 18, 19) commission by Washington-based Roll Call newspaper has Lummis leading by six points. The same poll has two percent undecided and four percent supporting Herbert.

Libertarians have fielded candidates for Wyoming’s lone U.S. House seat in every election since 1996, averaging 6,310 votes. Since the congressional races were always lopsided in favor of the GOP candidate, that meant the party had little impact on the political picture in the state until 2006.

But that year Libertarian Thomas Rankin’s 7,500-vote tally exceeded the scant 1,012-vote margin between incumbent Barbara Cubin and Democrat Gary Trauner. Trauner often says that he needed only one additional vote per precinct to have pulled off a win in 2004. It can also be said that he could have won had he convinced one in seven Rankin supporters to shift their votes to the Democratic Party.

The same possible scenario exists going into Tuesday’s congressional vote.

Cynthia Lummis and Gary Trauner

A fighter pilot in Vietnam, Herbert retired from the military, having earned a degree in podiatry while serving both in the U.S. Army and Air Force. He also earned a law degree from the University of the Pacific, but has practiced as a podiatrist in Wyoming since 1976.

In a tight race, Herbert says no matter what the outcome, he may well be credited – or demonized – for tipping the balance, but that’s not his motivation.

“I’m probably gonna’ be blamed for it either way,” he said. “The Libertarian Party gets more publicity and members by participating in the elections.”

In a pure two-candidate contest, how would those Herbert supporters vote? From which major party candidate is Herbert siphoning support? Herbert says the answer isn’t an easy one.

“I have been a follower of Congressman Ron Paul since 1988 when he became the Presidential candidate for the Libertarian Party,” Herbert said.

Herbert also says that he embraces the views of the late GOP icon Barry Goldwater. Herbert defines himself as a committed Pro-Life candidate and finds himself most closely allied with Republicans on a host of social and economic issues. It might then be difficult to argue that Herbert is taking votes away from Trauner.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that Herbert supports Lummis, or Trauner for that matter.

“I wouldn’t vote for either one of them, I don’t think either one will be any worse than the other,” he said. “It is a tossup.”

As of October 15, Trauner has raised nearly $1.5 million and Lummis slightly more than $1 million, making this the most expensive House campaign in the state’s history. Indeed, with a last-minute infusion of cash from her own savings, coupled with independent expenditures from their respective national parties, the final figure will easily top $3 million.

Trauner, with about $400,000 on hand in the closing days of the campaign, continues to travel the state and run generally positive ads on Wyoming television. Lummis may have received a boost this weekend, when vice president Dick Cheney returned to his home state to do a campaign swing on behalf of Republicans.

The Cheney visit is reminiscent of the same last-minute effort he made on behalf of Cubin in 2006.

Will it make a difference at a time when Cheney and President George W. Bush have approached the nadir of their national popularity? Maybe, maybe not, but if Cheney can draw an enthusiastic crowd anywhere these days, Wyoming has to be on the top of that list.

As the two major party candidates head into the home stretch and make their final appeals to voters, neither can afford to ignore that handful of Libertarians who may be pulling the lever for W. David Herbert on Tuesday, unless they’re given a compelling reason to do otherwise. 

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