Historic Tidbit: After it became clear that Frank Church would not be his party’s presidential nominee in 1976, he began actively campaigning for the number two spot. When Carter ultimately picked Mondale, he told reporters that he had known he wouldn’t be the pick because lightening had just stricken his Bethesda, Maryland home. And lightening, he said, “never strikes twice.”
Did you hear about the man who asked Billy Joel if he could play the piano with him at a concert? Joel stunned everyone in attendance by saying yes. How about the high school student who asked Kate Upton to the prom? She too said she’d check her schedule. When one contemplates the idea of electing a Democrats to a federal office from Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming, the struggle they face may illicit a similar theme. A mentality of, you’d have to get really lucky or something. But it wasn’t always like that. In fact, once upon a time, the Democratic Party in these three states, while not dominant, was quite competitive. In fact, three men — Frank Church, Frank Moss, and Gale McGee held U.S. Senate seats in these states for more than a couple of years.
Church, Moss, and McGee gave their respective states one Democratic Senator from the mid 1950’s through their defeats in the mid-70’s, and the latter two were basically as surprised as everyone else by their losses on Election Night in ’76. Church’s loss four years later was less unexpected. As recently as 1960, the Republican bent of the states was barely more than a lean. Kennedy hit 45% in Utah and Wyoming and hit 46% in Idaho.
For a time, Wyoming may have actually been the most Democratic friendly states and Idaho was perhaps the most Republican. There, Goldwater was just 5,000 votes behind LBJ in ’64, making it the closest of the 44 states he lost. Conversely, he took just 46% in Utah and 43% in Wyoming. But by 1968, the Democratic flirtation was over. Humphrey was eviscerated in all three states and no Democrat has exceeded 40% in any of the three states since. A more typical ceiling is the low 30s, which in some cases doesn’t even happen. In Utah, Republican presidential candidates have exceeded 70% five times since 1972.
Even after these losses, locally, Democrats had no problem holding their own. For a time anyway. Though Senate seats would prove elusive in Idaho and Utah (John Evans almost won back Church’s seat for his party in 1986), both states elected two Democratic members of Congress simultaneously as recently as the 90’s.
Oddly enough, it’s Wyoming that’s had the longest federal drought, as the last Democrat to win a federal race was Teno Roncalio in 1976. When he retired two years later, he was succeeded by Dick Cheney. But the state came so very close on two separate occasions to changing that.
n 1988, incumbentMalcolm Wallop, who was 20 points ahead in the summer, came within 1,300 votes of being upset by a populist saloon owner named John Vinich. And Barbara Cubin survived her 2006 re-election bid, conducted with much clumsiness by about 1,000 votes. She wisely retired two years later and while her opponent, Gary Trauner tried again, he fell way short to a new Republican nominee without flaws in a state that was giving McCain a big margin.
Statewide can be different, but barely. And lately, rare. Neither Idaho or Wyoming had a Republican Governor from 1970 through 1994. Utah had two Democratic chiefs from 1964 through ’84. Wyoming elected another Democrat, Dave Freudenthal in 2002 who revealed voters saying they had no problem with him, but were not about to elect a Democrat federally. But even that has proven to be the exception rather than the rule. Idaho has not been governed by a Democrat since 1994 and Utah, ten years before that. Moreover, not only does the GOP control every statewide office in those states, but it’s control of the legislature in each chamber well exceeds a 2/3 super-majority.
One Democrat, Jim Matheson, has managed to hold his House seat since 2000, including last year by the narrowest of margins (768 votes), but the Matheson name is holy in Utah (his father Scott was one of the Democratic Governors I cited). Republicans have tried to redistrict him out of office so ferociously over two separate decades that he is well known even well outside his Salt Lake City base.
Much of the appeal of Church, Moss, and McGee was their youth and outsider status, which enabled all to oust GOP incumbents who assumed they were in the same mistakenly secure position. McGee was a history professor (he taught Alan Simpson) who had never sought public office, though he had been an aide to legendary Wyoming Governor O’Mahoney. But he had the good fortune of making his run in 1958, which proved to be Eisenhower’s six year itch. He defeated an incumbent Republican Frank Barrett by 2,000 votes and would win two more elections fairly comfortably. McGee’s footnote in history was standing on a chair begging his delegation for four votes to put Kennedy over the top at the 1960 convention.
Moss had sought office before (Utah’s Governorship) but didn’t get it. He was Salt Lake County Attorney and also had the good fortune to put his name up in ’58. But he was even more fortunate to have been around amid the division of McCarthyism. Two-term incumbent Art Watkins chaired the committee that ultimately decided to censure McCarthy, which brought an angry third party challenge from ex-Utah Governor Bracken Lee. The result was that Moss squeaked into the seat with 39%. But Moss didn’t need any luck in holding the seat for two subsequent elections.
But Church at 32 was the biggest Cinderella Story. Like Moss, he had made a sole attempt at office once before and lost (the Idaho Legislature), and his run for the Senate in 1956 was initially thought to be a similarly uphill quest. But Church won the job. He beat Herman Welker, an incumbent who was so closely identified with Joe McCarthy that he was called “Little Joe from Idaho” (curiously, both were dead less than a year later). And with the win came a sporadic rise that involved a 1960 keynote speech to the Democratic National Convention and Church winning three more terms. No other Democratic Senator from Idaho even won a second.
The three Democrats from Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming thrived by staying with their party on social issues (the Equal Rights Amendment), but at the same time, giving a local flavor to their service. The trio would stay with their roots by hewing closely to their states local needs. All opposed gun control and championed water issues. They worked closely together and usually had a powerful ally in their interior neighbor, Majority Leader Mike Mansfield of Montana.
A young Congressman Church (Idahoptv.org)
Church and Moss sponsored the first legislation to expand Medicare to provide hospice. It didn’t pass in their times but did become law in 1982. Moss and McGee were close friends. Abandoning their party on high-profile issues was rare, but far from harmful, because on at least some occasions, their constituents and home-state GOP colleagues took similar stands. Moss’s colleague for most of his tenure was Wallace Bennett, whose son Robert would later hold his father’s seat for three terms. Bennett backed the Civil Rights Act. McGee’s service overlapped for a brief time with
Milward Simpson, the father of Al. He had opposed the Civil Rights Act (on the grounds that he had signed a measure into law as Wyoming’s Governor, but did back the Voting Rights Act. None of these Republicans voted for many elements of the “Great Society,” but voters even in these let government do less states didn’t seem particularly concerned.
Moss as the chair of the Commerce Committee’s Consumer Safety Program was the second prime on a bill with Washington’s Warren Magnuson to regulate warranty enforcement, which also played a role in the establishment of the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Along with Magnuson, he was responsible for cigarette warning labels, and sponsored the Poison Prevention and Toy Safety Act. Locally, he immersed himself in water and environmental issues.
McGee backed his party on social issues but took more of a middle ground on Vietnam. The National Committee on Food Marketing was his, as was a seat on Appropriations. Locally, he opposed federal strip mining and clear cutting, important here. But McGee’s crown jewel was the Postal Service Restoration Act, which demanded equality for customers across the nation. Republicans used his chairmanship of the Postal and Civil Service Subcommittee to make an issue out of postal service satisfaction. And even while championing local issues, McGee didn’t hesitate to go against the majority of Wyomingites when he felt they were in the national interest. During the oil embargo, McGee ignored Wyoming pleas not to lower the speed limit to 55.
Wallop’s campaign skills did not set the world on fire but he was out and about while McGee stayed in Washington. Regulation was an issue. Tom Larson, who authored the History of Wyoming, credits the National Taxpayers Union for effectively branding McGee the “taxpayers best friend” for championing benefit increases for federal workers. Another note was the diminished impact of labor, as the The Washington Post noted the race brought brought unions and right-to-work in direct battle with each other.” Wallop was also seen as an environmental moderate from a previous campaign for Governor. On Election Day, Ford was winning the state big and Wallop took 55%. It was a storyline that has played out many times in interior west many times since then, including four years later with Church in Idaho.
Gale McGee-University of Wyoming
In the Senate, Church became one of the most important 20th Century figures on foreign policy. His speech making ability was remarkable and his early and aggressive outspokenness against Vietnam led LBJ to call him Frank “Sunday School Church.” Church had tangled with LBJ once before in his first months in the Senate, and the Majority Leader retaliated by keeping him out of his circle for six months. But soon, all was well and the pair grew close. Church-Cooper was a bi-partisan amendment designed to cut off funds for operations in Cambodia and Laos.
The Church Committee investigated covert operations by the CIA and FBI during the war. In time, he became Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee and in 1976, decided to throw his hat into the wide open field for President. But primary season was already in the middle and while Church won like-minded states (his own, Montana, Nebraska, and Oregon), Carter was too far ahead to catch. Church then made a public pitch for the number two slot but it went to Mondale.
As impressive as the trio’s survival was, even their talent could not last in perpetuity. Moss fell to Utah’s Orrin Hatch, who portrayed himself as a fresh face and latched on strongly to Ronald Reagan. He noted that US News&World Report had identified Moss as among the Senator’s least likely to lose. Moss’s son Brian tried to unseat Hatch in 1988 but by then, the Senator was so entrenched that he prevailed with 2/3 of the vote. McGee lost by a nearly identical margin to Malcolm Wallop. This set the stage for successful “New Right” challenges that brought name even bigger names and allowed the GOP to take control of the Senate in 1980. One of those casualties was Church.
Church had the kitchen sink thrown at him, yet remarkably, came darned close to winning.
The battle begin as early as January 1979 as Church was one of five Senators targeted by the National Conservative Political Action Committee, which also successfully took aim at Birch Bayh and George McGovern (Tom Eagleton narrowly survived and Alan Cranston’s race wasn’t even close). It was called the “Sagebrush Rebellion.” Church was ardently pro-choice and shepherded the Panama Canal Treaty which was heavily opposed by Idahoans. But Church tried to maintain his appeal by opposing gun control and supporting local water rights, both of critical importance to Idahoans.
Symms was an apple farmer who was serving his 4th term in the House. His ad urged voters to “take a bite out of government.” Symms had some personal vulnerabilities which may have kept the vote close. In the end, the margin between the two was just 50-49%, as Symms prevailed by 4,000 votes among 233,000 cast.
In any other year, Church would’ve held his seat. But one of Church’s son’s said “once Reagan hit 70% (he actually took 66%), his odds of survival were too long. Having realized that fellow liberals Bayh, McGovern, Gaylord Nelson and Warren Magnuson, to name a few, had also gone down, Church remarked that he would at least be going out in “good company.”
It’s not that any one issue doomed the Senators but conservatives were more vocal in framing the battles as ideological and one of more government versus less. In the years since, Democrats have seen openings, only to be stymied by the times. All involved land to some degree, as the federal government owns large proportions in the respective states. Suspicion of the federal government runs deep here which gun control undoubtedly contributes to. Others issues are case-by-case.
In Wyoming, the increase in federal grazing fees led some to declare an initiation of a “War on the West,” which would hurt Democrats even when years that became more favorable to Democrats nationally. In Idaho, monuments were an issue. As for Utah, the Almanac of American Politics theorizes that the growing influence of the Mormon church, big families and a feeling that a “1950’s” lifestyle is still possible may doom a bigger government culture. Guns also no doubt plays a role.
At several recent Democratic National Conventions, Bethune Church, the late Senator’s wife, announces her state’s delegate choices during the roll call that determines the Presidential nominees. Before announcing the total, she ended one with “we will come back.” It’s hard to imagine that happening any time soon.
Unlike the mid 20th century, the GOP lean of Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming is clearly super-imposing. Should Democrats give up? No. That’s not what democracy is about. But they may have to wait. A long, long time. Or hope that lightening strikes. For it may take a Todd Akin like scandal to send votes their way and even that would lack a guarantee. Beyond that, they could get comfortable with a good Smokey Robinson set. Cause winning is “gonna take a miracle.”