Just under a week since Liz Cheney lost renomination as Wyoming’s U.S. Representative-at-large, the national press is still rehashing and re-analyzing what happened to the three-term Republican lawmaker.
Whether it is Cheney’s $15 million campaign war chest — a record for any U.S. House candidate in history — or that more than 200 Republican House Members endorsing challenger Harriet Hageman over their colleague, or that the Republican National Committee wrote the Cowboy State congresswoman out of the party, the primary that resulted in Liz Cheney being the only second Wyoming U.S. Representative ever to be defeated will almost surely be one of the biggest political stories of the year — not to mention a footnote in history.
Just about any Wyoming Republican can tell you something about the Cheney-Hageman race, the last contest in which a sitting U.S. Representative was unseated remains a relatively forgotten political saga.
That was in 1968, when veteran Rep. William Henry Harrison, III was narrowly edged out by former Republican State Chairman John Wold.
“I do remember that primary,” Jack Mueller of Laramie County, a past Young Republican National Chairman, told Newsmax, “There wasn't much difference between Wold and Harrison except the age. John was more vibrant and active. Harrison, a fraternity brother of mine, was older and reserved.”
Wold himself, who spoke to Newsmax shortly before his 100th birthday in 2016, told us that he “couldn’t recall any major differences except that U.S. Rep. Harrison was getting old and wasn’t as effective as he used to be. That’s why I ran.”
William Henry Harrison was the grandson of President Benjamin Harrison and namesake-great-great grandson of America’s shortest-serving president (he died one month after his inauguration in 1841 from a cold he caught while delivering an hour-long inaugural address). A World War I veteran who served in both the Indiana and Wyoming legislatures, Harrison served in Congress from 1950-54 and then lost a close race for the Senate seat of the late Democratic Sen. Lester Hunt (whose suicide by gunshot in his Senate office inspired the fate of the character Sen. Brigham Anderson in "Advise and Consent").
Had Harrison managed to overcome the 2% lead (just over 3000 votes) of Democrat Joseph O’Mahoney, the Senate would have stayed in Republican hands and Harrison’s friend and ally Sen. Joseph McCarthy, R-Wis. would almost surely not have been censured.
Harrison returned to the House in 1960, lost in the Democratic landslide of 1964, and then came back two years later to retake his seat.
At 72, he seemed, as Mueller put it, “older and reserved.” Wold, 52, had reinvigorated the party as state chairman in the 1950s and run unsuccessfully in 1964 against Democratic Sen. Gale McGee (who linked his opponent to Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater by calling him “Woldwater”). A geologist by trade, Wold had built a successful energy exploration company in Casper.
Wold and Harrison were conservatives who agreed on almost every issue — for victory in Vietnam, against most of LBJ’s big spending agenda, and for law and order. In contrast to the Cheney-Hageman contest, their rhetoric was tame save for Wold calling the incumbent a “do nothing congressman.”
In an outcome that made little news nationally, Wold narrowly beat Harrison by about 1,000 votes. In the fall, there was a move by former Democratic Gov. Leslie Miller to replace Wold on the ballot with Harrison after the Republican nominee — not unlike Donald Trump in 2016 — refused to disclose his net worth and income taxes. Nothing came of this.
Harrison retired to Florida and died in 1990 at age 94. Used to getting things done fast as owner of his own business, Wold quickly grew bored and frustrated with the slow pace of the House and, after one term, again ran for the Senate against old foe McGee. He lost again, and devoted the rest of his life to business and philanthropy. He died in 2017 at age 101.
The first time a Wyoming U.S. Representative lost a primary is a dim memory for even older Wyoming Republicans and there are few noteworthy stories of the campaign. It seems a safe bet to say this will not be true of the second time this happened in Wyoming.
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
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