JH Underground – Jackson Hole, Wyoming news, sports and music blog from Jackson Hole, Wyoming

The Wicked Witch of the West is done.

More than a few glasses were clinked in celebration this weekend after U.S. Rep. Barbara Cubin announced that she will not seek re-election.

Thus ends a reign of error that began in 1994 and included such lowlights as:

• Endorsing the slaughter of bison in Yellowstone National Park

• Supporting a plan to sell off public lands to developers

• Calling the $425 billion national deficit a “bookkeeping problem”

• Blaming former President Bill Clinton for the 9/11 attacks

• And, of course, threatening to slap wheelchair-bound Libertarian Thomas Rankin following a 2006 debate

I first met Cubin in 1996 as a freelance writer for the Jackson Hole News. I was in Laramie to cover a football game at the University of Wyoming, and Cubin was working her way around the parking lot, shaking hands in her bid for re-election.

I was young and looked younger clean-shaven and with a baseball hat on backwards. But I had been around long enough to know that Cubin had swept into office with Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America, and already had been a disaster.

When she approached our group of tailgaters, I said, “No offense, but I’m not voting for you.”

“None taken,” she responded, “I don’t want your vote, anyway.” And without missing a beat, she went on shaking hands.

My last interview with Cubin, in 2004, resembled a hockey fight. Her spokesman said I had 10 minutes on the phone as she was on her way to catch a flight.

Immediately we both dropped the gloves, as I pounded her with questions about Iraq and she fired back with stock administration rhetoric.

Boy, will we miss her nuanced understanding of global affairs.

“The liberation of Iraq was just one successful piece of America’s ongoing war on terror,” Cubin said in 2004, in a press release that just as easily could have been issued in 2003, 2005, 2006 or 2007. “Creating a democracy in the heart of the Middle East will drain the swamp even further and help us eliminate the terrorist threat.”

The Bush-Cheney administration loses one of its most loyal parrots. Wyoming stands to gain representation.

Jeff Spicoli had a better attendance record at Ridgemont High than Cubin had in Congress. But as one of my friends used to point out, we were much better off with Cubin not voting.

While Cubin was notorious for no-shows throughout her tenure, this year her truancy reached the point of absurdity, as during a visit to the hospital to care for her chronically ill husband, she broke her foot and wound up in a hospital bed of her own.

She had missed 427 votes as of Oct. 10, or about 45 percent. As the AP reported, she had the third-highest percentage of missed votes in the House, trailing only two representatives who are both deceased.

Addressing the Republican Party Politburo Central Committee in Casper on Saturday, Cubin used the occasion to hurl a few typically classless and grammatically challenged remarks at Wilson resident Gary Trauner and the Democratic Party.

Trauner, a Democrat who came within 1,000 votes of unseating Cubin last year, is running again for the seat.

“We cannot let Trauner win,” she said. “He is wrong for Wyoming, he is wrong for America, and I know working together he will never succeed.”

She accused the Democrats of seeking to “surrender to al Qaeda.”

Cubin’s announcement hardly comes as a surprise, as donors made the decision for the seven-term congresswoman long ago. She only had received three contributions from individuals this year (including Washington Post columnist Robert Novak), and her campaign was nearly in debt as of Sept. 30.

Lobbyists and PACs will have tens of thousands of dollars to lavish on someone else, as Cubin regularly rode the corporate dole while handing over Wyoming’s public lands to oil and gas developers.

Not everyone in Jackson was cheering her retirement. At a party Saturday night, one astute observer lamented that Cubin’s departure actually hurts Trauner, arguing that he likely will face a more stout opponent in state Rep. Colin Simpson.

Regardless, the closing of this sorry chapter means we might have a campaign of ideas, not “I’m more Wyoming than you.” And that could help Trauner in the end. It certainly will benefit Wyoming.

Posted under barbara cubin, democratic party, gary trauner, politics