our chance to make history
On the night of July 13, 1960, America held its breath.
An air of suspense gripped the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles. Delegates were split on whom to nominate for president. A rising tide of youth crashed against the establishment.
John F. Kennedy was the winner of most of the primaries, but party bosses preferred Adlai Stevenson, the former Illinois governor, or Lyndon B. Johnson, the more experienced senator. Candidates’ staff workers walked the floor of the convention with walkie-talkies, trying to marshal delegates in their favor.
One by one, in alphabetical order, each state cast its vote. Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin …
“The candidate leaned forward — Wyoming, on the next call, could make it,” the historian Theodore H. White wrote of JFK in The Making of the President, 1960.
“This could do it,” Kennedy told his friend David Powers, as the two watched on TV in a hotel room.
“‘Wyoming,’ chanted Tracy S. McCraken, Wyoming’s national committeeman, ‘casts all fifteen votes for the next President of the United States,’” White wrote.
“As Wyoming voted, the hall heaved.”
Forty-eight years later, another watershed election is at hand, and Wyoming is again in the thick of it.
Ted Kennedy isn’t courting Wyoming delegates the way he did for his brother in 1960 — yet — but the Equality State’s 18 representatives to the Democratic National Convention in Denver this summer could well be the difference for another young senator who has electrified the country, Barack Obama.
The deadline to register as a Democrat is 5 p.m. Friday. Sign up at the Teton County administration building, on the corner of Willow and Simpson streets. You need to have lived here only a minute to vote. High school students who will be 18 by Nov. 4 are eligible. Bring a photo ID.
If you did not vote in the 2006 election, you must re-register. Call the elections office at 733-7733 to verify your registration status.
Cast your vote at the Teton County Democratic Convention from 4 to 6 p.m. Saturday, March 8.
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The Village Cafe is hosting a WyObama ‘08 apres-ski party Friday, starting at 4 p.m. Anyone who brings proof of registration as a Democrat will be entered in a raffle for an Illuminati snowboard and will receive a free beer from Snake River Brewing Co.
Front Street Productions will spin tunes, there are more raffle prizes from the Board Room of Jackson Hole and Sub-Urban Tattoo, and artist Ben Roth will be selling T-shirts. Captain Bob will be in the house.
Special thanks to RenaMarie Villano, Wren Fialka, John Makens, Dom Gagliardi, Illuminati Snowboards, local DJs and everyone else for making this happen.
Explore posts in the same categories: politics, democratic party, wyoming, barack obama
February 21st, 2008 at 7:39 pm
Hillary ‘08!
February 23rd, 2008 at 1:12 am
thank YOU, J.S.!
your work on this has been Amazing.
thanks for answering your phone on february 12th, and for being willing to work with someone you’d never even met.
Yes, WE CAN.
February 27th, 2008 at 9:01 am
for the history buffs:
There was more suspense surrounding the Wyoming delegation than just alphabetical order. Not all of the delegates were pledged to JFK; three or four were for LBJ. Ted Kennedy worked the Wyo delegation hard to get them to change their minds and throw all delegates to JFK. It was tense and came down to the last minute because the other candidates were pressing, too.
If JFK did not win on the first ballot, he likely would have faced a tough challenge from Stevenson or LBJ on the second vote. The old guard was aiming for that, and Wyoming prevented it by sealing the deal for Kennedy.