Somewhere in Wyoming
Nobody's paid much attention to the Wyoming caucus but it's happening today and Jim Geraghty has an explainer:
At 9 a.m. local time, Wyoming Republicans will go to 23 county seats for their caucuses. At eleven of those locations, they will be picking one convention delegate; at eleven of those locations, they will be picking alternates, and at one they will be picking one of both.
Laramie County, where the county seat is Cheyenne, will be casting for both and was awarded this bonus because their county cast the most votes for Barbara Cubin in the last Congressional election. Candidates that are picking a delegate this cycle will be picking an alternate next cycle, and vice versa.
"The way it will work is that the county chair will ask any registered Republican to write their name on a blackboard, and next to that which candidate they would support," says Tom Sansonetti, the 2008 Republican County Convention Coordinator. "There may be multiple potential delegates for each candidate, or just one, or none. Then they address the delegates and say why they support the candidate they support. And then they vote, and keep voting until someone gets 50 percent plus one." They knock off the potential delegate who came in last each time.
Paul has been advertising in the state, a dirt cheap place to do so, and Paul won a GOP straw poll in Laramie. Geraghty's predicition:
Discussions with local county chairs suggest the following results, or something along these lines, would not be surprising: eight delegates for Romney, two delegates for Thompson, one delegate for Ron Paul, and one delegate for Duncan Hunter.
This is the sense I get from Paul people: If it was a straight caucus they'd do well, but the Rube Goldberg voting system and requirements lean it toward more mainstream, satisfied-with-Bush Republicans.
