Hunkins Takes the Low Road

Ray Hunkins of Wheatland is a Republican running against Democratic Governor Dave Freudenthal. Hunkins is being guided in his campaign by the state party, led by Drake Hill. Hill came up with the negative anti-Freudenthal ads in the primary campaign and now is armed with plenty of national Repub money to keep flinging the dirt until the November elections.

Hunkins seems a bit unbalanced in the battles he’s choosing. First he attacked Gov Dave for spending too much money on the state airplane. It turns out the plane wasn’t being used by the governor at all but by another state agency. Hunkins then said the Gov was spending way too much on the Governor’s Mansion and said the state should have commission that oversees those expenditures. The Gov said a commission already existed and he invited Ray to be a member. You could just hear Mr. Hunkins saying "Doh!" about that one.

Now Hunkins contends that military veterans are getting short shrift in WYO. He wants to establish five state-funded veterans service offices across the state. He also thinks that Gov Dave is politicizing the Wyoming Veterans Commission, set up in 1999 by Freudenthal’s predecessor, Wheatland’s Jim Geringer, an Air Force veteran.

In an excellent overview of the issue in the 9/18 Wyoming Tribune-Eagle, reporter Kevin Wingert (a Navy veteran) talks to all the parties in the ongoing debate. Lee Alley, new chair of the Veterans Commission and the state’s most-decorated Vietnam vet, said he doesn’t think that Hunkins’ "blanket" approach to veteran’s issues will work. Ed Wright, the state adjutant general, said that the commission debated this approach two years ago and the commissioners asked for more information and never got it.

I have to admit here that I’m not a military veteran. I care about the issue because I believe in the words of Jeff Spadaro, a U.S. Marine and Vietnam vet, who voices his concern for veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. "That’s the bottom line: Take care of the ones coming home."
That is the bottom line. But there are other aspects of this particular debate. Drake Hill has brought in outside Repub hired guns for this race and I will bet they decided to use the vet issue on Freudenthal. Hunkins is a marine veteran. Freudenthal is not a veteran. Since Hunkins is trailing in the polls, it’s only natural Repubs would fall back on a cynical ploy like this.

But they may be surprised. Freudenthal has gone out of his way to distance himself from anti-war Dems such as yours truly. He also has attended every deployment of WYO units to Iraq and Afghanistan. He also has attended every funeral of a Wyo soldier killed overseas since he took office in 2002.

I participated in two Dem canvasses this summer. One elderly woman, a registered Dem, refused to take any of my material. "I vote for the man, not the party," she said. She already knew she would vote for Dave Freudenthal because he was there when her grandson departed for his overseas deployment. She wasn’t the only one who responded in this very personal way.

My Republican friends are upset about their party’s early attempt at negativity. They think Freudenthal has done a good job this past four years and plan to vote for him again. Yes, many voted Democratic in 2002 because of the nasty campaigning engaged in by Repub candidate Eli Bebout. You’d think the GOP would have learned its lesson. But maybe Drake Hill and Ray Hunkins think that the electorate will respond to Karl Rove-style deceit.