Wherefore art Hillary and Barack?

Today's Denver Post carried a story about the lack of presence of Democratic presidential candidates in the Rocky Mountain West:

"Lacking the deep pockets found in California and on the East Coast, the national prominence of the two big primary states, Iowa and New Hampshire, and the electoral heft of Florida, the Interior West has not exactly been a revolving door for candidates in the past few months."

Wyoming is off the beaten path for presidential candidates, no matter what their party affiliation. Sometimes we get visits from the Prohibition party or Libertarian nominees, but most just fly right over.

Here's more from the Post:

The number of presidential swing states has substantially decreased over the years as Democrats have nabbed voters on the East and West coasts and Republicans have locked up the South and a chunk of the Midwest. While the Interior West - Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming and Montana - has historically voted for Republican presidential candidates, recently Democrats have won a number of significant state elections.

That, along with the fact that John Kerry would've won the presidency in 2004 if he had edged out President Bush in Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico, has led many Democratic leaders to declare that the road to the White House goes through the Rocky Mountain West.

Trying to capitalize on that, Democrats picked Denver as their convention site, and Nevada moved up its caucus to Jan. 19. As a result, the Silver State is the only one of the eight that has seen steady candidate traffic.

So Dem candidates go to Las Vegas but skip Denver and Phoenix and Missoula. But it was Colorado, Arizona, and Montana that delivered some of the biggest surprises in 2006. Even WYO Dems came within 1,000 votes of replacing long-time Republican representative Barbara Cubin with Dem Challenger Gary Trauner.

As the story says, the national convention in Denver may help build excitement and possibly some candidate visits to the Rockies.

Here in WYO, we won't be holding our breath.