The Cubin Missing Crisis
Some Dems Mourn Departure of Barbara Cubin


"I have a feeling Democrats wish she were still running."

Quinn McCord, managing editor of The Hotline, on departing U.S. Representative Barbara Cubin.

Oh, be careful what you wish for.

 

Missing Barbara Cubin is something of a recurrent theme around the state these days, especially among Democrats. Cubin, the generally disliked and largely ineffective occupant of Wyoming's lone seat in the U.S. House of Representatives since 1995, is leaving at the end of her current term, but some wish they'd have one more chance to run against her, for no other reason than that Cubin looks like an easy target.

 

In many ways, you can't really blame some Democrats for looking back at Cubin as something of a missed opportunity. Her narrow win in 2006 over Democrat Gary Trauner almost begs for a rematch. But a review of Cubin's political record shows a remarkable -downright inexplicable- resilience of the sort that should have opponents from both parties thankful that she's opted to pack up her tent and head home.

 

Democrat Party strategists could scratch their heads but there must have been something that continued to attract Wyoming voters to Barbara Cubin and her politically incorrect behavior. Perhaps it was her ribald unconventiality itself. Wyoming, after all, is a state that cherishes the memory of Calamity Jane, a cohort of Buffalo Bill who was man's woman if there ever was one.

Cubin may have been lazy, inept and outrageous, but she was never boring. Texas had its Charlie Wilson, the cocaine-snorting, showgirl-dating, U.S. Representative from Lufkin, recently portrayed on screen by Tom Hanks. For years, the left-leaning Texas Observer dined out on "Timber Charlie" stories, many written by the late Molly Ivins. "That would be the same Charlie Wilson we've known all these years as a rascal, reprobate and rouge -- and also, a semi-decent congressman from East Texas, a dead-serious patriot and a lot more fun than the average bear," Ivins wrote in a review of television newsman George Crile's book on Wilson.

Wyoming - which never has been attacted to sternly feminist politicians like Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi- had Barbara Cubin.

 

By any stretch of the imagination, Cubin was an unlikely candidate to fill the House spot left vacant by Craig Thomas's decision to run for Malcolm Wallop's Senate seat in 1994. To those of us who recalled her not-so-stellar tenure in the Wyoming legislature, her candidacy almost seemed like a joke. This was, after all, the same Barbara Cubin who thought it appropriate to distribute those now-infamous penis cookies in the state senate and who passed the time snapping pictures of her male colleagues' crotches and challenging others to "put a name to the package."

As a legislator, Cubin's record was really one without distinction. She showed little interest in the more complex issues facing the state, did little of the leg work required to comprehend the ramifications of a particular vote, and rarely introduced legislation. She took her cues from party leadership and could be counted upon to raise her hand when needed.

Indeed, the prospect of reporting on what would surely be an impossible campaign might have been what drove one Casper Star-Tribune political writer to inadvertently plant the idea of a Congressional run in Cubin's head in the first place.

In the spring of 1994, after Thomas had announced plans to run for the Senate, Cubin stopped by the offices of her local paper on some sort of media errand. Seeing his state senator across the newsroom, then-assistant managing editor Hugh Jackson shouted out "Hey, Barbara, are you going to run for Craig's seat?"

Dan Whipple, then the paper’s city editor, later described the moment of epiphany.

"Cubin at first looked genuinely perplexed by Hugh's question," Whipple wrote in 2006, "but then brightened like a blossoming spring flower. 'I don’t know,' she answered. 'Do you think I should?' 'Hell, yeah,' said Hugh enthusiastically, no doubt salivating over the stories her candidacy would generate."

 

Whipple and others have since only half-jokingly blamed Jackson for inflicting Cubin on Wyoming and Congress. What's remarkable, though, is that Cubin managed to emerge at the top of a crowded, eight-candidate primary field and then went on to defeat Jackson trial lawyer Bob Schuster in the most expensive congressional campaign in Wyoming history, taking 53 percent of the vote. She's repeated the feat – with varying margins – six times since then.

In her first race, some suggest that Cubin benefitted from the 1994 GOP revolution, the same anti-Clinton sentiment that swept Republicans into power in House and the Senate, putting Newt Gingrich and his "contract with America," into the Speaker's seat. But even after Gingrich's light faded, Cubin continued to rack up wins in her home state.

Running against former University of Wyoming College of Law dean Pete Maxfield in 1996, Cubin upped her winning margin to 55 percent. In 1998, facing off against Scott Farris, a Democrat with no electoral track record but plenty of political experience, she won with 58 percent of the vote.

 

Courtesy Image. Cubin rides in the Riverton Centennial Parade.

Through it all, the Cubin stayed true to her roots. As in the Wyoming legislature, Cubin became a GOP foot soldier in Congress, one of those arms that could be counted upon to be raised when needed. Generally she asked little in return. In her first year, Cubin voted against the wishes of her party leadership in just four percent of the 885 votes she cast. That figure varied only slightly over the ensuing 14 years, dropping as low as 2.5 percent. In contrast, her predecessor Craig Thomas' non-party votes consistently hovered around the 10 percent mark. It's an admittedly broad gauge, but unless one believes that either party's leadership knows what's best for Wyoming, a modicum of independence from straight-party-line votes might be considered an admirable quality.

 

Measuring the overall effectiveness of a member of Congress can be a formidable task. The policy wonks at Congress.org do give it a shot, though, using four broad categories – position, influence, earmarks and legislation – to measure the impact any of the House’s 435 members has on the legislative process (impact statistics here).  Despite a 14-year Congressional career, Cubin consistently ranks among the least effective. Indeed, of the four benchmarks, Cubin's "position" rank is the only one that scored well (a 23 on a scale of 25) on the organization's charts and that is due largely to the length of her tenure. In 2007, Cubin scored a big fat goose-egg – a zero – in "influence," and ones on both "legislation" and "earmarks."

 

Her lack of attention to detail, too, has tripped her up at times as well. In 2006, Cubin was listed as a co-sponsor of a measure that would have released up to 354,000 acres of Wyoming public land at fire-sale prices ($1000 an acre) to corporate buyers, who would have been were then free to resell at market rates. The idea was supposedly a way to off-set the costs associated with the recovery from Hurricane Katrina. The outcry was almost immediate, and Cubin quickly insisted that she had never intended to support the measure, saying a "clerical error" put her name of the list of co-sponsors. 

 

That same year on the eve of the November election, Cubin granted an interview to the University of Wyoming student newspaper, The Branding Iron, in which – as might be expected from a media outlet run by students – she was asked to explain a vote against increasing funding for education loan programs. "How the hell should I know?" she snapped, and went on to say that she casts "thousands of votes" each year and can't be expected to recall her reasons.

Her estimate regarding the number of votes she cast, too, was a little off. In 2007, Cubin held the distinction of missing more votes than any member of Congress, except those who had died in office. By November of last year, she had dropped below the 50-percent mark and her record in 2008 may set a new standard. If her attendance record is any measure, Cubin may have been living up to her original 1994 promise of serving only six terms in the U.S. House; unfortunately, she was elected to seven.

When she was present, she displayed the same idiosyncrasies that we'd come to know during her raunchy days in the Wyoming legislature, despite holding national office and having access to political grooming from party specialists. In 2002, in a meeting with top GOP contributors, she inexplicably blurted out, "I know what Victoria's secret is. She's a slut."

Two years earlier, in a Republican strategy session on the Florida recount, Cubin declared, "We are bending over and taking it from the Democrats." When some of the more socially conservative members of the group objected to her allusion, she responded, "Quiet down or you'll get a spanking."

Nonetheless, she continued to score wins every two years back home, taking 67 percent in a race against Michael Green in 2000 and 61 percent against Ron Akin in 2002.

By 2004, though, cracks had appeared in Cubin's armor. That year, four Republicans announced plans to challenge against the incumbent, including Cheyenne attorney and National Guard General Bruce Asay. And State Senator Cale Case. Fending them off, Cubin again won her party's nomination and went on to win November's general election over Democrat Ted Ladd with a 55 to 42 percent margin, enough for the win, but well short of the 69 percent the Bush presidential ticket scored here in the same election.

 

Cubin broke her promise to seek only six terms and announced plans to run again in 2006. Running against retired Navy officer Bill Winney, Cubin won her party primary. Winney, a political newcomer who spent almost no money on the race, nonetheless managed to score 40 percent.

 

The victory margin was much closer in November against Gary Trauner, but she still won. Cubin won despite another in her long line of weird outbursts – threatening to slap the wheelchair-bound Libertarian Thomas Rankin – and her decision to keep $22,520 from the political action committee of former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, who was under indictment for campaign finance violations at the time.

Courtesy Image. Cubin in a constituent meeting.

 

Her narrow win over Trauner may have been what finally convinced Cubin that her political days were numbered. Heavy hitters in her own party, too, seemed to get the message and state House Majority Leader Colin Simpson indicated he would mount a primary challenge in 2008. That never materialized, but neither did the money for Cubin's expected rematch with Trauner.

Cubin raised only $11,000 in the third quarter of 2007 and the prospects for additional cash seemed remote. Politically weakened and perhaps seeing the writing on the wall, Cubin announced that she would not seek reelection in 2008.

Trauner, for one, says he wasn't motivated by the prospect of a rematch when he announced plans to run again in November.

"I had no idea whether she would do it again or not, all I knew is that we needed to do better," Trauner told WyoFile.

Regardless of Trauner's view of the election, many Democrats cannot shake the feeling that Cubin would have been a more vulnerable political target in the fall election. Said one senior Wyoming Democrat: "It was widely believed that if Cubin ran again, she'd be in big trouble because Democrats were turning out in big numbers to be a part of this presidential election; I really think we could have used her running again…at least as insurance."

 

Trauner now faces a much tougher race against an actual competent opponent, most likely either Buffalo rancher Mark Gordon or former State Treasurer State Cynthia Lummis.

Had Cubin not retired, political odds-makers might have given Trauner the edge, but given Cubin's remarkable record of being reelected – despite being Barbara Cubin – she might just have pulled it off.