By Joel Funk
Wyoming Tribune Eagle
Via Wyoming News Exchange
CHEYENNE – A Democratic candidate to be Wyoming’s next governor promised last week his campaign will be as wild as his name.
It’s not Rex Wilde’s first run for governor, as he came in third of five candidates when he made a bid on the Democratic ticket in 2010. And the Cheyenne resident said he’s been talking about another stab at the governor’s office since he lost his last bid for statewide office when Democrat Charles Hardy bested him in the 2014 U.S. Senate primary.
Wilde’s last run for public office came in Cheyenne’s 2016 mayoral race.
This year, Wilde is one of four Democrats to enter on the blue party’s ticket. The winner of that race will face whoever emerges victorious in the busy GOP primary, where six candidates are seeking the Republican nod in a quest to replace Gov. Matt Mead. Constitution Party candidate Rex Rammell of Rock Springs also plans to participate in the Nov. 6 general election.
Democrat Mary Throne of Cheyenne, a former lawmaker, is considered the frontrunner by many, but Wilde said he brings another option to the ticket he thinks many in the party will find appealing.
“I’m running because there are some issues that have not been brought by former governors and those who are running,” Wilde said Friday as he spoke from the front porch of his self-described campaign headquarters, Alf’s Pub. “My platform is as wild as my last name. This is going to be fun.”
Wilde’s grassroots, one-man-show campaign has a few key issues he wants to focus on. Right off the bat, Wilde wants people to know he’s a military veteran and “staunch proponent of the Second Amendment.”
In terms of what he could affect as Wyoming’s top executive, Wilde said he has three top priorities:
n Aggressively promo-ting Wyoming as a tourist destination
n Emphasizing water development issues
n Pushing “full-blown legalization of recreational and medical marijuana”
Revenue generated by tourism and related activities is the second-largest contributor to Wyoming’s economy, according to a report by Dean Runyan Associates. The Wyoming Office of Tourism – with a mission of highlighting the state as a vacation destination for travelers through domestic and international promotion – has taken cuts in recent years as lawmakers grapple with decreased revenues. Many industry advocates have warned Wyoming needs to do more to keep up with competing states before it’s left behind.
Wilde said it should be a top priority to increase those efforts and invest more public funds in promoting tourism across the nation and in the international community, especially in Europe and Japan.
“We need to bring that back,” Wilde said. “That brings in revenue for the state, and we need to put a lot more into that.”
Water is his passion, Wilde said. He criticized the Wyoming Legislature for how it handled a proposed dam on the West Fork of Battle Creek in Carbon County. Advocates called on lawmakers to appropriate $40 million to move the project forward, but the actual appropriation in the 2018 omnibus water bill was reduced to $4.69 million as they wait for more details to come together (the state funds for the project are still available, but not yet appropriated).
“They wanted $40 million to do this dam, and the Legislature gave them $4 million – might as well give them a plastic kiddie pool,” Wilde said. “Whenever you can hold water back in Wyoming or the West, it’s liquid gold.”
The elephant in the room, as Wilde sees it, is the marijuana issue. He said he’s convinced experts who paint a positive picture of the drug are correct. Wyoming, he said, should follow the lead of other states that have gone beyond decriminalization to embrace marijuana and derived products, both medically and recreationally.
“We need to make it legal, which in this state is going to turn some heads, but I really don’t care,” he said.
Wyoming lawmakers found themselves at an impasse during the 2018 budget session as they again failed to pass meaningful clarifications in state statute when it comes to possession of non-plant forms of marijuana. Legislators on the decriminalization side have repeatedly found themselves at odds with those looking to define what constitutes felonies for cannabis-infused products such as edibles.
Wilde wants the issue put in the voters’ hands with a ballot referendum.
“It’s time that comes up to the people for a vote,” he said.
Any revenue from a potential legalization of recreational marijuana sales would go toward education and water development in a Wilde administration, he said.
On the issue hanging over the governor’s race – economic diversification – Wilde said he’s confident his initiatives would push the state in the right direction. Mead’s ENDOW initiative – meant to move the needle on diversifying the economy through the next 20 years – is too slow-moving, Wilde said.
The Wyoming primary is scheduled for Aug. 21. Governors in the state serve four-year terms and are paid an annual salary of $105,000.