Welcome To Caucus Day!

It truly is exciting today, here in this small, mostly white state out in flyover country, where a small subset of Americans will cast their ballot and determine the fate of the GOP hopefuls. The media crush is simply amazing, everywhere you look there's another reporter. And the polling has been so non-stop that you expect another one after the caucusues are over! Yes, the eyes of the nation are truly upon Wyoming today!

Wait, you haven't heard about it?

Don't forget Wyoming. It's been overlooked in the hoopla surrounding Thursday's Iowa caucuses and next week's New Hampshire primary, but Wyoming Republicans will caucus Saturday and choose delegates to the national convention in September.

Candidates have paid little attention to the state, though.

Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson, Duncan Hunter and Ron Paul have passed through since September. Mike Huckabee, Rudy Giuliani and John McCain have not.

"Yes, there have been some appearances by the candidates in this state that otherwise wouldn't have occurred this early in the process," said Jim King, who teaches political science at the University of Wyoming. "But candidates are where the media are — in Iowa and New Hampshire."

This is an example of how truly arbitrary this whole selection process is. The media isn't covering Wyoming because they've decided New Hampshire is more important, and anyway who wants to go to Wyoming after spending all that time in Iowa? So they ignore it, which causes the candidates to ignore it, because the important thing about these early races is the bump and not the win. Not that Wyoming should be decisive, but there's no real reason it should be dramatically less decisive than Iow and New Hampshire; all they have going for them is history. This is exhibit A of why the whole system needs an overhaul.

UPDATE: The good news here for Fred Thompson is that it's another state he gets to skip, just like New Hampshire! And a roar went up in Thompson headquarters. Or a snore. Or something.

UPDATE II: Mitt-mentum!

CHEYENNE, Wyoming: U.S. presidential candidate Mitt Romney grabbed the early lead in Wyoming's Republican caucuses Saturday as the state had its brief moment in the political spotlight between the traditional attention-getting contests in Iowa and New Hampshire.

This is good news for John McCain.

UPDATE II: With 83% of precincts reporting Romney has 70% of the delegates, Freddie Thompson 20%, and Duncan Hunter 10%. Hugh Hewitt just had a heart palpitation.

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