[video=youtube;QqvUz0HrNKY]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqvUz0HrNKY[/video]
Liz Cheney Quits Wyoming Senate Race
WASHINGTON — Liz Cheney announced early Monday morning that she is withdrawing from the Wyoming Republican Senate primary, bringing an abrupt end to her unsteady challenge to the incumbent, Michael B. Enzi.
“Serious health issues have recently arisen in our family, and under the circumstances, I have decided to discontinue my campaign,” Ms. Cheney said in a statement. “My children and their futures were the motivation for our campaign and their health and well-being will always be my overriding priority.”
She added, “As a mother and a patriot, I know that the work of defending freedom and protecting liberty must continue for each generation. Though this campaign stops today, my commitment to keep fighting with you and your families for the fundamental values that have made this nation and Wyoming great will never stop.”
Ms. Cheney wrote in an email that she would not say anything further on Monday about the nature of the health issue.
Since Ms. Cheney, 47, the former vice president’s elder daughter, declared her candidacy in July against Mr. Enzi — a well-liked, three-term Senate veteran —she not only never found traction but also wound up causing deep rifts among longtime friends and even within her own family.
Her task was always going to be difficult. Unlike some of the other sitting Republican senators who have been challenged in primaries in recent years, Mr. Enzi has a solidly conservative voting record and did not present the sort of vulnerabilities Ms. Cheney could exploit. But Ms. Cheney never was able to focus much on her opponent, spending much of her five-month candidacy fending off distractions to her campaign.
Having relocated from suburban Washington to the Jackson Hole area in 2012, she faced relentless questions about her residency and why she would move to the state her father once represented in Congress and almost immediately begin running for office against an incumbent. Longtime friends of the Cheney family in Wyoming, including former Senator Alan K. Simpson, fretted publicly about such a divisive primary. His open expressions of concern prompted a private rebuke from Liz Cheney’s mother, Lynne, who told him to “shut up,” according to Mr. Simpson.
The perception of Liz Cheney as a carpetbagger was compounded when it was revealed this summer in the Wyoming news media that she had sought a fishing license — a rite of passage in the state — by claiming on her application to be a 10-year resident.
Not long after the fishing flap, at the start of Labor Day weekend, Ms. Cheney declared her opposition to same-sex marriage and drew the ire of her younger sister, Mary, who is a lesbian. Soon after, a third-party conservative group began airing ads in Wyoming’s inexpensive television markets portraying Liz Cheney as supportive of gay rights. And when she reaffirmed her opposition to same-sex marriage in a November television appearance, Liz Cheney was criticized again by her sister as well as Mary Cheney’s spouse, Heather Poe.
Further, in an interview with The New York Times, Mary Cheney revealed that she had not spoken to her sister in months and that they would not be spending the holidays together. That prompted Dick and Lynne Cheney to issue a statement, which seemed to take Liz’s side in the dispute, affirming that their elder daughter was in fact opposed to same-sex marriage.
Liz Cheney, thanks to some help from her father, had raised $1 million for her campaign in the first months of her candidacy, allowing her to air a pair of introductory television ads that emphasized her family’s deep roots in Wyoming. A “super PAC” supporting Ms. Cheney was also set up and began to raise money.
By the start of the new year, the state was bracing for an unprecedented primary clash. Sunday’s Casper Star-Tribune, the most influential paper in the state, carried a front-page story with a headline that read: “Expect More Cheney-Enzi Drama.”
Ms. Cheney’s sudden withdrawal, first reported Sunday by CNN, was indeed dramatic — as much of the short-lived campaign had been. But not for reasons she or her parents would have liked. A campaign meant to carry on the Cheney banner of pugnacious conservatism, especially on national security, offered a vivid reminder about the limitations of transferring political power.
Liz Cheney Quits Wyoming Senate Race
WASHINGTON — Liz Cheney announced early Monday morning that she is withdrawing from the Wyoming Republican Senate primary, bringing an abrupt end to her unsteady challenge to the incumbent, Michael B. Enzi.
“Serious health issues have recently arisen in our family, and under the circumstances, I have decided to discontinue my campaign,” Ms. Cheney said in a statement. “My children and their futures were the motivation for our campaign and their health and well-being will always be my overriding priority.”
She added, “As a mother and a patriot, I know that the work of defending freedom and protecting liberty must continue for each generation. Though this campaign stops today, my commitment to keep fighting with you and your families for the fundamental values that have made this nation and Wyoming great will never stop.”
Ms. Cheney wrote in an email that she would not say anything further on Monday about the nature of the health issue.
Since Ms. Cheney, 47, the former vice president’s elder daughter, declared her candidacy in July against Mr. Enzi — a well-liked, three-term Senate veteran —she not only never found traction but also wound up causing deep rifts among longtime friends and even within her own family.
Her task was always going to be difficult. Unlike some of the other sitting Republican senators who have been challenged in primaries in recent years, Mr. Enzi has a solidly conservative voting record and did not present the sort of vulnerabilities Ms. Cheney could exploit. But Ms. Cheney never was able to focus much on her opponent, spending much of her five-month candidacy fending off distractions to her campaign.
Having relocated from suburban Washington to the Jackson Hole area in 2012, she faced relentless questions about her residency and why she would move to the state her father once represented in Congress and almost immediately begin running for office against an incumbent. Longtime friends of the Cheney family in Wyoming, including former Senator Alan K. Simpson, fretted publicly about such a divisive primary. His open expressions of concern prompted a private rebuke from Liz Cheney’s mother, Lynne, who told him to “shut up,” according to Mr. Simpson.
The perception of Liz Cheney as a carpetbagger was compounded when it was revealed this summer in the Wyoming news media that she had sought a fishing license — a rite of passage in the state — by claiming on her application to be a 10-year resident.
Not long after the fishing flap, at the start of Labor Day weekend, Ms. Cheney declared her opposition to same-sex marriage and drew the ire of her younger sister, Mary, who is a lesbian. Soon after, a third-party conservative group began airing ads in Wyoming’s inexpensive television markets portraying Liz Cheney as supportive of gay rights. And when she reaffirmed her opposition to same-sex marriage in a November television appearance, Liz Cheney was criticized again by her sister as well as Mary Cheney’s spouse, Heather Poe.
Further, in an interview with The New York Times, Mary Cheney revealed that she had not spoken to her sister in months and that they would not be spending the holidays together. That prompted Dick and Lynne Cheney to issue a statement, which seemed to take Liz’s side in the dispute, affirming that their elder daughter was in fact opposed to same-sex marriage.
Liz Cheney, thanks to some help from her father, had raised $1 million for her campaign in the first months of her candidacy, allowing her to air a pair of introductory television ads that emphasized her family’s deep roots in Wyoming. A “super PAC” supporting Ms. Cheney was also set up and began to raise money.
By the start of the new year, the state was bracing for an unprecedented primary clash. Sunday’s Casper Star-Tribune, the most influential paper in the state, carried a front-page story with a headline that read: “Expect More Cheney-Enzi Drama.”
Ms. Cheney’s sudden withdrawal, first reported Sunday by CNN, was indeed dramatic — as much of the short-lived campaign had been. But not for reasons she or her parents would have liked. A campaign meant to carry on the Cheney banner of pugnacious conservatism, especially on national security, offered a vivid reminder about the limitations of transferring political power.
