Liz Cheney’s primary challenge to incumbent Wyoming Sen. Mike Enzi prompted more think pieces on the race than there are escalators in the entire state.
The closest most Americans have been to Wyoming is traveling through while playing the Oregon Trail on Windows 95. Liberal pubs are cackling with glee at any sliver of Equality State-centric factoids to discredit "useless" Wyoming and its equal representation in the Senate.
The sole target of the Beltway-umanti’s ridicule: some 2008 consumer report column that noted the state only had two escalators in its entire 97,814 square mileage.
Because this an important story, The Atlantic followed up to see if, in the interregnum, perhaps those primitives in Wyoming would discover the advent of moving stairs.
I asked a spokesman for the Wyoming governor's office whether any escalators might have been constructed in the state since 2008; he wasn't sure, but thought the newly-constructed airport in Jackson Hole might be a contender. The airport is single-level, though, it turns out -- no escalators necessary.
And there seems to be no escalator elsewhere in Jackson, either. "I'm not aware of any," said Andy Heffron of the city's Chamber of Commerce. "I don't even think the hospital has an escalator," another Chamber representative said. It's "just stairs and elevators, that kind of thing."
So just stairs and elevators, Cowboy State?
I’m alarmed that Wyoming’s obesity rate is 2 percent below the national average. Wyoming also ranks in the top 10 states for lowest rate of high blood pressure and lowest rate of diabetes. We need to correct this. I ask Wyoming to reconsider its stance toward the child of Nathan Ames.
Escalators are an outstanding convenience: A user has the opportunity to either stand comfortably or choose to walk up (or down!) the moving flight. Providing citizens the opportunity to stand on a functioning escalator is bound to improve the general health and mood of all Wyomingites.
And escalators can never go out of service.