Dick Cheney Won't Let Family Squabbles Derail His Proxy Senate Campaign

Dick Cheney's daughter Liz will have her name on the ballot for a Senate seat in Wyoming, but the race is all about her father. The former vice president is hitting the fundraising circuit even as he laments that a key policy fight over gay marriage wasn't "dealt with" in complete privacy.

Dick Cheney's daughter Liz will have her name on the ballot for a Senate seat in Wyoming, but the race is all about her father. The former vice president is hitting the fundraising circuit even as he laments that a key policy fight over gay marriage wasn't "dealt with" in complete privacy.

The now-famous spat over gay marriage between Liz Cheney and her sister Mary began when Liz declared her opposition to the unpopular-in-Wyoming practice. This came as a surprise to Mary and Mary's wife, who excoriated Liz in a Facebook post. Dick, ever political (if not politic), backed Liz, prompting Mary to declare her neutrality in the Wyoming race. His frustration, though, was that this obviously political fight ever became public, as he insisted to ABC News.

“We were surprised that there was an attack launched against Liz on Facebook, and wished it hadn’t happened,” Cheney said at the National Press Club. “It’s always been dealt with within the context of the family and frankly that’s our preference.”

(Cheney was at the National Press Club in a joint appearance with his doctor, pitching the latter's new book, Heart: An American Medical Odyssey.) He wouldn't say much else on the subject, telling reporters, "Don't waste your time." Don't waste your time asking about my daughter's policy stances and the debates over them; that's for our family to deal with. OK.

Meanwhile, a group calling itself Cowboy PAC will host the former vice president at a fundraiser in Washington, D.C. meant to provide external support to Liz's campaign, as The New York Times reports. The group helps Liz in more ways than one.

Thursday night’s dinner highlights one of Ms. Cheney’s central challenges in trying to unseat the incumbent: She must be able to tap into her father’s ample Beltway fund-raising network, while overcoming suspicions that she is more Washington than Wyoming.

The fund-raiser comes just over a month after Mr. Cheney pointedly criticized [incumbent Mike] Enzi for receiving much of his contributions from Washington lobbyists.

So instead, that Washington money can go to Cowboy PAC. It seems like a blurry political line, having Dick Cheney appear at a fundraiser for a group that isn't allowed to coordinate with Liz Cheney's campaign, but we're confident that there are lawyers for both parties that have sorted this out.

But it's clear that Liz Cheney's campaign has grown very Dick-centric, as was, perhaps, inevitable. "Mr. Cheney has become a central figure in his eldest daughter’s campaign," The Times notes drily. Who could have predicted?