Rodger McDaniel

Rodger McDaniel has written four books including biographies of Wyoming U.S. senators Lester Hunt and Gale McGee. He is a former state legislator and an attorney who currently serves as the pastor at Highlands Presbyterian Church in Cheyenne. Rodger and his wife, Patricia, live in Laramie

With the question of Vietnam deeply dividing both parties, Democratic Senator Gale McGee of Wyoming was a leading hawk—strongly pro-war. At the same time, he strongly favored a U.S. Senate committed to civil discourse and compromise, where all sides had room to air their disagreements.

Democrat Lester Hunt, a charismatic wartime governor in heavily Republican Wyoming, won a U.S. Senate seat in 1948. There, he clashed with Sen. Joseph McCarthy. After Hunt’s son was convicted for soliciting homosexual contact, Hunt was blackmailed by Republican senators and committed suicide—circumstances that remained largely unknown for three decades.