Cheney’s daughter one step away from occupying father’s old seat in Congress

The daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, having decided to continue in her father’s footsteps in politics, is now just one step away from taking over the seat he held for a decade for Wyoming in the House of Representatives, local media reported Wednesday.

Liz Cheney, 50, the heir to her father’s hardline conservativism, on Tuesday won the Republican primary for rural and sparsely populated northwestern state’s only House seat, and it is very probable that she will prevail in the November election, given that the seat has been held for decades by Republican Party politicians.

The younger Cheney adheres to the ideological line of her father, who was President George W. Bush’s righthand man and considered by many to have been the real power within that administration, as well as the driving force behind decisions such as going to war with Iraq and using torture in the interrogations of suspected terrorists.

“I look forward very much to moving forward in the general election, unified and focused on making sure we send the strongest conservative voice to Washington,” she said after learning of her primary victory, as reported by the local daily Casper Star Tribune.

Cheney worked for many years as an attorney handling international matters in the Department of State, earning a reputation as a “hawk” on defense issues and a real proponent of increasing the U.S. military footprint around the world.

She was heavily involved in her father’s two campaigns for vice president and in 2012 she became a commentator for the conservative Fox News television network.

In 2013, she announced her intention to run for a Senate seat for Wyoming, and this produced discord within the GOP because she might have unseated veteran Republican Sen. Mike Enzi, and so she withdrew her candidacy after several months.

Her brief campaign was also hurt by the bickering she engaged in on Facebook with her sister Mary, who is married to a woman, because of Liz’s vehement opposition to gay marriage, one of the issues on which she is more conservative than her father, who in 2009 announced his support for samesex marriage provided that it was approved by the states.

In memoirs published in late 2015, former President George H. W. Bush (19891993), whom Dick Cheney served as defense secretary, suggested that Cheney’s political evolution toward more extreme stances was the result of the influence of his wife Lynne and his daughter Liz.

The primary that Liz Cheney won was the most competitive in the last 100 years in Wyoming, with nine candidates, but she managed to garner at least 40 percent of the vote and will go up against Democrat Ryan Greene in the November election.