Other Wyoming politicos who’ve tried to stay above the fray have found themselves drawn into the feud, notably Alan Simpson, the former Republican senator known for his crotchety demeanor. The Cheneys and the Simpsons were at a charity gala in Cody, Wyoming, when Lynne Cheney—Liz’s mother, Dick’s wife, and a writer of racy novels—allegedly approached Simpson and told him to “shut your mouth.” Simpson’s daughter-in-law posted about the incident on her Facebook page, and the local press picked up the story. Lynne issued a statement asserting that the interaction “simply did not happen.”

This denial apparently sent Simpson into a rage. He penned a remarkable 2,200-word letter to the Cody Enterprise recounting the whole shaggy-dog story from beginning to end: his admiration for Dick Cheney, his loyalty to Enzi, his repeated attempts to avoid getting dragged into conflict between the two camps. A literal political football is involved, as well as an organization called Cowboys Against Cancer and an invocation of the delightfully named late Wyoming Senator Malcolm Wallop. Simpson reaffirms the scene with Cheney—in his telling, she is holding a drink, and bursts out, “Oh, I’ve heard enough of that and I don’t want to hear anymore. I just want to tell you something, 'Shut up—just shut up —shut up.'"

True to intemperate form, Simpson concludes by noting that he will not be called a liar by anyone. “I’ve been called fool, idiot, boob, bonehead, dink, slob, greenie, soot-covered slob, all the rest—and that is ‘fair,’ believe it or not, in politics,” Simpson writes. But in four decades, he adds, “I have never been called a liar before and it sure as hell won’t work this time.”

Prior to that fracas, Liz Cheney had broken with other family members to come out against gay marriage, antagonizing her own sister. And she feuded with the editor of the Jackson Hole News & Guide after that newspaper reported that Cheney had paid a fine for lying on her Wyoming fishing-license application. (Cheney sought a cheaper “resident” license, even though she didn’t meet its requirement of having lived in the state for over a year.) At a Tea Party rally, Cheney singled out the editor—“His name is Angus,” she told the crowd—and accused him of bias. When the Cody Enterprise wrote about those comments, its own reporter was barred from Cheney’s next event.

The editor of the Casper Star-Tribune decried Cheney’s shoot-the-messenger tactics as “tacky,” “over the top,” “un-American,” and a “little hissy fit.” The episode, Darrell Ehrlick noted, epitomized the rap on Cheney: “that she’s nothing more than an attack candidate meant to embody the political frustration that so many people feel, solutions be damned.” This, to Enzi’s allies, is what the race comes down to: a senator who’s plenty conservative but lacks the pugilistic style of a Ted Cruz versus an upstart whose principal offering isn’t policy differences but an appetite for constant public conflict.