The Wyoming Republican Party’s recent convention in Gillette demonstrated that the radical right’s takeover of the GOP is now complete.

It wasn’t just that officials ramrodded through wholesale bylaw changes that punish county organizations and candidates who don’t follow the orders of the party’s central committee.

Or even that the party’s last-minute Senate-race straw poll — taken after many delegates walked out in disgust following the bylaws fiasco — selected a little-known, far-right candidate over a staunchly conservative, four-term Wyoming congresswoman.

For most of the four decades I’ve covered Wyoming politics, either incident would have been unthinkable at a Republican convention.