The Enzi-Cheney race took another odd turn recently, which is in keeping with this increasingly strange campaign.

Bizarre twists and turns seem to be the pattern of the 2014 Republican primary election. U.S. Sen. Mike Enzi wants a fourth term, and Liz Cheney wants to be the GOP candidate instead.

They are in the midst of a stunningly lengthy 13-month competition for the Republican Party’s Senate nomination and, with the sorry state of the Wyoming Democratic Party, an almost assured win in November 2014.

Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, has had a rough start to her first run for elective office. And that’s putting it politely.

Just look at the latest example. On Sept. 21, Cheney’s mother, Lynne Cheney, engaged in a verbal scuffle with former Sen. Alan Simpson, one of the most popular figures in Wyoming.

Simpson, a Republican whose father served as governor and as a senator, retired from politics in 1997 after three terms in the Senate. He expresses an abiding friendship for both Dick Cheney and Enzi, whom he helped recruit for elective politics back in the 1970s.

Simpson angered Liz and Lynne Cheney when he decided to remove his signature from a football at a political gathering last month. He said he didn’t want to see it used as a fundraising tool, while Lynne Cheney said she felt he insulted her granddaughter during the minor fracas.

On Sept. 21, she came up to him at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West’s Patrons Ball and told him what she thought of that incident. Simpson said Lynne Cheney approached him “eyes-flashing and pretty intense,” and after a brief exchange, told him to shut up three times.

That didn’t go over too well with Simpson. He now publicly supports Enzi in the race, even though he said he still has fond feelings for the Cheney family, despite the ballroom blitz.

If the Cheneys wanted to get Simpson to join their cause, or to “shut up” and stop supporting Enzi, they picked a poor place to do it. Cody is Simpson’s beloved hometown, and the Patrons Ball is a major event there.

It seems an odd time and place to engage in a war of words with a legendary figure in state political history.

But it’s in keeping with a stumbling campaign that was launched with an offhand remark that Enzi, who turns 70 in early 2014, was “confused” about Liz Cheney’s political aspirations. That registered as an uncalled-for low blow to many voters, and it also seemed to have awakened Enzi’s fighting spirit.

Other questionable acts in the Cheney campaign include assailing a newspaper editor by name, and speculating that the death of newspapers may not be a bad thing. Liz Cheney also issued a press release raising the issue of same-sex marriage, which drew a sharp response from her sister Mary, who has a lesbian partner.

The result was several days of headlines and news reports with the words “Cheney” and “gay marriage.” Is that useful during a Republican campaign in this deeply conservative state?

Interestingly enough, both Dick and Lynne Cheney have expressed support for gay marriage, but Liz Cheney, who is seeking the support of the anti-same-sex marriage Tea Party movement and other Republican voters, has taken a different stance. Does she really feel that way? Or is she blatantly playing politics on the issue?

With her family history on the matter, it’s a fair question. Did she in fact raise the issue early on to “inoculate” herself on it?

We will mention in passing the self-inflicted wound of Liz Cheney’s fishing license fumble, her recent move to the state, and her decision both to maintain a home in Virginia and to buy a mini-mansion in Jackson Hole, hardly the stomping ground of most conservative Republicans.

In the end, all these incidents, taken together, raise the questions of competence and character. Is Liz Cheney prepared to run for and serve in the U.S. Senate, when her first few months as a candidate show a remarkable lack of common sense and political acumen?