Setting aside the age-old debate for a minute over whether cowboy poetry is actual poetry, it turns out it doesn't make a very good pawn in games of political chicken, either. From the New York Times on Elko's cowboy poetry:
That once-obscure gathering became a target in the budget battle a world away in Washington last week, employed by conservatives as a symbol of fiscal waste. Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, a Democrat and the majority leader, invoked the event in arguing against Republican cuts in arts financing in the budget debate, setting off a conflagration of conservative scorn. It put cowboy poetry and Elko, a heavily Republican town with a population of 17,000 about 230 miles east of Reno, very much on the ideological map, like it or not.