Tag: west virginia

#DSCC Recruitment follies: still floundering in WV-SEN.

Just can’t quite see their way clear to get somebody strong to keep the seat.

Attorney Nick Preservati will not run for Senate in West Virginia, forcing Democrats to continue their search for a strong recruit in the 2014 battleground state.

Democrats have been hunting for a candidate in the Mountain State since Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., announced his retirement earlier this year. Rothenberg Political Report/Roll Call rate this race Lean Republican.

Last year, Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, a Republican, announced her campaign for Rockefeller’s seat. She remains the top Republican in the race.

Continue reading #DSCC Recruitment follies: still floundering in WV-SEN.

Joe Manchin shows the Huffington Post why gun-grabbers lost.

I wonder if they have the mother-wit to figure it out?

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) may blame the National Rifle Association for the failure of his background check legislation, but he has no plan to leave the group anytime soon.

“Why would I quit when I’m trying to change from within?” he said in response to a question from The Huffington Post at a breakfast discussion on Friday, sponsored by centrist think tank Third Way.

Translation: Why would I quit when I’m still intending to run for re-election in 2018?  Let me spell it out: the opinion of the Huffington Post is irrelevant to West Virginia voters.  The opinion of the National Rifle Association is not.  Thus, picking which group to gratuitously insult is a simple decision for Joe Manchin – and, yes, waving one’s NRA Life Member card in the face of a prominent Lefty media group is gratuitously insulting, particularly when the discussion is on how the Left can properly punish Democratic Senators who aren’t inclined towards committing political suicide.  Said punishment, by the way, is something that Manchin is not really interested in enabling: Continue reading Joe Manchin shows the Huffington Post why gun-grabbers lost.

West Virginia requires conservative attention on the STATE level.

I feel that a lot of perhaps misplaced angst (and possibly, even recklessness) is on display in this Roll Call article that’s ostensibly about finding a more conservative alternative to Shelley Capito for WV-SEN (people could be forgiven for thinking that the article is actually about complaining about the Tea Party in general).  You can like or not like Shelley Capito as you please, of course.  You can rather keep Senator Rockefeller in that position until he dies than put in an insufficiently conservative Republican replacement, too.  You can even be disgusted by the whole thing.  I have varying degrees of sympathy towards those positions, but it’s a free country: you don’t have to care about my personal opinions if you don’t want to.

Continue reading West Virginia requires conservative attention on the STATE level.

#rsrh So… a guy in jail gets 42% in the WV Democratic Presidential primary.

This is.

Well.

This is certainly something.  Maybe not as much a something as the sight of Senator Joe Manchin (D, WV) refusing to admit whether or not he voted for Barack Obama last night* – profiles in courage, folks. Profiles in courage – but definitely something.  What it does mean is open for interpretation, but here’s one way to figure out whether or not there was an, um, ethnic dimension to this: poll West Virginian Democrats who voted for the convict and ask ’em whether they would have voted for Rep. Allen West if he had been the one running.  That guy was practically the definition of ‘Jacksonian’ when he was serving.

Moe Lane

*Via @jaketapper.  And that should worry Manchin.

WV-GOV going down to the wire.

It’s honestly the best way to describe it. PPP is doing its best to put a positive spin on the way that their own polling is showing Democratic Acting Governor Earl Ray Tomblin going from a 46/40 lead over Republican businessman Bill Maloney to a 47/46 lead now, but the trend is fairly clear.  September’s polling showed 14% undecided; today it’s 7%, and those numbers have pretty much all broken for Maloney.  Worse, from Tomblin’s point of view?  Those are Democrats going to Maloney: Republican and independent voters have not shifted in the last month.

Does this mean that Maloney’s a shoo-in?  Of course not; Tomblin retains three advantages.  First, party registration is still lopsided in West Virginia.  Second, the Acting Governor is personally popular (as is Maloney), which is rare for Democratic incumbents these days.  Third, this is a special election, which means that turnout will be reduced.  Normally that wouldn’t favor an opponent, but if Tomblin’s hemorrhaging Democrats… well.  We’ll see tomorrow.

In the meantime, Bill could almost certainly still use some help.  Every little bit, and all that.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

#rsrh Possible upset in WV-GOV?

Democratic pollster PPP reports that Republican Bill Maloney is now trailing acting Governor Earl Ray Tomblin by only six points (46/40, poll data here).  Compare that to the May (45/30) and April (56/23) polls from the same pollster and suddenly we apparently have a race on our hands.

Yes, I know.  It’s early days yet to justify the title, but let’s see how the next couple of months go month goes.

Bill Maloney’s site is here.

(Via @streiffredstate)

RGA Ad: Earl Ray Tomblin and West Virginia Pays.

The RGA has a website (West Virginia Pays) and an ad up to get people… acquainted… with acting Governor Earl Ray Tomblin (D):

 

To refresh people’s memories: West Virginia – a coal-producing state that is almost stubbornly Democratic on the local level, despite the fact that the national Democratic party elite dreams of dismantling the coal industry – last year saw Democratic governor Joe Manchin transfer over to the US Senate.  This made state Senate President Tomblin – a man who has been a professional politician for almost my entire life; heck, he went directly from school to the legislature – acting Governor; there will be a special election in October of this year; his Republican opponent is businessman and engineer Bill Maloney.
Continue reading RGA Ad: Earl Ray Tomblin and West Virginia Pays.

Gov Manchin (D CAND, WV-SEN) values real estate values over miners’ lives.

The Manchin administration in West Virginia has decided that the needs of its new, state-owned technology park outweigh the needs of miner safety.

Let’s walk through this: Continue reading Gov Manchin (D CAND, WV-SEN) values real estate values over miners’ lives.

Special election in WV?

The report is that West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin (D) will be pushing for having a 2010 special election for the late Senator Robert Byrd’s seat.  In this he’s joined by Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R), who shares with Manchin a desire for the job.  Which is fine: neither politician is making a secret of it and they’d be the most likely candidates for 2012 anyway.

There does seem to be a general consensus that while a special election is not required, it would be desirable:

Secretary of State Natalie Tenant has already called on state lawmakers to revise the law to allow for a special election.

“For me, there is a distinct line between how I personally feel and what I can legally do,” Tennant said on her website late last week. “I personally believe that the voters of the state should be allowed to elect a successor to Senator Byrd sooner than November of 2012.”

Continue reading Special election in WV?