| Didn't we just oust Don Blankenship's vacation buddy Spike Maynard?
Now we've got Blankenship the U.S. Chamber of Commerce attempting to buy two other West Virginia races to install their own bought and paid for politicians: the pro-adultery attorney general candidate Dan Greear and the pro-theocracy, anti-worker Supreme Court candidate Beth Walker.
As Randolph Clark pointed out, the large amount of money dumped by outside organizations is a blatant attempt to subvert the West Virginia electoral process.
Here's the statement from West Virginia Democratic Party chairman Nick Casey:
Democratic Chairman Casey Responds to 11th hour $1 million dollar Ad Buy by Big Moneyed Out-of-State Special Interests
(Charleston) Democratic Party Chairman Nick Casey today responded to an 11th hour spending blitz on behalf of Republicans Dan Greear and Beth Walker financed by out-of-state special interest money.
"On Wednesday, six days before the election, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and their allies purchased more than a million dollars of broadcast advertising on behalf of Attorney General candidate Dan Greear and Supreme Court Candidate Beth Walker. More than sixty percent of these funds come from out-of-state special interests - who themselves are financed by the very groups that are responsible for our current crisis on Wall Street.
"The question is - why are these out-of-state groups spending so much to elect a West Virginia Supreme Court Judge and a West Virginia Attorney General? West Virginians will never know the answer to that question because these groups will not voluntarily disclose who their contributors are. They won't say which Wall Street Bankers and Corporate CEOs are writing the big checks to finance this effort because they think their anonymity is more important than complete disclosure. What do they have to hide?
"Two years ago another millionaire failed in his attempt to elect his handpicked candidates despite spending some three million dollars in a similar effort. West Virginians said loud and clear then - and I'm confident they'll say loud and clear now - West Virginia is not for sale!"
The West Virginia Chamber of Commerce, in the past a relatively sane organization that had distanced itself from such practices, has joined with the always anti-West Virginia U.S. Chamber of Commerce in an attempt to buy offices for their two hand-picked candidates in order to guarantee that workers and consumers are not protected in this state.
What kind of justice is the Chamber of Commerce hoping to buy with that kind of money? Dan Grar and Beth Walker have a golden opportunity to show they can't be bought and paid for with a $1 million contribution from shadowy contributors by immediately returning it. Otherwise the message they send by keeping it is loud and clear to their benefactors and to the people of West Virginia.
While Darrell McGraw has done a great job protecting the people of West Virginia as attorney general, he's angered Blankenship the Chamber of Commerce because he holds bad corporations accountable for their misdeeds. Dan Grar is the perfect tool for the corporations over the people. While his campaign mailer shows Grar with a smiling family, he's hired serial adulterer Vic Sprouse who has sought to avoid fully supporting the healthcare needs of his ill son from one of his many previous marriages. Sprouse has said anything said and done by a candidate's advisor is the same as the candidate saying and doing it.
Meanwhile Beth Walker has cut a commercial that makes it clear she is running to bring her own brand of values to West Virginia that apparently are not about the state or federal constitution.
So West Virginians will have a choice - a return to the kind of bought-and-paid for judicial officials like we just got rid of with Spike Maynard or to elect officials who'll work for and are supported by the people of West Virginia.
The choice is clear: vote for Margaret Workman and Menis Ketchum for the Supreme Court and Darrell McGraw for Attorney General. |
