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by heath_harrison
Hoppy Kercheval, mouthpiece for John Raese, says former MU coach and Friends of Coal spokesman Bobby Pruett is thinking about a run against Nick Rahall:
Interestingly, Pruett is vague about his political affiliation. I've been told he's an independent which would allow him to choose to run either as a Democrat or Republican.
Given Pruett's conservative politics, it would be a matter of chosing between running as a Republican and risking the district's enormous registration gap in favor of Democrats, or jumping in early as a Maynard-style rightwing "Democrat."
In the case of the former, he'd still have the coal-funded Ralph Rodighiero to try to divide Democrats in the primary.
Bobby Nelson hosted Majority Leader Truman Chafin(D-Mingo) as a guest on Tri-State Talk today. Despite his advocacy on behalf of the coal industry and rabid criticism of the EPA, Chafin made it clear that he still supports Rahall's re-election.
No word on the identities of the "several people" encouraging Pruett to run, but it wouldn't be surprising if it's the same folks behind Rodighiero.
Conveniently, Pruett resigned his position in Friends of Coal just last month.
Pruett is equally vague on why he might run - simply offering something generically along the lines of "people are mad."
What we do know is that Pruett is more than willing to adopt the coal industry's baseless sky-is-falling rhetoric to try to whip southern West Virginia into a panic.
"I don't have any share in any coal company, but what I do know is what I see on television. You watch Fox News and they've declared war on coal."
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