West Virginia Blue
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Brought to you from the home office in the outskirts of Clemtown, West Virginia...
The Top 10 Things I Miss Most About Sen. Carte Goodwin 10. He showed up for work each and every day.
9. Not once did he embarrass the state.
8. He reliably represented hard-working and out-of-work West Virginians.
7. He didn't make a fetish out of "bipartisanship."
6. As the youngest in the Senate, he knew how to party -- and more importantly when not to.
5. He didn't join any phony centrist organizations that intend to gut Social Security and Medicare.
4. You could count on him to earn his paycheck.
3. He never provided Republicans with a great line to use against him in the next election.
2. You knew where he stood on every bill--he never missed a vote.
And, the #1 thing I miss most about Sen. Carte Goodwin
1. "He's Not Your Average Joe"
* If you haven't voted yet, please vote on Tuesday. I urge everyone in West Virginia to vote a straight party Democratic Party ticket. In the congressional races, the choices are starkly clear. A Republican victory makes it that much harder for future progressive policy advocacy.
For example, if Raese wins the discourse shifts to arguments about whether whether climate change is real and if work place safety and environmental regulations should exist at all.
If Manchin wins, at least we're starting from a more rational place to fight our battles.
* This is one of those years when I really wished we had instant runoff voting. Instead of voting for the candidate whose views were closest to mine, I was stuck voting for the least worst option with a chance to win.
* If Joe Manchin pulls off a victory, one of the many people he can thank is Republican Rep. Shelley Moore Capito. In a year when Republicans are picking up seats all over the country, the weak WV GOP bench is a major liability for WV GOP chances.
Since her election in 2000, Capito has worked hard to make sure she's the only viable state GOP candidate. Even in this election, with her best chance ever to welcome aboard fellow Republicans to the WV delegation in DC, Capito has been MIA. If Raese or McKinley squeak out a victory, it'll be no thanks to her.
* The most famous political science model for predicting US House election outcomes says the Republicans are expected (based on the economy and historic conditions like party in power) to win 45 seats. Nate Silver's current model estimates a Republican margin of 55 seats--not far off. As Atrios recently put it, "I think the ignored true narrative of this election season is that as horrible as the economy is, it's a miracle the Dems are seeming to do as well as they are and especially that Obama remains relatively popular." (We'll see on Wednesday is that's really true.)
The outcome of WV-01 will be one of the indications of how the national wind is blowing. I have no idea how it, or the composition of the House, will end up.
The only predictions I'm prepared to make for tomorrow are that Manchin, Capito, and Rahall will all win. No major changes will happen in the composition of the WV state house.
Whatever the election outcome, there's a rocky road ahead.
I would rather extol the many virtues of the Democratic party and advocate for straight party voting. Instead, in good conscience I must share how Joe Manchin has lost my support.
Joe Manchin, Democrat
Joe Manchin more often supports policies more in line with national Republicans than fellow Democrats. Still, in the past I've pointed to Joe's strong support of Obama's WV Campaign for Change and his leadership of the Democratic Governor's Association as evidence that Joe values his party membership.
* Charlie Cook's reality-based view of why the DCCC is still confident about holding onto a House majority in Nov. (1) There aren't that many seats up for grabs, (2) Dems have done well in special elections and (3) the GOP doesn't have the $$ it needs to compete in enough races.
* Ballot order matters, but only a little bit. I think Ken Hechler and Mac Warner were the biggest winners and John Raese the biggest loser in the ballot order lottery for WV-SEN special election. What do you think?
DEMOCRAT:
Ken Hechler
Sheirl Fletcher
Joe Manchin, III
REPUBLICAN:
Thomas Ressler
Harry C. Bruner, Jr.
Frank T. Kubic
John R. Raese
Daniel Scott Rebich
Kenneth A. Culp
Albert Howard
Lynette Kennedy McQuain
Scott H. Williams
Mac Warner
MOUNTAIN:
Jesse Johnson
Climate
* It's really hot out. It's been a summer full of really hot. I fear for how many summer sequels are ahead in the upcoming decades--today's weather is annoying and inconvenient, but if this becomes a new normal it spells all sorts of trouble.
* Just like Duncan Black says: "I'm sure there are very good reasons a stupid hippy like me can't understand why the government can't directly hire thousands of people to go knock on doors and paint roofs white, but I have no idea what they are."
* Mitch Albom gets it exactly right on the Sherrod fiasco: "If a house is burned to the ground ... first you blame the guy who started the fire, right?"
Why should the Dem. and GOP primary have all the fun? The WV-SEN general election now promises to be at least a three-way contest, too.
Mountain Party Candidate to File for Senate
Charleston, WV - Former WV Mountain Party gubernatorial candidate, Jesse Johnson will be filing to run for the unexpired term of US Senator Robert C. Byrd in the special primary election set for August 28th.
Johnson ran as the party's gubernatorial candidate in 2004 and 2008 and as a candidate for US Senate in 2006.
Johnson is running to give WV voters an alternative to politics as usual and protect their constitutional rights as well as the protection of our precious Air, Water, and Mountains here in the Mountain State.
The WV Mountain Party affiliated with the national US Green Party in 2007
So far there have been three Democrats file for WV-SEN: the heavily favored, Gov. Joe Manchin; mountain-top removal activist Ken Hechler; and former Mon County delegate Sheirl Fletcher.
No one has filed yet from the Republican party, but I fully expect that John Raese will. I think he's going to wait until the last minute with the hopes of luring at least one other Republican into the primary.
Why?
Because it is in John Rease's personal interest to have both a contested Republican primary and to have as heavily contested as possible general election. He'll invest a modest amount of his own wealth to keep both races as competitive as possible.
After all, what is one of the biggest differences between a lightly contested and a heavily contested election? The amount of media spending.
And, what would be a nice unexpected windfall for John Raese's West Virginia media empire? Heavy media spending for a contested special Senate election.
Update from Carnacki: Raese makes it official he's in.
If you want to know why Joe Manchin is eager to run for Senate as soon as possible, look no further than the results of this Rasmussen poll released today:
A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Voters in West Virginia, taken Thursday night, shows Manchin with 53% support, while Congresswoman Shelley Moore Capito earns 39% of the vote. Three percent (3%) prefer another candidate in the race, and five percent (5%) are undecided.
If former West Virginia Secretary of State Betty Ireland is his GOP rival, Manchin captures 65% voter support. Ireland picks up 26%. Three percent (3%) again like some other candidate, while six percent (6%) are undecided.
Yet while 77% of the state's voters approve of the job Manchin is doing as governor, he would be running in a challenging political environment for any Democratic candidate.
Only 35% of voters in the state approve of how President Obama is doing his job, while 64% disapprove. This is a much higher rate of disapproval than is found in the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll.
Now, I take this all with a giant grain of salt as Rasmussen has rated poorly among all of the pollsters. But, they generally have a strong Republican bias, so if this is Manchin's floor, that's really saying something.
It's too bad they didn't poll any other Democrats. It would be nice to know how someone like Rep. Rahall matched up across the state vs. Capito, if for no other reason to get a better pulse of Dem/Rep party strength independent of Manchin's personal position as incumbent Gov.
According to reporting by The Hill, there's support from in both party headquarters for a November, 2010 election.
Democrats in the state expect the governor to make some public statement on the situation as early as Wednesday.
Derek Scarbro, executive director of the West Virginia Democratic Party, said the state party doesn't have an official position on whether or not there should be a special election this November, but he said there is strong support for the idea from both Democrats and Republicans in the state.
"A lot of other groups have come out in favor of it now, too," Scarbro said.
Over the past two days, interests on both sides of the aisle have called publicly for Manchin to address the process. On Monday, the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce called the state's election code "muddled" on the issue of Senate succession and asked the governor to call a special election for this November.
The state Republican Party also came out in favor of a November 2010 special election and is reviewing its legal options should it decide to launch a court challenge.
"Just about everybody appears to be getting on board with a legislative remedy at this point," said Troy Berman, executive director of the West Virginia GOP.
Click through for more details on all of the various election and succession scenarios.
Despite being from ideologically opposite ends of the political spectrum, Rockefeller and Capito share a significant base of common donors.
Of the $2,552,219 in itemized individual donations Sen. Rockefeller (D-WV) received in 2007, $33,450 (1% of his total) were from donors who also contributed to Republican Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (WV-02). Of the $266,140 in itemized donations Rep. Capito (R-WV) received in 2007, $50,450 (19%) were from donors who also contributed to Jay Rockefeller's campaign in 2007.
Of the $874,875 in PAC donations Sen. Rockefeller (D-WV) received in 2007, $145,500 (17%) were from donors who also contributed to Republican Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (WV-02). Of the $243,730 in PAC donations Rep. Crapito (R-WV) received in 2007, $73,000 (30%) were from donors who also contributed to Jay Rockefeller's campaign in 2007.
Notes and caveats
All analysis based on data publicly available at http://www.fec.gov. Matching donors is an inexact process--even in the age of electronic campaign disclosure data quality is not always great. Sometimes a name is misspelled. Sometimes a donor uses a different variation of their name, employer and title on different contributions. PACs have multiple abbreviations. I tried my best to match up donations where it looked reasonable.
Later this week, I'll highlight major contributors to both campaigns.
I'm working on an analysis of overlapping 2007 campaign contributions to Sen. Rockefeller and Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (WV-02). Before I post it, there's a couple of things I'd like to point out. I also have a question for readers.
Here's the first thing I've noticed: it sure pays to be an incumbent.
Sen. Jay Rockefeller, who has never been seriously threatened with a challenger this cycle, received $2,552,219 in individual donations and $873,400 in PAC donations during 2007.
During that same time period Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (WV-02) raised $266,140 from individuals and $243,730 from PACS.
Here's the second thing I want to point out: Rockefeller and Capito are opposite ends of the political spectrum. When you analyze their votes and stated positions on a full range of issues, you find that Rockefeller is the most liberal member of the West Virginia delegation and Capito the most Conservative.
In closing... we've got two opposing forces here. First, it is relatively easy for incumbents to raise money. Second, Rockefeller and Capito represent very different political constituencies. Despite Rockefeller's recent willingness to support the Bush administration on intelligence matters, his alignment with Bush policies comes nowhere close to trusty backbencher Republican Capito.
So, here's my question. How much fund-raising success do you think Capito has in getting money from Rockefeller donors? Would you guess that 1%, 5%, 10%, 20% or even more of Capito's campaign contributions come from Rockefeller donors?
In the next few days I'll share the answer and, what the heck, even name some names of joint donors.
Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) has again passed on a Senate bid and will announce later this year or in early 2008 that she is running for reelection to the House, her spokesman confirmed yesterday.
Republican eyes now turn to Secretary of State Betty Ireland and 2006 Senate nominee John Raese, who faced Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) in 1984 and who some say is girding for a rematch.
Capito, a fourth-term House member, has been Republicans' top pick for West Virginia's two Democratic-held Senate seats in the last two cycles. In 2006, she passed on challenging Sen. Robert Byrd (D).
As it stands, she will stick with the House and could face her most serious reelection challenge, as state Sen. John Unger (D) is weighing a run at her seat.
"She's been preparing to run for her fifth term since Nov. 8 of last year," said Capito spokesman Jordan Stoick, who added that the thought of running to represent the entire state "at some point is appealing to her. But right now, her heart and dedication are with her constituents in the 2nd district."
The National Republican Senatorial Committee is again targeting West Virginia as a red state with a Democratic senator after failing to make a competitive race in the state in 2006.
[snip]
Capito is being targeted by national Democrats this cycle despite a strong reelection record.
Update from Carnacki: We predicted something like this on Monday. Perhaps Capito read our post, The weakness of the GOP bench:
Meanwhile, the West Virginia Republicans are going to have to make a decision. Either offer up Capito as a sacrificial challenger to Senator Jay Rockefeller so that it appears they have a legitimate candidate (unlike what's his name? against Senator Byrd in '06) or else they're going to have to run yet another no-name against him, which will free up Democratic campaign contributions for other races. Hoppy Kercheval is reporting that Secretary of State Betty Ireland, the only Republican holding a statewide office that has any name recognition, apparently is going to not seek reelection for her post to run for state senator. So Capito either has to challenge Rockefeller for the Senate like her Republican handlers want her to do or she'll have to run an increasingly uphill re-election bid against Unger or Barth.
I'm not saying Capito does read our site, but it is interesting she announces this just two days after that post.
I'd like to just point out that this from the MyDD comments:
"Ireland won by only 4 points in 2004 in a pseudo-open seat (a 90 year old former Secretary of State ran for his old job). Don't think she has a chance in hell."] That said, Rockefeller comes in to his reelection bid with serious strengths that could potentially overwhelm almost any Republican challenger, having a wealth of experience, name recognition and good will built up from his four terms as Senator and two terms as Governor, as well as a large reserve of personal finances (estimated at an upwards of $100 million), which he has been willing to tap into in close elections in the past.
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Brought to you from the home office in the outskirts of Clemtown, West Virginia...
No one has filed yet from the Republican party, but I fully expect that John Raese will. I think he's going to wait until the last minute with the hopes of luring at least one other Republican into the primary.
If you want to know why Joe Manchin is eager to run for Senate as soon as possible, look no further than the results of this 
