A version of this originally appeared at West Virginia Blue.
Now that vulnerable Republican Rubberstamp Rep. Shelley Moore “Stay the course” Capito chickened out from challenging Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D), we know who our opponent will be in WV-02 in 2008.
I’m looking forward to it.
The newspaper pundits who have consistantly failed to report on vulnerable Republican Rubberstamp Rep. Shelley Moore “Stay the course” Capito’s frequent flip flops and lack of stature in Congress keep trying to tell us she’s doing a “good job.”
A woman who continues to support PResident George W. Bush’s unpopular war with a blank check to keep the troops in Iraq forever is doing a “good job,” they claim. A woman who has handcuffed herself to PResident Bush — now at 28 percent approval — is going to win re-election easily, they claim. I guess since they’ve said Capito does a “good job” they’re not going to bother to report on the reality of Capito and look into her record.
Here’s what Capito said in the Charleston Daily Mail:
“One thing I’ve learned over four campaigns is that I’m going to have an opponent,” Capito said. “I’m sure it will be a tough race. I have no idea who it’s going to be. Again, I don’t spend time thinking about it. If I do a good job, everything will fall into place.“
How “good” of a job is she doing? Here’s her ratings on the nonpartisan Congress.org:
Rank in Chamber: 421 (out of 439)
Rank in Party: 185
Rank in Class of 2000: 38 (out of 38)
Even last year when her Republican party was in power, she was ranked 311. Democrats in the minority party had more stroke in Congress than she did. Heck, she has been nothing but a reliable rubberstamp for crooks like Tom Delay and others.
Here’s how she compares to the rest of the West Virginia caucus:
Senate:
Byrd: 3 out of 100
Rockefeller: 13 out of 100
House:
Rahall: 22 out of 439
Mollohan: 64 out of 439
Capito: 421 out of 439
So, if she does a “good job” everything will fall into place? The only place she is considered to do a “good job” is in the friendly confines of newspaper columns. The rest of us live in reality and Democrats smell blood in the water.
Cue the music.
What are the Dems bringing to the table?
West Virginia Blue, West Virginia Democrats and the DCCC are surprisingly united in attempting to draft State Sen. John Unger.
He is more socially conservative than my ideal candidate. He’d be in the Nick Rahall mold, in my opinion. (While I don’t agree with Rahall on many issues, I do think he’s been terrific on most of the issues.)
One of the reasons we like Unger is just pure numbers. In very Republican Berkeley and Jefferson counties, Unger won against a Don Blankenship-financed candidate with 65 percent (Berkeley) and 67 percent (Jefferson).
In the entire state, he was the only state senate candidate to receive more votes than Senator Robert C. Byrd. In addition, in his district — a very Republican district as I know from canvassing experience — he received more votes than Capito, who trounced Mike Callaghan.
Call me pragmatic, I like those numbers. The DCCC has met with him. While promises this far out from the election aren’t money in the bank, I do think Unger is a candidate they’ll spend the money on. That was a big problem with Callaghan and before him Erik Wells. They just didn’t have the funding.
Unger, the first in his family to go to college, is a Rhodes scholar who worked with Mother Theresa in India helping the poor. He worked with a NGO in 2003 embedded with U.S. troops to do humanitarian work with the international program Save the Children.
Here’s also from a comment on West Virginia Blue from another Democrat:
We’re still working on drafting him to run. He just won reelection in 06 so would retain his senate seat so he has nothing to lose and everything for us to gain.