Posted on 07/31/2013 5:19:04 PM PDT by LdSentinal
West Virginia state Sen. Evan Jenkins announced Wednesday that he is switching from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party and will challenge longtime Rep. Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.) in 2014.
“West Virginia is under attack from Barack Obama and a Democratic Party that our parents and grandparents would not recognize,” Jenkins said. “I am proud to join the Republican Party in fighting Washington’s assault on our state, our freedoms, and our jobs.”
Jenkins is the latest in a growing number of Democrats from Southern state legislatures to make the switch — with many of them coming in Louisiana and Mississippi, in particular.
Many state legislative chambers that had long been held by Democrats have gone Republican in recent years, though West Virginia remains a notable holdout.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
The Republican path to success. Ain’t it grand? < /s>
Interesting all of this jumping ship in southern states comes during the revelation of Mark Levin’s ‘state convention’ strategy.
A few more Blue Dogs like Rahall biting the dust would be a welcome development.
He can call himself a Republican but his stripes are all liberal.
His rating in the National Rifle Association is A, so that must count for something
When all conservatives care about is the "R" next to the name, you can't help but invite dishonest opportunists.
this person should not win the primary
My opinion is we have enough Dims in the Republican Party. They made their bed. They voted for Dim evil. Now an ex Dim wants to run against a Dim as a Pubbie? And I am supposed to think that is great? I’m supposed to trust him. Screw that!! How about we hold them accountable for the destruction of our nation. How about we refuse to let them enter our party. Oops, it’s their party not ours. Forgot my place. The big donors won’t like me. Guess I need to keep my opinions to myself. I might tick off McCain, Graham, and Christy.
Epiphany or expedience?
A wolf putting on sheep’s clothing. Why would West Virginia Republicans even consider voting for this charlatan?
Well put.
It is always encouraging to see somebody pull their head out of their rear-end.
Probably both but I lean to epiphany many life-long Democrats
who work for wages and salaries are very conservative on many issues; they and/or their children have served in the military. They have voted Democrat all these years because pa or grampa told them that FDR ended the great depression and created the WPA and the CCC. Now, clearly FDR did not end the great depression, probably made it worse, but the children and grandchildren believe he ended it.
They are finally realizing that Obama is not FDR.
Thanks LdSentinal.
that district is conservative enough to elect a real Republican. A conservative Real Rupublican.
No need for a cross-dresser. Not in this district.
Although the bench isn’t deep in this district for Republicans. The party largely died here after 1932 with the death-grip control of the unions (especially the southernmost mining areas). The western side of the district centered on Huntington (then the 4th) last elected a Republican in 1956, 81-year old William Elmer Neal (whom once had been a part of the pre-1932 GOP power structure when he served as Huntington Mayor in the mid ‘20s). He lost in ‘58 to Ken Hechler, himself now 99 years old (I believe the oldest living former member of Congress).
The southern side (which was the 5th prior to 1972) had in succession a father, his wife, and then their son for 4 straight decades (the Kees). Hugh Ike Shott was the last Republican to win there in 1928 & 1930 (and swept out by the ‘32 FDR landslide). He did manage a comeback of sorts, winning the last remaining months of a Senate term in 1942.
As for Sen. Jenkins, I can’t speak to him, since I don’t know much about him. Of course, the WV State Senate is ludicrously overrepresented by Democrats out of whack with its federal voting preferences. It’s quite a bit closer, however, in the House (and will likely flip GOP for the first time since 1928 before long).
I expect some of the WV Senate Democrats probably aren’t leftist moonbats, but their hold is tenuous, and they can’t keep up the illusion that they’re separate and apart from the national party. This could partly play a role in Jenkins’ decision to switch (and given that its still a year away to the primary, he didn’t necessarily have to do it right away).
This will still give the Democrats a 24D-10R supermajority, but it’s worth pointing out that of the Dems that faced an opponent (13 of them didn’t), 6 won by less than 10% of the vote (2 of them alone in districts #13A & #16A by less than a single percent — with #13A being the district DINO Mike Oliverio vacated in 2010 which led to our capture of the 1st district House seat), so one can see how tenuous the majority hold is.
I don’t see why one thing would have to do with another, West VA is becoming a Republican state, party switching of this nature has been happening in the South for a long time.
Rahall isn’t just gonna curl up and die, a gleep like this may be the best candidate. Hell he probably wouldn’t be worse than Capito.
Now I don’t trust anyone who was a democrat only yesterday but IF (I don’t know his record) he’s been a decent boy and isn’t a Leninist it would just mean he’s a typical politician serving as a rat in a state were the rats were in charge. I say consider him, if a better choice runs in the primary, great. Rick Snuffer may run again, he lost by 8 points last election, not bad (but far behind Romney who took 65% which the highest of the 3 districts! And mind you Al Gore won this district 13 years ago), but nominating the same people over and over again in WV hasn’t worked in the past. It’s kinda the MO of the state party.
I disagree with with the Senator that democrat party has changed all that much. They’ve been controlled by socialist scum at the national level since 1896 and IMO were the bad guy’s for the entirety of their history. Everything Obama has done has been tried before, Clinton let queers in the military, raised taxes, banned guns, tried to socialize healthcare. The only real difference from 20 years ago is the recent embrace of gay marriage.
However that kind of rhetoric is useful in getting dumb rubes who still vote democrat “cause my grandpappy was one” (this district in a nutshell) to wake the hell up. Just like it was useful in MA to talk up conservative aspects of JFK even though we politically astute people know he was a damn pinko like the rest of the family.
One argument goes for states heavily one way or another is that you run as a member of the majority party in order to be able to be effective. It’s not exactly an invalid one. Used to be that the states didn’t have as strict an ideological enforcement of their members at that level (in some states, such as NH’s behemoth House, it would be hard to enforce that now, as you get some nutters in). Of course, when Jenkins first ran for the Senate in 2002, he just barely defeated his Republican opponent, so it wasn’t exactly an area thoroughly averse to the GOP (and Huntington elects GOP Mayors). It would’ve been curious to see where he and his opponent differed on the issues, if at all.
Yes I understand, which is why I’ll give this guy a fair shake.
But I find it dishonorable to be in the party you don’t really support because it’s in power, more understandable in decades past but it does more harm than good now. Rick Perry “but everyone was a democrat, I hads to get me elected!”.
But that’s preferable to the only other reason these kinds of politicians could be democrats, that they are as ignorant as the people who vote rat whilst calling themselves conservative.
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