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.
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.