Posted on 09/22/2010 9:18:24 AM PDT by sdkruiser
Look away from the Delaware...
While many on the Right have been kicking the histrionics into overdrive over Christine O'Donnell's win in the Delaware GOP primary, John Raese was quietly closing the gap that separated him from West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin.
In a conference call this morning, Raese outlined a focused closing strategy to win a race that, until yesterday, hadn't been talked about much outside of his home state. The successful businessman is positioning himself as a clear "check and balance" to President Obama, specifically on the hot-button issue of cap and trade.
West Virginia is a big coal producing state that obviously would be hit hard by a federal cap and trade bill. It's already suffering under its own version, known as the West Virgina Renewable Energy Act, which has the support of Gov. Manchin. Raese's advertising strategy will devote a lot of resources tying Manchin to the bill and its detrimental effects on the state.
Raese says that he's never been afraid of losing so he runs on sound ideology. The difference now, obviously, is that what wasn't resonating a few years ago is now having a huge impact.
(Excerpt) Read more at stephenkruiser.com ...
PPP had Raese (Ray see) up by 3 yesterday. This is doable. Manchin’s energy tax on WV is turning miners against him. If you don’t have the miners in WV, you’re done.
For those who don't live in SW Pennsylvania or West Virginia, it is a tradition we have in these parts.
For those who don't live in SW Pennsylvania or West Virginia, it is a tradition we have in these parts.
Mr. Raese will win West Virginia.
It would be the first time in 52 years that that Senate seat would be filled by a Republican.
bump
One word: COAL
Why anyone in West Virginia is still voting democrat is a mystery to me! Democrats have single handedly put them in the unemployment line!!!
Is this the guy Rush just said was up several points in W VA???
Manchin is trying to say that he will not be a rubber stamp. If I were Raese, I would find tape of every supposed “conservative democrat” who made the same pledge last November and went back on it (cap and tax, healthcare, stimulus, etc). Craft the tapes into a campaign commercial with a simple concluding statement, “we can’t take them for their word and can’t afford to even take the chance.”
As someone with personal knowledge of the man I support his platform and his candidacy but advise caution when it comes to temperament.
His considerable wealth has allowed him to act as a martinet and more than once he has run roughshod over the careers and feelings of others simply because he can. I suppose he is no different from many of the rich and powerful over the years but it does leave a bad taste at times.
He has run several times in the past as token opposition to Byrd but at least he held Byrd to account for much of the silliness and largesse that marked Byrd’s last few decades.
Most, including me, assumed that the popular, pro-gun Manchin (a DINO of sorts) would sail into the Senate after Byrd’s passing or retirement but that has not happened and I am sure that even in Raese’s most optimistic dreams he never expected it to be this close this soon.
As others have posted, the name of the game in WV is coal. Manchin and others parroted the ‘clean coal technology’ nonsense during the Obama presidential run knowing full well that it would take decades to be useful in any way.
The UMWA marched in and pulled the Obama lever like good little robots. 6 months after the election many of their mines were idled or ran reduced shifts and talk of cap-n-trade or outright bans on mining (mountaintop and/or deep mines) and coal-burning plants began to circulate.
The question for the UMWA was and is: do they really believe Obama was on their side or the side of his cocktail party, Ivy League, East/West Coast Greenie friends? One of Obama’s greatest tricks was getting an entire industry to vote against its own self-interest simply in the name of anachronistic, mindless union solidarity.
Manchin isn’t even in office but Raese’s “Obama’s rubber stamp” ads are clearly having an effect.
Everytime the backyard brawl comes to Pittsburgh, the couch burners come out of the woodwork here as well.
They may burn couches, but they still faithfully cling to their Bibles, and guns.
Well, that and a fondness for drinking. The only difference is that ours buy it brewery-made and they make it in a backyard still.
Is this election also a Special election as well, so that he would take the seat immediately?
They only vote against the Leadership when they are allowed to.
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