[buckalfa]

I hope you are correct -- but there are six things
that bode well for Kerry in WV:

1. The Bush flip flop on the steel tariff issue.
2. Lack of job growth in the state aside from WalMart.
3. Access to affordable healthcare
4. Byrd and Rockefeller are not sitting out this
election as they did with Gore.
5. Democrats still have a 2 to 1 registration
majority in WV, and the Democratic base seems
energized and will turn out heavily for the
state wide offices, something they did not do in 2000.
6. The gun issue has yet to emerge in the campaign.

[goldstategop]

W VA is still Democratic in statewide elections. The Dems were tarnished by a sex scandal and the cultural issues play against them with the type of electorate they have there. The old saw was that pocketbook issues decide elections but that wasn't a deciding factor in 2000 and it wasn't one either in 2002. As it is, the election's going to turn on the national security and all those wedge issues the Left is pushing that's turning Americans off.