Joe Manchin, governor of West Virginia, is a DEMOCRAT.
Rest in Peace.
He was mocked here, many times, and perhaps rightly so. Now he is gone. Let the family mourn, let his friends cry, and let’s let him go into eternity with little rancor.
Just heard it too on local news radio in Washington, D.C.
so does this mean the dems will be looking for another former kkk leader to run for office?
RIP Senator Byrd.
Joe Manchin, governor of West Virginia, is a DEMOCRAT.
Hmm
He could play the fiddle pretty good.
As an aside, I just read somewhere that if he were considered unable to continue serving (which I assume his demise would be classified as such) and the Gov. appoints someone before July 3rd, that person would serve only until Nov and have to stand for special elections; if after the 3rd, that person would serve out the entire term.
Thus it will be interesting to watch the Demo-Rats at work as they try their damnedest to come up with some reason why his replacement can't be named until after the 3rd.
He’s gone. Another special election will have to be held in November in a state that has gone the longest without a GOP Senator (last one elected in 1956). Will Gov. Manchin risk a backlash having himself appointed ?
I pray for his family and the innumerable people he caused to suffer.
Good.
I’ll give the devil his due - he loved his dogs.
He’s got a lot of stuff in WV named after him.
Good riddings to bad rubbish!
For the first time in decades, there will be no former member of the Ku Klux Klan in the US Senate.
Hallelujah!
Rest in peace, Kleagle Byrd.
Mr. Byrd’s political life could be traced to his early involvement with the Ku Klux Klan, an association that almost thwarted his career and clouded it intermittently for years afterward.
In the early 1940s, he organized a 150-member klavern, or chapter, of the Klan in Sophia, W.Va., and was chosen its leader at a meeting. After the meeting, Joel L. Baskin, the Klan’s grand dragon for the region, suggested that Mr. Byrd use his “talents for leadership” by going into politics.
“Suddenly, lights flashed in my mind!” Mr. Byrd later wrote. “Someone important had recognized my abilities.”
Mr. Byrd insisted that his klavern had never conducted white-supremacist marches or engaged in racial violence. He said in his autobiography that he had joined the Klan because he shared its anti-Communist creed and wanted to be associated with the leading people in his part of West Virginia. He conceded, however, that he also “reflected the fears and prejudices” of the time.
His opponents used his Klan membership against him during his first run for the House of Representatives in 1952; Democratic leaders urged him to drop out of the race. But he stayed in and won, then spent decades apologizing for what he called a “sad mistake.”
He went on to vote for civil rights legislation in 1957 and 1960, but when the more sweeping Civil Rights Act was before Congress in 1964, he filibustered for an entire night against it, saying the measure was an infringement on states’ rights. He backed civil rights legislation consistently only after becoming a party leader in the Senate.
RIP Senator Byrd and condolences to your family.
RIP
Prayers for his family.
Senator Robert Byrd will live on, via countless roads, highways, hiking trails, hospitals, firehouses, court buildings, airports, docking facilities, welcome centers, exit centers, state government cafeterias, radio telescopes, microwave towers, water reservoirs, lightning arrestors, coal mines, mountain top scenic look-offs, solar panel farms, schools, day care centers, industrial parks, the infrastructure of West Virginia shall always bear his name, just the way he liked it.
Rest in Peace Senator.
If The DEMOCRAT West Virginia Gov waits until July 3rd or later to declare Byrd’s seat vacant, there will not be an election to replace Byrd until 2012, and the Governor will appoint another Democrat to fill the seat.
PUT THE PRESSURE ON HIM NOW! They lose this seat if they must have a Special Election in November!