I have to announce the good news of yet another recruiting coup for Congressional Democrats. After other successes very early in the cycle, particularly getting outgoing Kansas City mayor Kay Barnes to run against Sam Graves in what has traditionally been a swing district that Bush has won easily, and that was held by a Democrat long before Graves won it in an open seat in 2000. However, Talent lost this district to McCaskill by four percentage points, shwoing a strong Kansas City Democrat can win this. A small portion of Kansas City, and it’s suburbs make up almost 40% of the district, and the libral leaning St. Jospeh metropolitan area makes up another 10%. So, altogeter half the district leans Democratic, but the other half is highly rural, and mostly Republican.
Another early success was getting State Sen. John Boccieri to run against 82 year old 18 term incumbent Ralph Regula. His weak fundraising and age, make him vulneralbe to retiring, ahving a candidate like Jonh Boccieri, a former three term state rep, who was elected to the State Senate last year with 97,000 votes, the most of any candidate that year. As a major in the Army, who flew C-130 cargo planes for four tours of duty in Iraq. He’s Paul Hackett with legislatire experience.
But, the latest coup is that of getting 38 year old State. Sen. John Unger to run against Shely Moore capito in WV-02. He’s a fantastic candidate, young, a Rhodes Scholoar, and one of the youngest people ever elected to the West Virginia State Senate. He has a great deal of experience in the State Senate, having been elected in 1998, at age 29. He has since been reelected several times, and he represents what is considered a highly conservative, Republican leaning District in the state’s Eastern Panhandle, an area that votes more like parts of western Virginia, prominently Robet Goodlatte’s district.
Let’s handicap this race. Sen. Unger has been elected handily three times in this conservative district. His entre district is located in Capito’s district, giving him a strong base to start with. He represents all of rural Jefferson County, an extremely rural district of 42,000 people, whose county seat, (it’s largest city), Charles Town, has a population of just over 2000. Capito took a little less there than she did districtwide, taking 54% compared to 57% in the district. He represents part of right wing Berkeley County, which gave Capito 64% of the vote.
West Virginia has an interesting system. Each district has two State Senators elected to the same district. Sen. Unger’s district, district 16, his fellow State sneator is a Republican, Sen. John Yoder. That should be a testament of this district’s Republican lean, that in state where Democrats hold a supermajority in both houses of the legislature.
West Virginia, despite Bush’s successes, is a very Democratic state. Sen. Byrd has never won reelection with less than 64%. They tend to like moderate Republicans, and have elected two of them in the twentieth century, none so far. Cecil Underwood and Shelly Capito’s dad, the only Governor to serve four terms, (his career was completely tarnished when he got sent to jail on corruption charges). The only Republicans who have success in this state are so liberal they’re almost at the same level as the most conservative Democrats. Anyway, back to the point, Democrats had held all Congressional districts and both Senate seats for nearly eighteen years before Capito broke through in 2000, beating self funding candidate Jim Humphrey’s narrowly.
She’s definitely liberal for a southern Republican. She’s the somewhat pro-choice, (that means less extreme whacko pro-life tghan most Southern Republicans), she’s pro-stem cell research, did vote to raise the minimum wage, and is a member of the Republican Main Street Partnership. So, on the surface it would seem like she’s not the worst Republican in the house, and truthfully she’s not, there’s a lot worse congressperson you could have, like Virgil Goode. Sen. Unger could take some ground immediately with his populist appraoch and persona, that is backed up by ardent social conservatism, something very important in this state, one of the most socially conservative in the country. That’s one of the main reasons Gore and Kerry lost the state.
Of course he would need money. Capito always raises ungodly sums and wins by outspending her opponents twenty to one. She’s horrible on the stump the woman cannot speak in public cannot debate, and appears cold and stiff, therefore her her advisors actually tell her not to do retail politics. Instead she bombards the airwaves with falsely positive ads, and attack ads.
Her record is horrendous. She’s been a nonstop supporter of the Iraq War, and despite the support she gets from labor, she’s a business Republican. Her career score for the far right Chamber of Commerce, as I’ve tabulated it, 89%. Now, compare that to 65% for Tennessee Democrat John Tanner, arguably the most Economically Conservative Democrat in the House. Her score with the strongly Republican National Federation of Independant Business is even higher, (and this organization that endorsed such incubents as Curt Weldon and others).
The point I’m trying to make is that we need to take her out. As a somewhat pro-life Democrat, this isn’t an issue to me, but her NARAL rating is only 50%, not great. She’s very pro-business, but still gets the support of labor, which is infuriating at times.
But, the main reason to tkae her down would be to deal the West Virginia Republican party a major blow. Capito, along with Secretary of State Betty Ireland, (who only won 52-48 in 2004 becuase her opponent was 90 year old Ken Heckler, congressman from 1959-1977, and SoS from 1985-2001), is their major figure, their only rising star. She’s a threat to both our Senate seats or the Governorship if we can’t take her down this time. Not to mention she does the state a poor service. It’s four Democrats are far more powerful than her, in fact she, according to a Knowlegis non-partisan group’s Power Rankings, is ranked 421 out of house of 435, and she’s a four term incumbent. She should have the hangof this now. For someone whose a rising start in the State Republican Party, she certainly has no power whatsoever with Republicans in congress. In fact the only people she has more power than are mostly Repubican freshman, that and Tom Tancredo, Pete Sessions, and Ted Poe.
Sen. Unger sounds like my kind of Democrat, the kind I’ve been advocating, socially conservative, and economically populist. These are the people who do the best with rural voters, at least from my experience. Plus, the stronger are majority is, the stronger is our mandate. That’s why this race is an interesting new development, and should be one of our top targets next year. Let’s see if she survive when we’re bombarding the air waves with even more money than her. Bush only got 55% here, and it has been a historically Democratic district, let’s take it back and show we can still be winners in rural areas and in the South. Let’s prove to the nation and beltway pundits who lable WV as a conservative state because of Bush’s margins against two Democrats who didn’t go over well with rural voters, (Clinton won the district with huge double digit margins, both times), just how Democratic it really is.
Anyone else who has a better idea of this race, please state it in the comments, because I don’t know much, all I know is what CQPolitics wrote, what’s on Sen. Unger’s Senate Profile and and the West Virginia Legislature’s site.
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