I wonder what powers the state of WV reserves to itself to exercise, to protect its coal industry from the EPA. To basically tell the EPA to go fly a kite, and resume mining operations. It merely has to invoke Article X and tell the Feds they are out of line.

You are reaping what you ‘ve sown.

PrezBO stated he would bankrupt the coal industry. Still Ohio and Pennsylvania voted for the looter in chief. Not sure about WV. You poor ignorant fools who support the socialist party and their minions are now getting that hope and change that was promised you!

And if that don’t make you mad, then nothing will. Its time to vote all the looters and crooks out of office. Start in 2010.

Bring back the America we all know and love!

Obama was not, in any way, popular there. Manchin isn’t too bad for a dem, although I would still trade him for about any Republican out there. Byrd will be in office till he dies. Frankly, I don’t have the slightest idea why Rockefeller keeps getting reelected. The man is a carpetbagger and doesn’t care in the least for the state, so far as I can tell.

Most of my family are/were miners. Most are/were UMWA-all-the-way. Most of them now are looking for jobs in the timber/tourism industry. Most of them are now Republicans.

A Dime to a Dollar says that your statement will come true for Robert Byrd within the next 12 months.

There is more to WV than Coal – albeit that it is by far the largest industry. Tourism and Timber are two of the other major industries.

The reason(s) why the “D” is the party that gets re-elected is due to Incumbency, the UMWA, high unemployment, and the fact that most of the state’s population is on it’s border (Morgantown is 20 minutes south of Pennsylvania; Huntington, Parkersburg, and Wheeling are all three a literal stones throw away from Ohio; Bluefield and Lewisburg should be in Virginia, they are so close; and Charles Town is becoming a DC/Fredericksburg suburb.) None of these areas are known Bastions of the GOP.

West Virginia “suffers” [politically] the same thing Washington State suffers from – 75% of the state is controlled by [in WA's instance] a single population center that contains 75% of the electorate. WV’s electorate is spread between three “centers” is all.

A slower way of life, yes. Absolutely beautiful, yes. Third World – not a chance.

At best clueless about economic policy
But people vote for them because they are an “attractive candidate”

then you add in the fact that the unions are no all for immigration which forces down my wages because a Mexican crossing the boarder who is used to making $1.25 per day is ecstatic about working for $7.00 per hour.

But try to tell that to my Dad.

The Obama voters themselves can go right to hell.

So far, it is only a suspicion.

The most corrupt political institutions in the land are the local ones, and they are the ones that are most often so-called “non-partisan” offices.

Doing away with Party ID on ballots gets you one step closer to a true One-Party State…

All of these states were competitive for Democrats at the presidential level as recently as 1996. Since then, they’ve gotten further and further away from the Dems, until they have become solid red in presidential elections. They were among five states in which McCain actually enjoyed a larger margin than Bush in ’04 (Oklahoma was the fifth). There’s no reason to expect they’ll be even remotely competitive in ’12.

And yet Democrats have proven remarkably resilient at the state level. Vic Snyder in Arkansas is a very left-wing Democrat who keeps right on chugging in a rightward district. A smattering of Democrat congressmen in Tennessee belie the state’s general shift away from their party. Mary Landrieu continues to defy the sharp GOP tilt in Louisiana (and God knows, we’ve been breaking our damn necks down here trying to get rid of her).

Which brings us to West Virginia. Democrats hold all of the statewide offices, that’s true. BUT, with the exception of Governor Manchin and the newly-elected Secretary of State, all of them have been in there since at least 1996, the last time the Democrat presidential candidate carried the state. Even more telling, their subsequent re-election bids coincided with presidential election years, each one with a wider Republican margin than the last; and still the incumbent Democrats hung on.

The federal offices paint an even starker picture. Alan Mollohan (1982) and Jay Rockefeller (1984) have been in office forever. Nick Rahall (1976) has been in there longer than forever. Robert Byrd (1958) has been around since the early Cretaceous Period. These guys drove their stakes into the ground and tied themselves to them when the state was still reliably Democrat, and nothing short of the Earth opening up and swallowing them whole will get them out now.

2) Elimination of party designation from ballots