Trouble with a capital T and that rhymes with D and that stands for “Democrat.”

In a Sheraton ballroom, Ms. [Natalie] Tennant, West Virginia’s [Democratic] secretary of state, listened to Michelle Obama urge donors to write “a big old fat check” to her and other women running for the Senate.

But back home, where President Obama is deeply unpopular, Ms. Tennant’s campaign quickly sought to wriggle out of the embrace of the White House, insisting to the local news media that “what the first lady said is not an endorsement.”

I know, I know: that doesn’t particularly scan. Forgive me, for I was in the moment. The point here is that it’s not a good time right now for the Democratic party in West Virginia. If you pare away the New York Time’s usual provincial bias, you’ll see that the paper is generally conceding that the national Democratic party is not particularly in sync with the coal-friendly and somewhat tradition-minded voters of West Virginia; worse for the Democrats, West Virginia voters are increasingly noticing this. Secretary of State Tennant is going to be forced to, well, lie about her independent status on coal and Obamacare (as do all Democrats running in Red States)… and there’s no guarantee that it’s going to work this time. Which is why Tennant had to be persuaded to run in the first place. She wasn’t the Democrats’ first choice.

And it’s not too surprising that Tennant was reluctant, either. Read that NYT article a second time: it’s amazing just how despairingly sneering West Virginia Democrats are towards their own constituents, eleven months before the election. One would think that somebody trying to cajole votes would find better terms to use than ‘angry’ and ‘turning inward.’ Unless, of course, the race has already been conceded?

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: Natalie Tennant will vote for Harry Reid as Senate Majority Leader. She is thus, by definition, a bad choice for Senator. West Virginia voters, please note this: the national party hates your state, and would like it to sink into the earth.