Print |
E-mail to a friend
OPINIONS
Tom Miller: State's Democratic base may be showing a few cracks
The annual United Mine Workers Labor Day picnic in Boone County featured most of West Virginia's dominant Democratic Party leaders, but it failed to attract a large crowd of people to hear them speak. News photos of the event suggest there were more empty seats than interested voters, prompting the local county Republican chairman to label it the smallest turnout he can ever remember.
Gov. Joe Manchin spelled out the party marching orders in the lead-off position, telling Hillary Clinton supporters in this state that it's now time for them to join ranks with party nominee Barack Obama partisans just like she and her husband did at the Democratic national convention in Denver last month.
Sen. Jay Rockefeller, coasting to his fifth straight six-year term in the U.S. Senate, spent his time at the microphone advising those who were in attendance why they shouldn't vote for his Senate colleague John McCain for president instead of offering reasons why they should support his Senate colleague Barack Obama.
Rockefeller, who is nearing a half-century in West Virginia politics, realizes Hillary Clinton beat Obama in this state's primary by a 2-1 margin. He's aware that many Republicans truly believe McCain can -- and will -- carry this state just as President Bush did in 2000 and 2004.
But that doesn't figure to translate into a closer race for Rockefeller against repeat challenger Jay Wolfe, who carried only four of the 55 counties in Jay's easy victory in 2002 when he won his current term.
Manchin is just as comfortable, knowing he also has token opposition from Republican Russ Weeks of Beckley, who is proving to be no match for Manchin's campaign funding or public popularity. As an incumbent, the margin figures to be even wider than the nearly 2-1 edge Manchin piled up against Republican Monty Warner in 2004.
There will be a couple of good races, though. Democrats are certain to continue to hold a majority on the five-member Supreme Court since there's only one Republican on the court now and only one GOP candidate on the November ballot.
The two Democrats, Huntington attorney Menis Ketchum and former Justice Margaret Workman of Charleston, will be favored. Republican Beth Walker, also of Charleston, can make it interesting only if she gets the kind of financial backing that Justice Brent Benjamin got from coal baron Don Blankenship in 2004.
As West Virginia's lone Republican in Congress, incumbent Shelley Moore Capito faces a formidable challenge from Democratic nominee Anne Barth in the 2nd Congressional District. And Capito's chances to avoid a mostly Democratic sweep this year may depend on whether this predominantly Democrat state votes for a Republican presidential choice a third straight time.
Straight-ticket voting is becoming less and less of a factor statewide as younger generations -- those who do choose to vote -- are less likely to vote for every candidate of a single party. But it's still very much a factor in southern West Virginia.
- n n
Because of the thousands of acres of relatively pristine forest in this state, hunting is a major activity that the current leadership in the Division of Natural Resources seems determined to expand. But hunter safety is a growing concern among many members of the Legislature as well.
One interim subcommittee learned recently that there were 31 reported hunting accidents in 2007 in West Virginia -- 10 of them resulting in a death. The surprising statistic, though, is that six of the fatalities were the result of hunters falling out of tree stands. Altogether, there were nine such accidents reported, which means these accidents were fatal two-thirds of the time.
So it's no surprise that DNR safety training courses stress the need for safety straps when climbing into or out of these tree stands, because that's when most of the accidents occur. But like helmets on motorcycles or ATVs, many people shun these safety precautions despite the statistics and the persistent warnings.
And even though most people would expect to hear that accidents involving instances where someone was mishandling a firearm would be the most frequent, there was only one reported fatality when a hunter was shot by a buddy unloading his gun. The other deaths occurred as a result of a couple of heart attacks and one suicide.
There was a time a few decades back when dreamers in Huntington and Parkersburg wanted to convert W.Va. 2 along the Ohio River between the two cities to a four-lane expressway. But while some improvements to the busy two-lane corridor with some excellent flat industrial property on either side were made, the project never became a reality.
Now some people along the other half of this road from Parkersburg north to the tip of the state's Northern Panhandle at Chester are openly discussing a four-lane Route 2 in that region. Wheeling's city leaders have signed on, agreeing that such an expanded road would help bring some much needed economic growth to the area.
Tom Miller is a retired state government reporter for The Herald-Dispatch. He is a regular contributor to The Herald-Dispatch editorial page.
