AN AMAZING YAWNER IN WEST VIRGINIA The most remarkable story out of the West Virginia Senate primary on Tuesday was that nothing remarkable happened. Despite lots of threats that moderate Rep. Shelly Moore Capito, R-W.Va., would get waylaid by a tea-party primary challenge, no such thing materialized. Credit this to a good campaign by Capito, who has obviously inherited her father’s gift for campaigns and elections. But it also represents a continuing trend of Republican primary voters staying focused on a Senate majority before considering ideological purity. Had a little-known candidate emerged on the GOP side in West Virginia, Secretary of State Natalie Tennant, who also easily took the Democratic nomination, would have been in a good position to replace retiring Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va. But as it stands, Capito is chugging toward what looks to be a clear victory in November. But sometimes the best candidates are the outsiders - The former chairman of the Maryland GOP Alex Mooney claimed victory Tuesday night in a crowded Republican primary for West Virginias 2nd District to replace Rep. Shelley Moore Capito. Mooney beat longtime Republican official Charlotte Lane in the primary. While Mooney may cause some headaches for Capito by highlighting policy differences, he looks to be a much more viable candidate in the fall against the Democratic nominee, former state party Chairman Nick Casey. Big Ugly race – Veteran Rep. Nick Joe Rahall, D-W.Va., won his 20th consecutive primary on Tuesday. But the news was not good overall for the embattled incumbent. Rahall lost more than a third of the primary vote to a first-time, unfunded candidate, retired Army Maj. Richard Ojeda. Now Rahall must face Republican state lawmaker Evan Jenkins, a former Democrat who switched parties last year, in the general election in the fall. Looks bad for Rahall, an early endorser of then-Sen. Barack Obama, who is now less popular in the Mountain State than the Pitt Panthers
Posted on: Wed, 14 May 2014 14:42:52 +0000
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