Re: [blind-democracy] Obsessed
I've never been convinced that they are two parties in the first place.
They represent the same interests which are not our interests and they
have a lot
more in common than they disagree with. Still, they put up the sham
that they are polar opposites. The Manchin family make this sham even
more obvious
than some others. At one time the Democrats were the majority in the
state and a pretty large majority too. Most of the southern counties
never voted a
Republican in for any office since the civil war. If you wanted to get
elected in West Virginia you almost had to run as a Democrat. The
northern and northeastern
counties sent a few Republicans to the legislature to keep up the sham
that there were two parties in the state. So if a person wanted to run
for office
in most of the state he had to run as a Democrat no matter how loyal he
was to the Republicans. A. James Manchin did just that and the rest of
the Manchin
family who wanted to get into politics did the same thing. Back when a
very rare thing happened and a Republican, Arch Moore, became governor
he appointed
several Manchins to various posts despite the fact that they were
nominal Democrats Even when A. James Manchin left the legislature Arch
Moore appointed
him to a position, the title of which I forget, but it amounted to state
chief garbage man. That is, he oversaw a statewide cleanup plan.
Democrat A. James
jumped in to show his loyalty to his Republican governor to, as he put
it, clean up these jumbled jungles of junkery. Arch Moore's election may
have heralded
what was to come though. Later Cecil Underwood became governor and he
was a Republican. He had already been governor in the 1950s and so he
became the
state's youngest governor back then and when he was elected again he
became the state's oldest governor. Now the state seems to have
completely flipped
and it is hard for a Democrat to get elected. Trump carried the state by
sixty-five percent and that is the largest margin any Republican
presidential
candidate got in this state ever. I would think that the Manchins could
now safely switch to Republican, but there must be some kind of inertia
at work.
Joe Manchin got elected governor as a Democrat while espousing nothing
but the Republican line and now he was able to replace Robert Byrd in
the U.S. Senate.
Joe, by the way is A. James' nephew. As an aside let me mention my one
and only encounter with A. James Manchin. My party announced its
candidate for governor
one year when A. Jame Manchin was secretary of state. The legislature
was in session at the time, so we thought the best way to get news
coverage was to
make the announcement right where all the news reporters where. They
usually just ignore us. We took our posters and other campaign
paraphernalia such
as banners and leaflets and set up right in the rotunda of the state
capital where our candidate gave a speech for the cameras. Somehow
secretary of state
Manchin got the idea that I was the leader of our delegation and he went
directly to me pleading in a somewhat whiny voice that I assure him that
we were
going to take our campaign materials with us when we left. We were
planning to do that anyway. It would have been a waste to have just left
them there.
But A. James seemed to be aghast and really upset that socialist
campaign literature was cluttering up his capitol building. I assured
him that we were
not going to leave it and he just hung around the periphery of our event
wringing his hands.
On 10/7/2018 10:03 AM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
block quote
Yes, but he's always voted like this, way before Trump. Why bother
having two parties in West Virginia if there's no opposition to
represent there?
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: Roger Loran Bailey
<rogerbailey81@xxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, October 06, 2018 9:51 PM
To: Miriam Vieni
<miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [blind-democracy] Obsessed
I was listening to a statewide radio talk show yesterday when Manchin
voted to close the debate. One caller said that Manchin just handed the
election
to Moresy, his Republican opponent in this year's election. I thought
that the caller got it backwards. It is not so much that Republicans are
so popular
in West Virginia as it is that Trump is wildly popular. As little sense
as that might make Manchin seems to me to take a bigger risk if he votes
against
something Trump is for.
On 10/6/2018 9:31 PM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
block quote
I guess I'm obsessed with this Kavenaugh vote. Lisa Murkowski would
have voted "no", but she's more loyal to her party than to principle,
apparently.
She didn't vote yes. She withheld her vote as a polite gesture to a
Republican colleague who had to miss the vote in order to attend his
daughter's wedding. And, of course, one Democrat voted Yes,. Roger can
perhaps tell us if Joe Mansion would really lose an election in West
Virginia if he ever voted with the Democrats.
Miriam
block quote end
block quote end
