You can pretend all you want that Joe Manchin is a Democrat, or say that West Virginia is totally fucked because its been ruled by Democrats for 100 years. Just don’t do it here and expect to get away with it.
Now if someone, anyone can make a serious case as to how Joe Manchin — anti-choice, pro-business, pro-Cecil Underwood Joe Manchin — even remotely resembles a Democrat, then have at. And the same goes for the vast majority of West Virginia’s so-called Democrats, past and present.
You can call yourself whatever you like, I guess. Joe Manchin can call himself a Democrat, and I can call myself a Navy Seal. But that doesn’t make it fucking so. And for whatever reason, this has been the 10,000 pound elephant in the room that no one dares mention when discussing West Virginia politics. We all have to play make-believe. And I’m sick and tired of it.
If I get noticeably winded every time I waddle to the refrigerator, then you have every right, and maybe even an duty to not pretend that I’m a member of an elite Navy fighting force. And if a politician — let’s just use Joe as an example here BECAUSE IT’S FUCKING TRUE — is to the right of Shelly Moore Capito on nearly every single position — then you don’t have to pretend he’s a Democrat. So just fucking stop it.
West Virginia has never been ruled by Republicans or Democrats. West Virginia is ruled by coal, and the small handful of people coal has made wealthy.
April 17, 2008 at 6:51 am
Amen brother!
April 17, 2008 at 7:09 am
Winnar!!!! Winnar!!!!
Chicken Dinner!!!
April 17, 2008 at 8:42 am
He’s a Democrat because he is registered as a Democrat; runs as a Democrat; is nominated by the Democratic Party; wins an overwhelming majority of Democratic votes and faithfully advances the interests of the people who control the Democratic Party in WV.
That he does all of that quite successfully despite having positions that are anathema to the liberal wing of the Democratic Party suggests to me not that he isn’t a true blue Democrat but that the Democratic Party leaves much to be desired.
April 17, 2008 at 9:12 am
It’s funny you should bring it up, because I heard that Heather is only two credits shy of being a navy SEAL.
April 17, 2008 at 9:16 am
Would you please inform me as to which party Carrie Webster, Earl Ray, Thompson and Sharon Spencer just to name a few belong to. Do they not march to the F……ing tune that the Lawyers and Unions play???? Is that not the Democratic Party???
April 17, 2008 at 10:14 am
Actually, our whole political system leaves much to be desired. By that I mean the national parties controlling the process which leads to the need for nomenclature modifiers like “San Francisco Democrat”, “Reagan Democrat”, “Scoop Jackson Democrat”, “Country Club Republican”, “Eisenhower Republican”, etc… But that’s what we get for trying to shoehorn 300 million people into one style of shoe. Right or Left?
We’ve ceded too much power to the DNC and RNC who have agreed to ground rules that benefit the parties themselves more than American politics and nothing will bring those two entities together faster than a credible third party attempt.
Sago was for Manchin what 9/11 was for Bush and while he hasn’t completely fucked it up like Bush, he hasn’t exactly spent what little he’s spent wisely. What has he done for us lately?
April 17, 2008 at 10:18 am
Oddly, I’m with anon, somewhat.
The party’s mission, long forgot
Has been subsumed to merely winning
Against the platform, constant sinning
Is the norm, not the exception.
Win at all costs in each election.
The time, alas, is gone when we
Could look upward for clarity
From party leaders – their ambition
Has buried all other volition.
It wasn’t many years ago,
When a “Republican” would know
His party stood for smaller states
And was responsible with rates
Of taxation and deficit
That fine platform has gone to sh*t.
Far flung adventures, massive debt
We haven’t seen the bottom yet
Of their broad taste for greed and gore.
Oh! A-U-H-2-0-6-4!
Poor Barry’s dead, his party’s lost.
And we poor suckers pay the cost.
Now I, myself am fully “Dem.”
But must admit I’m tired of them
Who in their rush to win the race
Forget the object of the chase.
Our party’s mission’s to protect
The working folk who bend their necks
To make the widgets, serve, and bleed
Providing all our wants and needs.
They do their work without applause
And live inside the rich folks’ laws.
Made by those up on the hill
Who’ve shown their willingness to kill.
Both here and there, the endless gore
Stains foreign sands and factory floors.
Smothers fathers in the mines
And keeps their sons on firing lines.
The party of the Working Mule
Should stand for those whose sweat is fuel
For our engines of industry
And to oppose the perfidy
Of those who’d mint our flesh for gold.
We must remember, as of old,
That we must say to power and pride
We are on the worker’s side.
Forget that and you’re not with me
No matter if you’re “R” or “D.”
-P
April 17, 2008 at 10:31 am
Explain to us, Fart, what the “Lawyers” and the “Unions” are guilty of that the coal industry isn’t.
April 17, 2008 at 10:44 am
Ain’t no doubt in HK’s wisdom. We have been and are ruled by the Friends of Coal Party and most of us are not invited…They don’t want to share… That is why West Virginia politics are the way it are…But again this situation just isn’t local…We are engaging in a class war as the economic disparity increases on a national level…Politicians who do share in the wealth do a great job of providing the distractions that keep the real issues curtained…
April 17, 2008 at 10:45 am
What we have here is someone from the left wing of the Democrat party calling a more moderate Democrat a DINO (Democrat in Name Only), which is kind of funny because it’s the same sort of whining we see from the right wing of the Republican party regarding GOP candidates like McCain, Giuliani and the like. RINO!
Politicians, more than anyone, are quite aware that fully satisfying the hopes and dreams of only a small faction of the party won’t get them elected. Trying to appeal to a broader range of voters will.
April 17, 2008 at 10:46 am
What we have here is someone from the left wing of the Democrat party calling a more moderate Democrat a DINO (Democrat in Name Only), which is kind of funny because it’s the same sort of whining we see from the right wing of the Republican party regarding GOP candidates like McCain, Giuliani and the like. RINO!
Politicians, more than anyone, are quite aware that fully satisfying the hopes and dreams of only a small faction of the party won’t get them elected. Trying to appeal to a broader range of voters will.
April 17, 2008 at 11:47 am
Explain to us, Fart, what the “Lawyers” and the “Unions” are guilty of that the coal industry isn’t.
I hope you do not believe the interests of those two groups are not directing the current state government.
Personnaly I wish the Coal Industry would lock everything down and leave for a couple of years and see what would become of West Virginia.
April 17, 2008 at 11:49 am
No, what we have here is someone who is correctly pointing out that when people say that the cause of West Virginia’s problems is the fact that Democrats have been in control for 70 years or however long, they are implying that Democratic policies are to blame, when in fact, the Democrats in West Virginia, for the most part, don’t actually advocate for Democratic policies, they advocate for “conservative” policies that in tons of other states would be considered Republican (because that’s what they are). It’s not about who can call themselves Democrats or not, it’s about the fallacy of blaming Democratic rule for WV’s problems and implying that if Republicans were in charge things would be better. When the Democrats in this state mostly act like Republicans, the argument isn’t exactly valid.
April 17, 2008 at 11:51 am
(I was responding to Ferd Berfle/WVian.)
April 17, 2008 at 12:03 pm
This is the best I have heard ,It is not the Democrats that have had control for seventy-six years, It is the Democrats that are republicans that are at fault!!
And I bet it is Bush’s fault. You guys would make a sane man crazy.
April 17, 2008 at 12:10 pm
This is easy. It is not about the party. It is about the money. The parties are subseviant to the economics. Unfortunatley in our democratic republic the electorate gets caught up in party and not in issues and we can’t seriously talk about health care but about flag pins.
April 17, 2008 at 12:31 pm
Fart, you’re confusing Democrat/Republican with conservative/liberal. It’s not that cut and dry. Manchin is a registered Democrat, elected governor as such, but you can’t show us much in his first term that jibes with the DNC platform.
Things we should’ve learned in grade school: It’s not what they say, it’s what they do.
And, Bitter, the parties are not subservient to the economics, they create the economics and it’s designed to benefit themselves. Example: the campaign season this go around was deliberately started early to benefit the political hack consultants.
April 17, 2008 at 12:49 pm
Jay,
My comments are made as broad brush statements but money does rule. The pols have to raise the money to pay the hacks and that does put them under the “thumb” of the big time money lenders who can skirt the laws governing contributions.
April 17, 2008 at 1:06 pm
I’m talking about “politicos” not politicians. They’ve tweaked the system, just like the “K Street Project” and the lobby system in general have tweaked the system, to benefit themselves. Of course money rules, but if they hardwire themselves into the process, they see more of it.
April 17, 2008 at 1:14 pm
It’s the policies (or lack thereof) that are at fault, Old Fart, not the party affiliation of the people in our legislature. It’s not that hard to grasp, really, though you seem to have entirely missed my point.
April 17, 2008 at 2:10 pm
Wow, Peregrinus, I love that.
April 17, 2008 at 2:14 pm
The point is, it doesn’t matter what they call themselves, it’s what they actually do that counts. That’s really not a bold idea, and it shouldn’t be so hard for some of you to understand. Virtually NONE of West Virginia’s elected Democrats can be seen, ever, advocating for Democratic polices. Even MODERATE Democratic policies. And while the social issues are what most of the mouth breathers tend to fixate on, I’m talking mostly about economic matters.
And please, Republican readers, don’t project on to me whatever issues you may have about your own party’s purity test. (e.g., that a candidate can fully support escalating Iraq in to WW3, privatizing social security, re-segregating schools, but! Because he’s not against stem cell research, then he’s not a true conservative. Big tent, my ass.) I see what you did thar. You’re going to have to work that shit out on your own time.
I’m really sick and tired of reading comments by people who say that because our Democrats have been so bad, what we need is to put Vic Sprouse in charge. Republicans are barely to the right, if to the right at all, of virtually every West Virginia democrat. So if you don’t realize that it would just be more of the same, times 10, then you’re pretty deluded. Or more likely, just incredibly disingenuous. All West Virginia Republicans want is their own turn to feed at the trough. Please don’t expect me to think you’re any different.
April 17, 2008 at 2:52 pm
How can you cretins keep apologizing for the mess the Democrats have made in WV? We need go back to the good old Arch Moore days, when hardworking coal operators like me could bribe away our Workers’ Comp. debts at a dime on the dollar. Now THAT’S what I call Open For Business.
April 17, 2008 at 2:55 pm
“All West Virginia Republicans want is their own turn to feed at the trough.”
Yep. Which would mean that po’ people and middle class people would get po’er. It’s just like the conservative “Activist Judges” argument: all they want are judges that’ll be “activists” for them.
And here’s another thing concerning Neocon Bait-And-Switch Tactics: Why didn’t Charlton “They’re Cold And Dead, Now” Heston hold up a Chinese-made AK-47 or a 15 round clip Beretta or TEC-9 instead of a musket in Beckley? If these are the weapons you knuckleheads (you know who you are) want everyone to have access to, why not be open about it?
April 17, 2008 at 7:14 pm
To the Haves, from a Peace-Loving Friend:
Have you really considered
The risk that you run
By telling us have-nots
That we can have guns?
The moment might come
When some of us tire
Of hearing you blessed folk
Whine and conspire.
A dozen perhaps.
Maybe just a score.
Or maybe a hundred
won’t take anymore…
Some father whose son
Has been wasted o’erseas
Some mother who’s worn out
Of bending the knee…
Some worker whose back
Was callously shattered;
Some one who’s been treated
Like he doesn’t matter…
Can’t say I’d advise it.
These things don’t end well.
Once the mob gets cut loose
Then the streets turn to Hell.
But…
Have the GOPpers considered
The risk that they run
By telling us plain folks
We can keep our guns?
-P
April 17, 2008 at 7:32 pm
Ya know this question about Democrat vs. Republican in West Virginia has baffled me for years. I tell people from other states who ask me about WV politics that the elections are decided in May in the Democratic primary. Period. I usually say that this is generally understood to be because of the the UMWA and the 1968 primary, and that since then the Republican party has been almost a non-starter. But then i can’t explain Arch Moore, Cecil Underwood and now, Gov. Manchin.
‘The hell! Seems to me that political affiliation matters a lot less now than class. And perhaps all three of these pols got where they did because of that trickle down/competition/small govt/less taxes cultural and political phenomenon we’ve all been suffering through since since Ronald Reagan and David Stockman.
April 18, 2008 at 10:17 am
If policies are advocated by people who are in fact Democrats, it makes no sense to assert they are not policies asserted by Democrats.
What you mean is that we are overwhelmed by Democrats who assert polcies that many believe to be inconsistent with certain historical traditions of the Democratic Party.
That would be more accurate but it would be looking at only a very short slice of history AND ignoring many Democrats even during that period. As some of you no doubt realize the “Democratic Party” to which these people allude really only existed for a very brief time beginning to some extent with FDR and in full flower only following the Civil Rights era and ending no later than 1992 when Clinton became President and any claim that the Democratic party was not just another pro-corporate Party for people with more “liberal” positions on certain social issues became untenable.
To a large extent it may be more accurate to say the WV Democratic Party was ahead of the national party in being a servant of business, but because WVians generally are not as “liberal” on social issues as many places our pro-business Democrats never adopted the “party line” on controversial social issues.” It’s also worth noting that even among WV Democrats who are pro-labor and environment there is a sizeable plurality who are “conservative” on social issues. Interstingly, we have also seen the national Democratic Party drifting that way as well on issues such as guns, the proper role of religion, etc.
HK is making a strained argument that the “Democratic Party” is only the slice he likes best — the one that briefly that constituted the controlling influence from about 1968 until the Reagan-Bush years. his claim falls apart when one looks at the Party before or after that.
April 18, 2008 at 4:57 pm
So which slice of the Republican party do you like best? The current “big tent” party, or the party of just a few years ago that openly treated women, minorities and gays as third class citizens? I guess that means segregation is a still an acceptable, nay, bedrock Republican value, even if it doesn’t come from the slice you like best.
April 18, 2008 at 10:59 pm
OK – again to ask for a bit of intellectual honesty – the repubs are NOT the party with a long, long history of demanding segregation. And no, I’m not a repub.
April 19, 2008 at 12:22 am
OK, I’m going to be even more blunt and mean than usual and ask you Sissonville: are you fucking stupid?!?!
From the Wikipedia article on the Civil Rights Act:
It wasn’t a Democrat/Republican issue, it was a North/South issue! Got it? Did you notice that there was a grand total of 11 Republicans in both the House and Senate from former Confederate states? Did you see that, Sissonville? That’s 11 out of 126 seats. Now look at the ratios of aye votes between Northern Republicans and Northern Democrats. Why can’t you understand that only two options are not enough to cover every ideology?!?
There’s your intellectual honesty.
.
April 19, 2008 at 11:07 am
Hippie Killer is so incapable of defending his arguments, all he can do is claim is someone cannot be a Democrat if he points out the flaws in what he says. Pathetic, and funny because it shows exactly the same inability to care about the truth as his original point which i was refuting.
The incredible arrogance of arguing anyone who does not agree with me is not a “real Democrat” (or any other use of the not genuine slur) is matched only by its stupidity. Good, bad or indifferent the Democratic Party includes people ofvarying beliefs and attitudes. Narrow-minded ignoramuses like hippie killer are just as much Democrats as people who actually think about things and attempt to be inclusive. Unfortuantely it’s the HK types that are leading this Party to jeopardize what should have been a slam dunk presidential election. The sadness of watching this Party open the door for continued Republican rule because of childish and selfish intraparty fratricide is depressing.
April 19, 2008 at 12:05 pm
Anon, if somebody like Manchin simply claims to be a Democrat to get elected, yet furthers the agenda of the Republican Party, why is it beneficial to have him in the Democratic Party? Lieberman was given the boot because he’s selling this country out for the benefit of Israel and I don’t see how calling out those kinds of political opportunists is a problem.
As I’ve said, a Venn Diagram of this country’s political ideologies would look like the Olympics Logo in a Fun House of Mirrors, but trying to force my representatives to actually represent me is not a flaw.
If you aren’t what you say you are, I’m going to call you on it.
April 19, 2008 at 12:35 pm
Above, written in heat, requires slight edit for form:
Your sophomoric manners and your schoolboy claims on truth
Tempt this author to dismiss you as a callow, untried youth.
Calling folks “Pathetic,” “Narrow-minded,” “ignoramus,”
Then claiming moral high-ground here should be enough to shame us
To turn, muttering sadly from your clumsy, care-troll gambol
With a “tut-tut” at your pettifogging, prelapsarian ramble.
Your swinish rudeness, Anon, brings a different frame of mind.
It drives me from indifference to a full response in kind.
HK’s your host, you vandal, you may argue as you will
But if you are “depressed” by “selfishness,” you wooden shill -
Perhaps you’d show example of the form you so lament.
Or are you just “incapable” of what you represent?
HK, or any member of a party worth the name,
Has every right to try to find its soul and then to claim
The party has strayed wildly from its fine historic call.
But you proclaim our noble party HAS NO SOUL AT ALL!
“Anon,” indeed! The empty name with no essential core.
YOUR party is the tool of any office-seeking whore.
Get ye hence! Triangulate, whoremongering Clintonite!
Too long our souls have withered in your compromising light!
We’ll have our “intraparty fratricide.” Damn the goals
Of your white-washing, condescending, bloviating trolls!
And your catamite’s gospel I reject in part and whole!
Take up the cudgels, hash it out: MY PARTY HAS A SOUL!
April 19, 2008 at 1:29 pm
I must be stupid then Jay, ’cause I don’t get it – were southern democrats not democrats? Don’t act like your dems are so squeeky clean when it comes to race – otherwise you might look as stupid as me.
No shit its about more than party – I’m not the one here that tries to pigeonhole everyone into dem or repub, lib or conserv. I said what I did because others were pulling that tired old, old bullshit about “republicans are racists”, “repubs hate the poor”, etc. Its a bunch of crap, its always been a bunch of crap – as much crap as accusing all dems of being racist because a few have most certainly been – southern or not. The fact that so many things here degenerate into that tired old twaddle is perfect proof of why we don’t get past it on a national level and get anything done – because, as on here with people like you going with name calling, if someone disagrees they must be the enemy. Or they must be stupid. Fact is, most people like you Jay simply can’t have honest, reasoned disagreements, and thoughtful discussion, because anyone that disagrees with you must be stupid.
April 19, 2008 at 2:31 pm
“…the repubs are NOT the party with a long, long history of demanding segregation…”
And neither is the national Democratic Party. What the hell is so thoughtful about that sentence? Your statement lacks the nuance needed to accurately define the Civil Rights movement and the geopolitics that made it so complicated. Here, read up on the Dixiecrats.
So, which party is the one trying to convince WVians that a Democratic president will take their guns and use them to force ‘em to marry a gay? Find me a comparable tactic used by Democrats.
April 19, 2008 at 3:04 pm
If that guy would bother to read the comments, he’d find that I’m defending my arguments quite well. But I guess it’s more fun to type out the same old “I’m right because I say so” crap over and over again. Typical blog troll behavior.
I get it though — maybe they really are Democrats, but in the sense of what it meant to be a Democrat 50 years ago.
Just like everything else in West Virginia.
God forbid anyone expect better.
April 21, 2008 at 9:06 am
Jay – you missed the part where I was trying to make the same point to someone else that you’re trying to make to me. Dems and Repubs are the same low-lifes – and they both use those tired old scare tactics. BOTH of them.
April 21, 2008 at 9:15 am
I agree with what HK has to say here…
except: Joe Manchin is FAR from being pro-business. He is pro-coal and anti-business. Take a look at the B&O taxes in WV, look at the taxes leveled on manufacturing, etc. etc. Even as to coal, JoeManch ain’t as nice as Kentucky or Wyoming are to their coal operators.
I’m not trying to say he is a dyed in the wool democrat, but calling him pro-business is just incorrect. Caperton was a pro-business democrat. Manchin pretends to be pro-business when he is really pro coal and ignores the economy otherwise.
April 21, 2008 at 10:23 am
Manchin didn’t create our B&O taxes, did he?
April 21, 2008 at 11:42 am
Twenty-Eight Governors Who Won’t Be Running Mates (http://governing.typepad.com/ballotbox/2008/04/twenty-eight-go.html):
. . .
3) Out of step with the party. Republican Gov. Jodi Rell of Connecticut signed the nation’s first gay civil unions law that wasn’t prompted by a court order. She’s also pro-choice. She’s one of a group of governors who regularly commit partisan heresy to the point that it’s hard to imagine them on a presidential ticket.
-Jodi Rell (R-CT)
-Dave Freudenthal (D-WY)
-Brad Henry (D-OK)
-Joe Manchin (D-WV)
-Linda Lingle (R-HI)
-Jim Douglas (R-VT)
. . .