For more than 80 years proceeding 2014, the Democrats had a firm control of West Virginia politics.
They were clearly undefeated – they ran on being the party of the working man.
Then the national party sold out to the coastal elites, who really were not interested in those of us in flyover land. Those of us who made things. Those who provided their electricity. The steel for their cars. The chemicals that enable everyday life.
They would insist that they were for the working man, and in the same breath talk about “putting coal out of business.” Coal provides jobs. Coal that you can’t make so many products without.
Then, they attacked the cleanest of the fossil fuels, natural gas. West Virginia is in the shale gas business. It’s a key part of West Virginia’s energy portfolio.
Their actions were completely disconnected from their words. They wanted what they wanted, and your job in West Virginia be damned.
If you were a Union tradesman, they wanted more taxes from you getting to work “for the good of the planet.”
“Clean energy jobs” is a hollow catchphrase, and we all know it.
The know-it-alls from both coasts will remind you that they have a statistic that shows that West Virginia is the least educated state. Regardless of the numbers they fabricate, West Virginians are smart, knew when they were being had, and they voted accordingly.
It took some Democrats a while longer to make the change to Republican – I know people who were concerned about voting for a Republican. Their family had a tradition of voting for Democrats.
Of course, tradition is peer pressure from dead people. Convincing dead relatives the Democrats they once knew and loved have left the building takes just a little longer. But in the anonymity of the voting booth, they pulled the lever, punched the chad, or clicked the screen for Republicans in record numbers. They did this because Republicans believe in West Virginia values. They believe in the West Virginia work ethic. They believe the best anti-poverty program is not a handout, but a job.
I would love to report that the Republicans had a grand plan, and that staying true to their goals of limited government and less taxes resulted in their wins.
That’s not the case.
In the end, the Democrats beat themselves.
Today, West Virginia has a newly emboldened Republican Party. With the Democrat party making a leftward lurch in 2022 that continues to this day, more people than ever are voting Republican. There are 34 state senators in the upper house of the West Virginia legislature. Thirty-one are Republicans. The Democrats could caucus in a phone booth (if you can even find a phone booth these days).
The lower house, the House of Delegates has 100 members, of which 89 are Republican, and a paltry 11 are Democrats.
These two super majorities plus the Governor’s Mansion are a level of power that the Democrats could not have imagined, even at the peak of their power. Two super majorities, and the Republicans, can’t seem to agree on much, or to make any meaningful changes.
The Republicans need to remember they are a single botched message away from obscurity. They need to keep the extremists in their party at bay.
The population in West Virginia is overwhelming center-right. Conservative in fiscal matters, pragmatic on some social issues, and right down the center on the social issues of today. The pragmatic piece is what the Republicans need to address.
All extreme positions are wrong, including this one. The Democrats learned this when they sold out to the extreme left, and good, hardworking states like West Virginia turned Republican Red.
Right now, there is a fight to the death, a Battle Royale over the heart and soul of the Republican Party in West Virginia. There is a vacuum of true leadership, and the extreme right of the party is banding together to institute laws that will hurt our viability as a state for people who are fleeing extreme liberal hell holes like New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.
Will we be the Colorado of the east, or something far less? That opportunity is ours to seize or to squander. Our state has the natural beauty, the resources and the talent to go anywhere we want to take her.
Will we choose wisely over the next 70 years, or is this the first zig to the right, which will be followed by a “zag” to the right, all the while ignoring the yellow brick road that will take us where we need to go?
