Covering a week’s worth of West Virginia’s politicians

The Wheeling Alternative

Media playing favorites – a look at our “fair and balanced” local media deciding (by their coverage) who is and who is not a legitimate candidate

Covering the media’s favorite favorite, Riley Moore

Monday was the first filing day for West Virginia candidates. And at the point of this WTOV broadcast on Tuesday, numerous candidates had filed for West Virginia’s May primary. However, only one candidate’s filing was covered on that day’s WTOV news:

And not to be outdone, here is Ogden’s political reporter:

(Adams is slipping -- there was no mention that Moore’s first job was as a welder.)

And then the plot thickened: On the front page of Wednesday’s Wheeling Intelligencer, we learned that Retired Brig. Gen. Chris Walker will be running for that same 2nd Congressional District seat:

Interesting. At that point, Chris Walker had been running for Congress for barely 24 hours. Still, Ogden had already given him more coverage than the combined total for all the other Democratic and Republican candidates including Joe Early and Nate Cain who both declared quite a few months ago. Of course, Walker’s media coverage has a long way to go to catch Moore’s.

Notes from the Republican WV attorney general race

In January 2021, shortly after the attack upon the Capitol, Mike Stuart, who headed the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of West Virginia, issued the following statement:

(Click on the link for Stuart’s complete statement.)

Stuart is currently running for WV attorney general, but he has clearly changed his mind on the "reprehensible violence" and who are the "real insurrectionists."

The times have clearly changed and like current AG Patrick Morrisey, Stuart regularly tweets his uncompromised support for Donald Trump. Yes, Stuart can’t say enough good things about the man with 91 indictments who led that insurrection.

You would also think, however, that given Stuart’s complete turnaround on this issue, that he would be a bit more understanding about a candidate (in this case, his opponent JB McCuskey) who may have changed his mind on another important issue. Not so – he tweeted this, Friday:

If you click on the vote for Stuart's proof, you’ll see that the vote was not very recent -- it’s from 2016. You’ll also see that, while it’s about guns, there are no specifics. In particular, note that there are a number of Democrats and Republicans on both sides of the issue. My guess is that this was a vote on an amendment to some type of gun legislation; it most certainly wasn’t the final vote on this nameless bill. Even so, how does this vote from 8 years ago in any way prove Stuart’s assertion that McCuskey is “OVER and OVER and OVER and OVER against the 2nd Amendment”?

The more I follow Stuart, the less I trust him.

Governor Jim Justice/Babydog news

From Tuesday:

Apparently, Babydog was injured at the State of the State:

I agree with Young. Additionally, every time I see the governor with his dog, I’m reminded of this post:

Alex Mooney’s endorsements

Republican Senate candidate and Justice’s chief opponent, Alex Mooney, apparently believes that the best way to win the nomination is to constantly attack Jim Justice as a liberal and even more importantly, brag about who has endorsed his candidacy. I was originally going to publish a few of his numerous twitter posts of those who have endorsed him, but Mooney was recently interviewed by Ogden’s Intermountain newspaper; the article proves my point much more concisely. From that article:

Mooney wants voters to clearly see the differences between him and his Republican rival for the Senate seat, Gov. Jim Justice.

“Thirty-one members of the House of Delegates have endorsed me, and eight state senators. And guess how many have endorsed Jim Justice? None, literally nobody. And that really says something,” Mooney said.

“The case I’m trying to make is that my opponent is liberal. I’m a conservative Republican. I don’t think there’s anyone who doubts that. You can look at my voting record over 10 years. I’m in the Freedom Caucus. I’m endorsed by Ted Cruz, Jim Jordan and Rand Paul. My opponent was recruited by Mitch McConnell, and he’s the establishment guy.”

(In fairness to Mooney, he later said that he wants to cut the debt and build the economy.)

Just a thought: Maybe 50 or 60 years ago endorsements mattered, but does anybody still care about them? I would think that most of us are capable of making our own ballot decisions. Most likely, Mooney's campaign decision to attack Justice as a liberal while piling up endorsements is because he has few alternatives -- his legislative accomplishments are quite limited. (See here, for Mooney's list of his own accomplishments.) This is a terrible campaign.

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January 14, 2024

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Posted in: alex mooneychris walkerdonald trumpjim justicemike stuartogden favoriteriley moore

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