In a press release, McKinley responds to Biden’s speech by using the old poem, “Casey at the Bat,” as a metaphor to describe Biden address. Its title reads:

MCKINLEY ON THE STATE OF THE UNION: PRESIDENT BIDEN HAS STRUCK OUT

According to our local congressman, the President (like the “mighty Casey”) had a chance to hit a homerun but instead, he struck out.

Much of McKinley’s campaign, so far, has been about infrastructure, attacks on some of Biden’s policies, Mooney's ethics violation, and all the goodies that he has brought home (and will bring home) to West Virginia. (He's been aided in his effort by a number of the congressional district's newspapers.) On the other hand, Alex Mooney’s strategy has been a basic one built around a simple event: Donald Trump endorsed me. In looking at McKinley’s statement on Biden’s “State of the Union Address,” it appears McKinley has changed strategies – with two of Biden/Casey’s three strikes, McKinley clearly embraces Trump’s rhetoric and policies.

What do you think was Biden/Casey’s first “strike”? Even with a hint (Trump talked about it hundreds of times in 2020), I believe that it would take even the most astute political observer at least a dozen guesses to get the right answer. According to McKinley, Biden’s first strike

came when he refused to hold China accountable for the role they played in the COVID-19 pandemic, while breaking his promise to solve the crisis if elected.

Is blaming China still a big deal? I can’t remember when I last read about it. My first reaction was disbelief – we have a world crisis in the Ukraine but McKinley thinks Biden should be spending SOTU time on the origins of covid. (Maybe blaming China is a high priority for hard core Trump supporters, but I can’t help thinking that most of us have moved on.) As for ending the virus, aren’t the anti-vax Republicans one of reasons why we’ve had such difficulty doing so? Nice. Blame Biden, Congressman, while many of your fellow WV Republicans and the party’s leadership continue to keep the virus alive by fighting mask requirements and avoiding vaccinations.

His second “strike” is a bit more predictable:

"Strike two was when President Biden refused to address how his reckless spending led to the highest inflation rate we’ve seen in 40 years – a devastating tax on everyone that is crushing families."

Reckless spending? Like the billions that came from the first covid bill passed in 2020 under Trump? Or he is talking about the second covid bill and the huge infrastructure bill passed in 2021? McKinley voted for all of them. Inflation is a problem (not just confined to the U.S.) but I’ve yet to see how they came from Biden’s policies.

Finally, McKinley wants to blame Putin’s action in the Ukraine on Biden:

"And strike three was when President Biden failed to accept responsibility for his weak foreign policy that effectively enabled Putin to wage war against Ukraine."

See my Sunday post in which I dealt with McKinley’s rewriting of history in order to support Trump’s policies on the Ukraine. Trump’s numerous responses to the Ukraine clearly signaled to Putin that he could do whatever he wanted. Now McKinley wants to blame Biden for Trump’s failures.

Can McKinley out-embrace Mooney on Trump? I don’t think so -- not while Mooney holds Trump's endorsement.