Again, Kercheval does his part on WV MetroNews

Hoppy Kercheval on WV MetroNews is probably the state’s best interviewer of politicians. He asks good questions and then usually follows them up with even better questions. Our local congressional representative, David McKinley, for instance, loves to appear in local media because he dominates the interviewer so that he can then say whatever he wants knowing there will be no pushback. Not so with Kercheval. For example, last November, McKinley appeared on Kercheval’s show and referred to the Civil War as a Confederate sympathizer might, “the War of Northern Aggression.” Kercheval pushed back on this; McKinley eased up, sensing, I believe, that Kercheval was not going to accept his premise that it was the North who was in the wrong. (I wrote about it here).

However, there is at least one interviewee that Kercheval regularly allows to duck questions: West Virginia Senator Shelley Moore Capito. The state’s Republican senator was on his show again today and while Kercheval had excellent initial questions, he regularly allowed Capito to dodge them. He asked Capito, for instance, whether she agreed with President Trump that we were “rounding the corner” on the virus and then followed that by asking whether the president ought to wear a mask. She ignored both questions and so Kercheval moved on. He then asked about the Republican’s push for Trump’s Supreme Court nominee in light of what she and her fellow Republicans had said four years ago. Capito replied that this was a Democratic problem because “no rules were broken.” He moved on but returned to it later. Capito then asserted that this year was different, and that the 2016 Republican rule didn’t apply because both the Senate and the President were from the same party. Huh? Who made that rule? And, yet there was no follow-up. Finally, Kercheval asked why she refused to debate her opponent and Capito replied that they didn’t need to since there were joint interviews from West Virginia’s papers. I don’t expect Kercheval to know that our local Ogden papers have totally ignored her opponent (see my previous post) but I know he is more-than-aware that newspaper questions are not the same as a live debate. (An earlier segment of his program had been a live debate between the Attorney General candidates – something Kercheval said had gone very well.)

Capito lies, Kercheval ignores

On the debate question, Capito then added “I’ve never been one to hide.” Did Kercheval forget about what happened in 2014 when Capito first ran for the Senate? I think that he should remember because he was the moderator in the first debate which featured then congresswoman Capito and West Virginia’s Secretary of State, Natalie Tennant. I wrote* about that debate and I didn’t think that either candidate stood out.

The second debate, sponsored by WV Public Broadcasting, added the other candidates for the office: the Constitution Party’s Phil Hudok, Libertarian John Buckley, and the Mountain Party’s Bob Henry Baber. Capito, the polling leader, then claimed that she had a previous commitment: a tour of Fletcher Mining Equipment, in Huntington. She did not participate. (I would call it “hiding,” but what do I know?)

More (Moore?) from the family that likes to make new rules that apply only to Democrats

His Aunt, Shelley Moore Capito, was elected to the state Legislature in 1996, Congress in 2000, and the U.S. Senate in 2014, where she's now running for and likely to win re-election.

Isn't that also 24 years?

— Jake Zuckerman (@jake_zuckerman) October 21, 2020

(Flatly is a reporter at WV Metro News and Zuckerman formerly worked at the Charleston Gazette-Mail.)

*Note -- No link - that post was on my old site which disappeared when the Web no longer recognized the code.