Any ideas?
Rockerfeller is retiring so the seat is open. Shelley Moore Capito, a 7 term congresswoman with a no doubt horrible record has said she is running for it but there must be someone who is better than her?
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Any ideas?
Rockerfeller is retiring so the seat is open. Shelley Moore Capito, a 7 term congresswoman with a no doubt horrible record has said she is running for it but there must be someone who is better than her?
Not in WV.
Isn't the daily bell or something located there? some solidly conservative site like that there endorsed Ron almost poetically.. They'd know if anyone would. Plus we have members here who are active in their party there.
Here's the youth for Ron Paul WVU chapter facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/groups/292942927400472/
Not terribly active lately, but if you go back in the posts a bit there are names we'd recognize, with their facebook links.
The establishment is going to be heavily invested here. Let's go to Alaska, where the race is favorable, Joe Miller is already liked by the base, or South Carolina/Georgia where the incumbents are somewhat ripe for a primary defeat. We need to use our limited resources/political capital to our advantage, even if it means leaving a RINO or two alone. Control of the Senate is a very real possibility here. Since we've already got Rand, Lee, and Flake as solid allies, with a few freshmen having the opportunity to add themselves here, I would like to see as many liberty guys as possible help set the agenda and sit on committee chairs. Let's not torpedo seats for the sake of winning a primary election.
GOP needs 6 pickups
Already Favored
South Dakota (Rounds vs. Johnson could retire/another Dem)
West Virginia (Moore Capito vs ???)
Alaska (Treadwell or Miller vs Begich)-Miller is king but Treadwell seems ok as well
Toss Up
Arkansas
Louisiana
North Carolina
Slight Underdogs
Virginia-depends if Warner runs
Montana- Baucus will be formidable, best hope would be for some progressive on the left to primary him
Underdogs-could be worth a shot here
Colorado
New Mexico
Minnesota
Primary Opportunities in safe states
South Carolina
Georgia
Why is the establishment particularly invested in West Virginia?
I want someone in Idaho, wasn't it, and North Dakota? We are strong there.
South Dakota already has a popular former governor. If we got Labrador to primary Risch that could be a possibility, but don't forget Risch voted against NDAA. The Idaho boys aren't quite on board but they are better than the southern neocons. Risch is 71, he might only decide to serve 1 more term. Then we could push Labrador, who by then will be a 5 termer in the House and naturally move up. I say the establishment is popular in WV because Moore Capito announced her candidacy right after the election and already has establishment backing and Rove behind her. Plus West Virginia is odd. I think they are more teocon/social conservative than libertarian at this point. It is a red state though and not worth pissing away a free seat.
I said North Dakota not south, and I was thinking of senator, actually.
If Rove is behind that woman in WV we are golden though, aren't we? $300 million on candidates and zero successes, wasn't that his ratio last election cycle? Whereas Ron's was 8 out of 12?
North Dakota has no seat up in 14, that's why I went to SD. Rove was also in more competitive races. Karl Rove money would have gotten Massie, Cruz, etc all elected regardless. Don't forget, Rove's primary money always is given in favor of the establishment candidate, regardless of ideology. I'm just saying, WV isn't particularly libertarian. John Raese was at least a fiscal one and got blown out twice, mostly taking heat because he wanted to dismantle programs like social security, etc.
New Hampshire could be a target. Shaheen is probably not going to garner serious Republican opposition.
How about the congressional seat Capito is vacating? That could be another good goal.
West Virginia loves their pork.
ALEXANDRIA, VA — The Senate Conservatives Fund (SCF) made the following statement today following news that U.S. Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) will retire.
"Now that Rockefeller has taken himself out of the race, the door is wide open for Republicans in West Virginia to nominate a true conservative," said SCF Executive Director Matt Hoskins. "President Obama lost the state by 26 points so there's no reason a courageous conservative can't win this race."
In November, SCF announced it could not support Congresswoman Shelley Moore Capito's candidacy for the U.S. Senate because of her liberal voting record in the U.S. House of Representatives. Just last year, Capito voted for the $1 trillion, budget-busting omnibus spending bill as well as a $2.4 trillion increase in the debt ceiling. Capito has a long history of supporting wasteful earmark spending, union wage mandates, and taxpayer funding for abortion.
"We're not going to stop looking for a conservative challenger in this race until the primary is over. The voters in West Virginia get to decide who represents them and they should have a conservative choice. If we're going to save this country, we have to find principled leaders who have the courage to stand up to the big spenders in both political parties. "
The Senate Conservatives Fund (SCF) is an independent, grassroots organization dedicated to electing conservatives to the U.S. Senate. SCF raised over $25 million in the past two election cycles and helped elect eight U.S. Senators, including Pat Toomey (R-PA), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Rand Paul (R-KY), Mike Lee (R-UT), Ron Johnson (R-WI), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Jeff Flake (R-AZ), and Deb Fischer (R-NE).
I don't know...I just don't think it will work. I really want Republicans to take back the Senate regardless who many of the Republicans are. Remember being in the majority lets us control the agenda and the amendment process, which is very important especially since a guy like Rand has been complaining about never getting his amendments brought to the floor. I hope we remember this rather than trying to just find a "conservative" in a state that although is red, will vote for a moderate, West Virginia Democrat over a staunch conservative.
Capito seems more progressive than Manchin. I hope we can find candidates for senate and her vacated house seat.
David Nohe is in the WV state senate. Here is what I found on him at ballotpedia:
Nohe's campaign stresses four topics:
Leadership and Family: "David has a long history of strong leadership as Mayor of Vienna, WV for the last 13 years. During his tenure as Vienna's Mayor, he has kept his commitment to the voters by his leadership of strict fiscally conservative discipline and adherence to core Christian values."
Experience: "As a former detective with the Wood County Sheriff's Department and the CEO of the Vienna Police Department for the last 13 years, David has vast experience in the field of public safety. He has dedicated his life to serving and protecting the citizens and making our communities a safer place to live.
Faith: "A strong pro-life candidate, he recently issued a statement, explaining, 'As a Christian father and grandfather, I believe that every child has the right to life, which is why, as your state senator, I will continue to fight for life and the protection of the defenseless.'"
Freedom: "A firm Constitutionalist, David believes in the freedoms promised to all United States citizens. As an unwaivering supporter of the Second Amendment, David is dedicated to protecting the people's right to keep and bear Arms."
That could be the man we're looking for. A former mayor, state senator and fiscally conservative.
Does he have statewide name recognition? Or a war chest full of money. Furthermore, when is he up for reelection? I don't know if he would want to risk his own seat to run for US Senate. Seems like a great candidate. I'd support him. It's just going to take a lot of money to overthrow Moore-Capito. I'd rather spend that money against Lindsey and for Miller in Alaska, two more sure-fire states.
In my mind, he's an easy lock for the nomination and then Senator by default. IIRC, the GOP establishment bent over backwards doing rolling donuts to cater to Murkowski's write-in campaign after the grassroots told the state party in the primary to get bent with their insider pick. Likely many dems switched teams to deny Miller the victory by writing in Lisa. Plus, with the injection of many liberty favorable delegates into the state party apparatus plus the new chair and co-chair, I don't see how we could lose.
I know that Republicans here in South Dakota are not excited at all about RINO Rounds running for Senate. In his two terms here as governor, he took our immense budget surplus and ran us into a huge deficit. 7 of his 8 years in office, his budget proposal ran a deficit (Most of them set the record for the largest deficits in state history). He took 300 million in federal stimulus money and stuffed it in the state general fund to mask his insane spending. I know we all have someone we think of as the definition of establishment, and for me, he is. He was constantly making ridiculous no-bid contracts with big corporations. We added 1500 state jobs over his tenure. I look forward to a real conservative challenging him in the primary.
I don't see why Miller is tarnished.
Things should be leaning heavily to the GOP in 2014 and so he should be favorite to pick the seat up. He has state-wide name recognition from last time.
That's why we need to get conservatives into the right spots to take advantage of swing to the right.
A conservative can absolutely win in WV, it's an open seat so no incumbent and should be leaning GOP. It's very winnable for a conservative even an unknown one as they will be facing an unknown Democrat.
It doesn't matter about name reconigiton when the Democrat your facing is likely to just as much unknown. In this race it's going to come down to whether the conservative is competent and the national swing i.e people will vote GOP because the economy sucks and as long as we have a competent, electable conservative he should be favored to win it.
Also WV is a small state so money goes a long way.
This is a prime pick up opportunity if we can find the right candidate.
Checking in from WV. Haven't been on RPFs in a while. I heard a rumor that Raese didn't really even want to run last time, but the Republicans didn't have anyone else to run. Shutting down things like SS in WV...WV has an increasingly aging population. Like many older folks, unfortunately, their fiscal conservatism suddenly stops at SS and Medicare.
Hard to argue with this one, too. We're near the top of the federal money-in vs. money-out rankings.