We should all acknowledge WV-02's GOP Rep. Shelley Moore Capito's accomplishment in becoming the first House Republican to be tied to the three highest-profile culture of corruption scandals.
The Friday filings implicating Capito in the Abramoff scandal, added to her status as the largest single recipient of DeLay's ARMPAC money and the Randy "Duke" Cunningham money she had to donate to charity vefore the holidays completed the trifecta.
This unique status makes this already vulnerable GOP House incumbent all the more beatable by Democratic challenger Mike Callaghan.
Read on for more on why, how and with whom we will whip her in 2006. Or just help out Callaghan at.....
"Callaghan Campaign Site"
THE DISTRICT:
WV-02 is the longest district east-to-west this side of the Mississippi. It runs from the DC exurb Eastern Panhandle through the mountainous center of the state to the banks of the Ohio River.
While the district includes Charleston, it is a predominantly rural district. The constituency of WV-02 is significantly more elderly and poorer than the national average. Prior to Capito winning the seat in 2000 after long-time Congressman Bob Wise moved up to Governor, the district had been historically a Democratic stronghold...with the exception of a brilliantly executed grassroots campaign by one-term wonder Republican Mick Staton.
WV-02 retains a roughly two-to-one for Democrats in voter registration. This district is a classic example of the kind of rural seat Democrats used to have locked down tighter than a drum. It is also an ideally designed district for a concerted effort to shatter the myth of GOP invincibility in rural seats...an action required in terms of symbolic psychological value and practical arithmetic if Democrats are ever to regain control of the US House the way districts are currently gerrymandered.
WV-02 is the kind of low-hanging fruit we need to pick before it drops off the vine.
As an aside, WV-02 also is the home district of the two most well-known female soldiers from the war in Iraq. In an intriguing reflection of the Janus-faced character of the war, both Jessica Lynch and Lynddie England are natives of WV-02.
Interesting rumors abound that Jessica Lynch is a Callaghan supporter, but I haven't seen any statements directly from her.
CAPITO BACKGROUND:
Shelley Moore Capito's greatest claim to fame in state remains the simple fact the she is Arch Moore's daughter. Arch Moore is a three-term former governor and one-term convict. Despite the controversial past, Arch remains very popular in the state. Simply put, he was a gifted pol and a charismatic man. And bribery charges were not exactly a new development in West Virginia politics.
Capito is a fairly hardline conservative in terms of positioning. However, she is an especially cautious pol who invariably attempts to obscure her extreme right wing positions with lip service to the other side expressing empathy with their position.
For example, while a flat-out right-to-lifer on reproductive issues, Capito always tempers her anti-choice positions by speaking of how she understands the enormous difficulty of the positions in which some women find themselves. On environmental issues she pays lip service to the need to guard West Virginia's scenic beauty while her actions would indicate she is in the pocket of the extraction industries, especially the clear cutting timber and mountaintop removal coal operations.
In terms of style, Capito is essentially a gracious and gentle lady. Her demeanor is a bit patrician, essentially a stiffer version of Christie Todd Whitman stylistically. Capito does come off a bit stand-offish and awkward in personal appearnces. Oddly, on TV she appears far more at ease than she does at live events.
CAPITO POLITICAL HISTORY:
Outside of being Arch's daughter, Capito did not bring much of a political resume to the table until her election to Congress in 2000. In the general she ran for an open Democratic seat against wealthy trial lawyer Jim Humphries. Humphries dropped a couple million of his own money and lost a close race in a district where Al Gore was an enormous drag on the ticket.
In a coal and hunting district, Gore was carrying the double-whammy of Kyoto killing off coal jobs and his rather silly stance that he was against registering guns but advocating registering gun owners. Gore might have survived one of those stances. Leaking votes on both, he was toast. Gore awas also damaged by the lingering memory of his father's tenure heading Occidental Petroleum's coal unit, Island Creek Coal, during which he presided over the loss of jobs and moving the HQ out of state to Abingdon, VA.
Humphries made a few tactical errors of his own, essentially relying on a media campaign heavy on TV buys in an area which expects its politics to be carried out on a retail basis. Humphries went negative hard and early, allowing time for a backlash to build ahainst him and creating the impression he was beating up on a nice lady. It was enough to cost him a close loss in 2000.
In 2002, Capito and Humphries had a rematch. Humphries outspent Capito, again running a TV attack campaign. With 9/11 dragging down Democratic support in an area with enormously disproportinate vets and active military families, Capito trounced Humphries roughly 60 to 40 percent.
In 2004, Capito faced a woefully underfunded ($87K total of which $20K ws his own money) token challenger in Eric Wells.
With Kerry a drag at the top of the ticket in a district in which the Rove GOTV strategy absolutely hammered the Republican-leaning DC exurban Eastern Panhandle counties, Capito actually managed to drop two points off her vote percentage.
Consider that for a minute. With the wind at her back and facing token opposition... with Bush appearing in the disrict every couple of months for four years...with the GOP 72-Hour-Plan and the churches whipping Republican voters out of every thicket....Capito dropped two points to 57%.
(NOTE: It was 57, not 58. The figures posted on the network sites didn't include the 1% pulled off to the Mountain party candidate...WV's version of the Greens).
CAPITO ON THE HILL:
As one of the very few female GOP members, Capito was quickly adopted and fast-tracked by the DeLay leadership. Members with far longer service were pushed aside to hand her a slot on House Transportation. She became the House GOP go-to talking head on coal issues.
Her alliance with Tom DeLay helped her move up quickly. She made the move with his backing from Transportation to House Rules, where she was better positioned to rig the game on the floor in whatever manner DeLay (and Potemkin Speaker Hastert) wished.
This move was an oddly naked display of personal ambition. In the session in which the bloated roads bill was being cobbled together, she subordinated the interests of her district's constituents to her career advancement. Rather than deliver funding for badly nedded transporation infrastructure (particularly in the rapidly growing DC exurb Panhandle which provides her base and supplies her margin), she chose to bail out on the people of WV-02 to carry the Washington Republican leadership's water on Rules.
As the Delay scandal developed, it was revealed that Capito was the largest single recipient of DeLay ARMPAC funds. Capito also took money from Randy "Duke" Cunningham, which she quietly donated to charity during the political coverage void before the holidays.
On Friday, federal district court filings implicate Capito in Jack Abramoff's efforts to milk government resources for his lobbying clients. Capito's former Chief of Staff seems to be falling on his own sword like a good soldier for now, claiming it was all him acting on his lonesome. Well, either Capito is inattentive manager of her own staff or this story will change as the investigation and prosecution unfolds.
In any event, again we should doff our hats to Capito. No other House Republican has managed to get tied to all three of the highest profile ethics and corruption scandals.
CAPITO SELF-INFLICTED DAMAGE SINCE 2004:
The Byrd float:
When Bush was looking for payback on Robert Byrd, you will recall it was Shelley Capito they tried to lean into the race. The Washington scuttlebutt was they promised Capito a guarantee of a minimum $14 million in funding, plenty of stump appearances by Bush and other GOP leading lights, and a top-tier sub-cabinet post (SBA likely) should her challenge of Byrd fall short.
Capito played coy, pointedly stating she wanted to keep her options open while launching a string of appearances outside the district. And she kept playing coy for months on end.
Intially, the Byrd float probably helped her. However, as she dragged it on and on in her characteristically qualified and cautious manner, it began to morph into a liability. Ultimately she began to be viewed as either weakly indecisive and/or morbidly opportunistic.
The perception grew that she did not have the guts to take on Robert Byrd. Folks began to speculate that she was merely waiting to see if the health of Byrd or his wife would deteriorate to the point it would force him out of the race. Since everyone in West Virginia believes the only way Byrd would voluntarily leave office is feet-first, Capito's Hamlet Act began to seem more like a vulture circling wounded prey waiting for it to die so it could pick off an easy meal.
Meanwhile, Capito used her artificially elevated profile to raise a little extra cash under false pretenses from angrey conservatives eager to fund anyone taking a shot at Byrd. She allowed the rumor of a Byrd challenge to linger while she made appearnces all over the state to build a network for a future statewide run.
So, she's a morbid cynic waiting for a grand old man to die so she can take his job. She doesn't have the guts to face him herself, but she will take under false pretenses money from right-wingers eager to take a shot at their favorite whipping boy.
Sago Creek:
I hate to bring this up as it is an emotionally charged issue. However, Capito's reckless performance at Sago calls into question her judgment, character, and fitness for office.
When the false rumors of a miracle at Sago Creek were building, only one official went on camera to tacitly confirm the wildest of the hopeful rumors we all wanted so desperately to believe. Capito did a stand-up with CNN in which she said "twelve miners alive".
Up to that point the broadcast and cable networks had no one in authority confirming the rumors. Joe Manchin had the common sense not to trot out in front of the cameras until he knew the score. Even the embattled ICG CEO Hatfield showed some restraint at that point.
Shelley Moore Capito, on the other hand, just happened to suddenly become available for an on-air stand-up interview. I find it not beyond the realm of possibility her motivation was a desire to beat her potential opponent in the WV 2008 gubernatorial to the punch. Especially after Governor Manchin's incredibly moving speech in which he cited his personal ties to the Farmington disaster had resonated so powerfully, Capito had a political need to cash in on the faux miracle.
If there had been a miracle, Capito was the first official to go on air confirming it. It would have been her face leading all the newscasts, saying "twelve miners alive". Instead, the story turned out to be painfully wrong. And in the MSM's haste to move off their own role and epic imcompetence in misinforming the public, Capito's reackless tacit confirmation was quickly forgotten.
It is most interesting that the stand-up with Capito was moved a working link to the paid-access archives by noon the next morning. This happened a lot more quickly than the time frame for such a move stated on the site.
Capito is a legislator with no executive authority. It seems to me fairly obvious that managing the crisis was a purely executive function. As her presence at Sago was purely symbolic, Capito decision to stroll down the road 40 yards from the Baptist church where the families were gathered to where the TV crews were being penned to make a tacit confirmation on a situation in which she had no formal role or authority seems as presumptuous as it was reckless.
TOUGH VOTES FOR CAPITO:
Capito has voted:
- for cuts to veteran's health benefits
- against steel import quotas, reversing her earlier position
- for weakening House ethic rules
- cuts to Medicare and Medicaid
- consistently anti-choice
- consistently anti-environment
- consistently against organized labor
- for everything Wall Street wants at the expense of Main
Street West Virginians.
HOW TO BEAT HER:
Capito is an out-of-touch elitist beholden to out-of-state corporate interests at the expense of her constituents. She is no longer one of us. Capito is a creature of Washington.
Democrat challanger Mike Callaghan is one of us. His populist campaign and charismatic demeanor will contrast vividly with the staid Capito.
I'd elaborate more, but I''d rather force you to check out mu other posts here and at OurCongress "OurCOngress", SwingStateProject "swingstate, and MyDD.
If you want to read posts by someone who actually knows what he's doing on a blog, check out Davidnyc's stuff at SwingStateProject and OurCongress.
THE DEMOCRATIC FIELD:
There are now three candiates for the nomination to challenge Capito in WV-02.
Mark Hunt is a state legislator and a wealthy trial lawyer specializing in auto wreck claims. He runs a lot of TV ads on latenight programs and such trying to drum up cases.
He seems like a good fellow, but carries a lot of baggage. In addition to being an ambulance-chasing TV lawyer, he got caught up with this Raelian Temple cloning cult after the tragic loss of his son.
Capito and the Republican Attack Machine will open up Hunt like a boiled peanut over the half-million dollars he gave to this cult trying to clone hid poor child. Also, Hunt speaks very forecfully, emotionally and continuously on this issue. When he does, she speaks as though the cloning would result in him getting his poor boy back exactly as we was. The language is jarring. He speaks of being willing to give anything to look into the beautiful blue eyes of his boy again.
There seems to be realization that restoring the genes doesn't mean reclaiming the same spirit at precisely the moment the child passed. Hunt doesn't seem to grasp his paramount issue.
In any event, Hunt has no chance in the general. Capito would beat on him like a drum.
Richie Robb is a longtime South Charleston mayor, media gadly, and Republican party-switcher trying to repsotion himself from Reaganite to MoveOn liberal. He thinks he can fool progressives by posturing on the war.
Robb ran for the GOP gubernatorial nomination as recently as 2004. He was crushed. After that he began doing a state version of John McCain's act since his rise was permanently blocked in the WV GOP.
His only national publicity was when he threatened not to vote for Bush when serving as a GOP elector for WV in 2000. He uses this and city council resolutions on the war to try to woo the progressive activists (who are mostly backing Callaghan, by the way). The thing is, he eneded up voting for Bush's election, citing the 11-point marhin as justification.
What is rich is his original qualms about voting for Bush were based on disagreeing with W's foreign policy. Problem is, Robb was angru over Bush's foreign policy when W was promising to make us a "humbler nation".
Frankly, Robb's Paul-on-the-road-to-Damascus conversion from loyal Reaganite to progressive is not credible, especially as it coincides with the end of his electoral viability as a Republican. My theory is he just wants some ink. He is running because he likes to see his name in the paper.
The only credible Democrat is Mike Callaghan. Callaghan is a former AUSA, Secretary of the WV Department of Environmental Protection, and state Democratic chair.
He has the bioggraphy. With his striking appearance and combination of street smarts and down-home demeanor, he is formidable in a contrast of images with the buttoned-down Capito.
And, with his experience as a federal prosecutor, he will crush Capito on crime in a district ravaged by an Oxy and meth-fueled surge in crime.
Callaghan will run Main Street versus Capito's Wall Street, as offering representation for the people rather than out-of-state corporations.
You get the idea. Callaghan can win. The other two are damaged goods.
For a whole lot more detail, check out his site and the posts cited earlier
.
I need to go to bed. WVU-Georgetown tomorrow in hoops. Bit symbloic of this race, huh?