Published: July 30, 2006 09:59 pm      

Democrats unified against Blankenship

At the Raleigh County Democratic Executive Committee “we appreciate you” picnic Sunday there were no disagreements about party unity among politicians.

Everyone was equally unified in their loathing of coal magnate Don Blankenship and his party, with Rep. Nick Rahall twice calling Republicans “evil.”

Although no one actually burned Blankenship’s body in effigy, the Raleigh Democrats waled on him like a piñata at an all-night birthday party. Blankenship recently declared open war on Democratic House Delegates and others who oppose his political views, vowing to spend millions in their defeat.

Delegate Virginia Mahan, D-Summers, swung first by referring to Blankenship as “the gorilla in the living room.” She said her November Republican opponent, retired teacher Phillip Stevens, has already accepted contributions from Blankenship. This puts Mahan squarely in Blankenship’s political bull’s-eye.

“I’m not done yet and I don’t plan to leave for the likes of Don Blankenship,” Mahan said to the crowd of about 150 diehard Democrats. “It’s going to take more than money to get a vote in West Virginia. I’m not afraid of his money. We are not going to be bought off by some millionaire who is going to tell us what we ought to be thinking about each other.

“The Register-Herald in an editorial has called this for what it is, he is trying to buy an election ... and I would like to see all the newspapers take a stand to say the same thing.”

While AFL-CIO president Ken Perdue guaranteed no Delegates would be “elected by a coal baron who is trying to buy the state,” Senate hopeful Mike Green had a more creative way of telling the audience how he felt about Blankenship. Through his ties to the construction industry, Green helped supply the two port-a-pottys for the event.

“I was more than happy to oblige to bring the port-a-johns because it was symbolic for me,” said Green, who takes on Sen. Russ Weeks, R-Raleigh, in the fall election. “The symbolism is that is what I think of the GOP and Don Blankenship and what they are trying to do in November.”

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Raleigh County Commissioner John Humphreys said he turned down personal invitations from President George Bush’s White House staff to attend a T-ball game Sunday on the White House lawn which featured a Shady Spring Challenger team. The rally was more important than “breaking bread with the president at the White House.” Commission President John Aliff, who proclaimed himself a “yellow dog Democrat,” also turned down invitations to the White House event.

Joe Ellen Bragg, 54, of Beav-er, attended with her husband — who is a Republican. While he declined comment, she said the Democrats have a good chance this year at the polls.

“The Democratic party is headed, hopefully, in the right direction,” she said at the rally at union representative Wayne Rebich’s house.

Jess Shumate of Beckley, named the 2006 Raleigh County Democrat of the year, said this year’s elections are crucial for the state and country.

“We are at a crossroads of either success or failure in the U.S.,” the 80-year-old Democrat said. “If we don’t get rid of the Republicans, we will be in a destitute situation.”

No one could have agreed more than keynote speaker Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., who blasted the Republican Party for playing politics with a recent vote in the House of Representatives to raise the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour. The increase passed Saturday, but Rahall claims the Republicans doomed it for failure in the Senate because they added on a cut in inheritance taxes for the rich to the bill.

“That’s how they killed the minimum wage bill, by voting for it and then attaching it to a bill they know is going to die in the Senate,” Rahall said. “They (Republicans) are tricky and they are evil and they don’t deserve to be running the country.”

Rahall said with Republican infighting more evident than ever and the president’s poll numbers hovering around 30 percent, “I don’t even think he could bring Osama bin Laden out of the freezer and bring up his polls, because the American people are smarter than that.”

Rahall stressed the importance of grassroots campaigning in the state and reminded the crowd that no election is wrapped up just yet. He said high profile politicians will be campaigning across the state for all Democrats.

“Let me tell you, we are going to have a big get-out-the-vote effort this fall. I met with Sen. Byrd and Congressman Mollohan and we are going to meet again this week with our governor and state chairman Nick Casey ... we are going to organize like never before in the history of the state,” Rahall said as he turned up the rhetoric a notch.

“We are not going to let the Republicans outdo us this year,” he said. “Their strategy is mean and it’s Karl Rove-inspired from the get-go and it’s dirty and it’s nothing but a bunch of lies for the most part because it’s no holds barred with them. They are evil and we cannot allow them to come in at the last six weeks of the election and spend their untold billions with the help of Mr. Blankenship and others.”

— E-mail: cgiggenbach@register-herald.com