Raese has to be the wealthiest GOP candidate. And this time he won't be limited by the so-called "millionaire's amendment" that he violated in his unsuccessful 2006 campaign for the same office. That year he loaned his campaign $605,000 of his own money which exceeded the legal limit at that time by nearly $200,000.
Raese, president and CEO of Greer Industries in Morgantown, subsequently paid $70,426 in Federal Election Commission fines for that infraction. But those federal election rules have since been changed by a U. S. Supreme Court ruling abolishing limits on independent political expenditures.
He won the Republican primary in 2006 by a wide margin over five other challengers but then lost to Sen. Byrd by nearly a 2-1 margin in the general election.
The second-best known Republican candidate this time is Mac Warner, an attorney who graduated from West Point and a member of a well-known Republican family in the Morgantown area. He may be Raese's best known challenger in Saturday's primary but is not expected to be any match for him in campaign spending.
In stark contrast to the usual ballot when the Republican Party, outnumbered by Democrats 2-1 in West Virginia, often has unopposed primary candidates for office or even no candidate at all, there are a total of ten GOP hopefuls. The list includes Charleston attorney Harry C. Bruner Jr.; Buckhannon engineer Scott H. Williams, Summersville CPA Kenneth A. Culp; substitute teacher's aide Lynette Kennedy McQuain of Rivesville in Marion County; Daniel Rebich of Buckhannon, a native of upstate New York who has lived in the Mountain State since 2003; Thomas Ressler of Falling Waters who worked as a corrections officer in neighboring Maryland for 20 years; Frank Kubic of Charles Town and even Albert Howard of San Pedro, California.
It may well be the largest GOP primary election field for a U. S. Senate seat in this state's history. It also means that the front-runner won't need such a large percentage of the total party vote to nail down the nomination.
There were only two GOP candidates for the U. S. Senate in 2000 and the winner, David T. Gallaher of Beaver got 42,446 votes to 39,254 for the only other candidate, Garry P. Adkins, of Kenova.
In the 2006 general election, Raese received 155,043 votes to 296,276 for Byrd. But in the May primary election that year--as one of six candidates--he needed only 47,408 votes to score a landslide victory over runner-up Hiram Lewis who got 18,496 votes and four other Republican candidates who split the remaining 15,421 votes.
So the most likely scenario Saturday could be a repeat of that with Raese winning easily, Warner finishing a distant second and the remaining eight candidates all finishing far behind those two.
Meanwhile, the resignation of West Virginia's Secretary of Revenue Virgil Helton announced last week in Charleston was--in his own words--simply the end of his obligation to current Gov. Joe Manchin. Helton obvious believes as most people do that Manchin's time as the state's chief executive will soon be over so he's making his move before that happens.
Helton's going into private industry with a Colorado based firm that is wrapping up a $22 million contract with the state of West Virginia but he is making it clear he won't be doing any work for that company in the Mountain State. More to the point, he correctly petitioned the State Ethics Commission for an exemption from the state's conflict of interest rule.
Theresa Kirk, who is executive director of the Ethics Commission granted Helton a temporary exemption earlier this month. But since Helton is the third state official this year to leave state government for more lucrative private employment, there are revived suggestions the 2011 Legislature should try again to enact a failed proposal earlier this year to require public officials to wait a year after leaving public work before they could legally serve as lobbyists.
The more immediate concern should be to hope that Lottery Director John Musgrave, who'll be taking on the additional duties of the Secretary of Revenue for the third interim period in the last few years, could be persuaded to assume that role on a permanent basis for the next governor despite the fact he seems to be happier running the very successful state lottery operation.
Finally, our state capitol in Charleston is a architectural gem that has recently undergone major exterior and interior renovations at considerable expense. And it continues to be one of the most accessible to the public in the nation. Now at last plans are underway to provide new modern exterior lighting that will add to its appeal.
Two years of work on the U-shaped main Capitol building will be finished in a couple of months at a cost of $7.8 million--the first major renovation project since the building opened in 1932. Since the building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, state officials are promising the new lighting scheme will be designed to maintain that atmosphere.
Post a Comment
