My dad told me thy there used to be a lot of political corruption in Soutern West Virginia, such as a party giving a voter a bottle of whiskey in exchange for a vote for their party. Is this true? Also, what is the state’s political history? What party has historically been dominant, and what party is dominant today? Why?
West Virginia’s kind of funny. It’s one of the states with a conservative Democratic Party, but one that elects most of the statewide positions. It voted for McCain overwhelmingly - and reelected Rockefeller and Manchin easily. Two out of three Representatives are Democrats, and the state legislature has a Democratic supermajority.
West Virginia used to vote for Democrats nationally as well: Obama was the first Democrat to win the election without winning West Virginia since 1916. I believe that during the 60s and 70s, many WV Dems switched parties either to Independent or GOP, but I’m not sure. It’s a culturally conservative state.
I had heard that, and found by looking at maps that Marion County has only strayed from the Democrats in a presidential elecion once since 1928. They voted for Nixon in 1972.
There’s corruption everywhere, some are just better at covering it up than others.
West Virginia has sections. The Wheeling part sticks up into the North and is sort of an extended suburb for Pittsburgh. The other “panhandle” is pretty much an extension of the Washington DC (and Baltimore) metro area.
Then you have middle part of Huntington/Charleston area that has a friendly rivalry and south of that you have the “real” mountaineers and the solid conservative ways but still Democratic in locals ways.
Corruption is still a very big issue in southern West Virginia. In 2004, Thomas Esposito, former mayor of Logan, was being investigated by the FBI for corruption. The FBI basically got him to run for the House of Delegates and gave him thousands of dollars in cash. He distributed the cash to a number of folks to bribe people to support his candidacy. He withdrew from the race, and lo and behold, the FBI made a slew of arrests, including the then-police chief of Logan and the county sheriff.
In the northern part of the state, the congressman, Alan Mollohan, has been under the microscope for years on a variety of charges which have yet to be proven, primarily making sweetheart real estate deals and directing Federal funds to non-profits that may have benefited political allies. No charges have been filed, but he was forced to step down as the top Democrat on the House Ethics Committee.
The politics of West Virginia is closely tied to the coal mining industry and unions. That history, in itself, was raucous to say the least. From the 1880s to the 1920s or so there were full out gun battles between union goons and gunslingers hired by the coal companies. The unions cemented political power through the Democratic party which, for the most part, continues to this day, even though your typical West Virginia Democrat is more conservative than the party nationwide.
As in many essentially one-party parts of the country, the contested elections are often the Democratic primaries, since the chance of Republicans winning a general election in coal country are very slim. Therefore, what we would probably consider to have the political views of a mainstream Republican (probably excepting support of unions) would often run as a Democrat to have a chance to win in these areas. That may be changing somewhat, as one of the state’s three congressmen is a Republican, Shelly Moore Capito, daughter of a disgraced former governor, who has built a pretty reliable political base in the middle and eastern parts of the state since 2000. The father, Arch Moore, was accused of taking bribes in the 1970s, was acquitted, and then convicted in the late 1980s for basically the same thing.
West Virginia politics is certainly not boring.
Speaking of West Virginia political scandals, there was also this recent gem in which WVU was a “degree mill” for the well connected (i.e., the daughter of the governor):
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/04/28/wvu
http://www.wvpubcast.org/newsarticle.aspx?id=8828
Which is apparently a part of a larger problem:
There’s also the interesting case of Don Blankenship, who likes to buy judicial elections to ensure he’ll win in court.
I am a native West Virginian, and I was highly amused when, on a Sunday, I went into a drug store that also sold beer, wine, and liquor and found the liquor aisle blocked off with a sign that stated there were no liquor sales on Sunday – or election day!
I lived in WV from 1993-1998 when I attended college at West Virginia University. While a student, I was active in the West Virginia University Young Democrats. We campaigned actively across the state in 1996 for Bill Clinton, and people everywhere loved him, and the state voted for him.
There was also a gubernatorial race going the same year, so we also campaigned for the Democratic candidate Charlotte Pritt, who was noteworthy as the first woman to be nominated as a gubernatorial candidate in WV.
You would think that a “Democratic” state (or nowadays called a “blue” state) that went for the Democratic presidential candidate would also go for the Democratic gubernatorial candidate. But no, the Republican Cecil Underwood* won that year. In my humble opinion, it was simply because the Democratic candidate was a woman. I can’t prove it, but it is my strong hunch. And I think that, in and of itself, is a good example which sums up the WV political scene.
*Who, as Wiki says, is noteworthy as being “both the youngest and the oldest person ever to serve as Governor of West Virginia.” He won his first term in 1956 and his second in 1996.
I don’t know if Pritt can exactly prove this - her actions in Democratic politics including running as a write-in candidate after losing the primary to Caperton in 1992 meant she had tons of enemies in her party. And she would have had these if she were a man had all other things been equal.
Perhaps that did her in. But what was striking at the time is that she seemed to be such a strong candidate compared to her opponent, who almost seemed like a parody - this ancient Republican who had been governor in the 1950’s being chosen over this bright Democratic star in a Democratic state. The contrast was very striking.
The average rank-and-file voter likely did not know anything about her prior write-in candidacy and the ensuing controversy* – this probably would have only affected active and involved party folks with long memories. So it seemed more plausible at the time that it wasn’t this old party grudge/controversy that hurt her, but rather the fact she was a woman.
- I don’t recall hearing about it or reading about it during the campaign - and we were very active in the state Democratic party at the time. I remember the party people we met across the state being very excited about her.
There are books written about West Virginia’s political corruption.
“Don’t Buy Another Vote, I Won’t Pay For a Landslide” comes to mind, and I’ve heard of the rarer, out of print “They’ll Cut Off Your Project”, which is specifically about Southern WV.
The coal industry does wield a lot of power in the state - not just Don Blankenship and Massey Coal, but Buck Harless (link) as well. Harless is supposedly the richest man in West Virginia, and comes from my home county. My dad actually got chummy with Harless when dad was considering a run for the county board of education. We also have a cousin who’s in the state senate.
Which isn’t to say that there aren’t some powerful influences from the northern part of the state. Governor Manchin comes from money in North Central WV.
One of the things I find unusual about this state is the prevalence of ‘straight ticket’ voting. There’s an option on the ballot where you can vote for all Democratic or all Republican candidates in all partisan races. If you look at a county by county map of election results, you’ll notice Obama and Kerry did better in the Southern part of the state than anyone should expect, winning several counties - and I can only attribute this to a greying population that automatically votes for the democrat, because it sure as hell ain’t the spirit of tolerance, down there.
The Wiki article about Charlotte Pritt is incorrect, or at least incomplete. While she may have been an elementary school English teacher, I know for a fact she also taught high school English, because I took “Great Books and Literature” at Charleston High School from her. (Her name was Charlotte Rich then.)