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Late yesterday, West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin released a draft proposal for the November 2010 special election to replace Robert Byrd. I find it interesting because you essentially have the candidate writing the terms of their own election. The draft bill really just clarifies the confusing language in West Virginia state law around when a special election must be held for a vacancy of a federal office (Here’s a bill summary). But if Manchin weren’t running for the seat, and that’s highly likely, I don’t think you’d see him rush to shoehorn in this election.
Consider that the Governor wants to move to declare a special election for November, with a primary in August or September. That only leaves a month or so for candidates to run in that race, leaving only those with serious name recognition to have a legitimate shot at victory. On the Democratic side, that basically means Manchin. He’s a popular Governor, and the short time-frames mean that nobody is likely to outraise him or have a bigger profile than him. On the Republican side, that means Shelley Moore Capito, and she won’t do it unless she can run for the House and in the special election for Senate at the same time. She doesn’t want to risk giving up the House seat, and given that even Rasmussen shows Manchin up double digits in a hypothetical matchup, Capito wants to hedge her bets. I can’t imagine that you’d be able to run for two federal offices at once, but expect that to magically appear in the legislation as well.
The point is that Joe Manchin is out for Joe Manchin. I don’t think he’s necessarily dragged his feet with the special election decision or the appointment, expected on Friday – they typically take a few weeks. But this analysis is spot-on:
1. His overall concern — his number one concern — is with West Virginia and its politics. He wants to go by the book in terms of the election to make sure that no flank is exposed and no one can accuse him of rigging the process for his own benefit.
2. That’s because he wants to win the seat, and any taint on the process would hinder his ability to become senator.
3. He is aware that Democratic governors do not have the best of records when it comes to appointing seat-fillers and then figuring out and executing succession elections, so he wants to make sure that the person he picks will serve the state well, be loyal to him, and set him up for a fairly easy election, either in 2010 or 2012.
4. He doesn’t really care for President Obama or the administration that much; I say this based on conversations with people who have spoken with the governor about the subject. So he does not believe that he has an obligation to do anything to further Obama’s agenda if it in any way conflicts with his own.
5. He will cast himself in the mold of a Joe Lieberman, independent-type Democrat regardless of when he manages to reach the Senate (assuming he does).
Well that’s just great. I actually think he doesn’t have to rig the special election because the time frames rig it for him. But it doesn’t hurt to write your own election law.
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“He will cast himself in the mold of a Joe Lieberman …”
Just what America needs; another Lieberman.
One is way too many!
Is that code for “I am accepting donations from all of Joe’s backers”?
IIRC, Lyndon Johnson ran for both VP and reelection to the US Senate in 1960. It may be a matter of state election law, but some of the legal beagles who haunt these parts would be in a better position to know.
Now that I think of it, Joe Lieberman did this in 2000 as well. As you said, state election law might take precedence here, since this concerns two state race, not a state and a national race.
Why doesn’t he do a Cheney & just pick himself.
Derrick Crowe has a fresh cross-post already in progress: Afghanistan Rights Monitor SLAMS Washington Spin About “Progress” in Afghanistan
Didn’t Lieberman run for VP with Gore and run for reelection as Senator from CT at the same time?
“I can’t imagine that you’d be able to run for two federal offices at once” … Joe Biden believed one could do just that when he recently ran for VP while running for the Senate.
Why do we care about the possible elected Senator that at best is a pro gun NRA pusher, pro-life forced pregnancy advocate and is at best along the lines politically of a Ben Nelson, but is more likely, per his own words, to be a second Lieberman, endorsing GOP folks against Dems.
West Virginia has only a few high points in its liberal/progressive history of which Bird was the highest and UMW strikes and Kennedy primary and Rockefeller are the others in that order – at least in my memory,
- but I do like it being the only state to secede from the Confederacy because it did not like all that central government. :-)
“He doesn’t really care for President Obama or the administration that much;”
Really?? Can you double check that? It was reported just recently that he had a close relationship with the White House.
They’ve been hagling over policies, but in a reply to Rep. Capito over coal mining, Obama said “…I listen all the time, including to your governor, who’s somebody who I enjoyed working with a lot before the campaign and now that I’m president.”
And the fact that you don’t hear Dems saying a peep about the new delays Manchins’ sudden turnaround and slow-walking has on the UI extension bill, says volumes about the whole bleepin’ lot of them.
So who were you expecting for Senator from West Virginia?
In a lot of states, in order to change the candidates who are viable you have to change the political dialogue in the state. And in most of the problem states (and sections of states like Pennsyltucky) progressives have either fled to more progressive areas or have self-selected not to go there.
While evangelical-minded conservatives show up everywhere. And are not afraid to let people know about their views and the fact that moderate to liberal, let alone progressive, views are illegitimate and un-American. There needs to be pushback on this in Utah, in Nebraska, in Alabama, in Arizona, in Southern California, and in certain parts of Minnesota, New York, and Pennsylvania. Not to mention Beckley, Huntington, and Bluefield, WV.
Yep, if you want a healthier– literally and figuratively– Washington, DC, you must be serious about bringing it to West Virginia.
Get the lowdown also over at West Virginia Blue.
The Eagle and the Hawk – John Denver
Eagle Cam
The ONLY reason there will be a special election in Nov. instead of Manchin appointing someone to fill the remainder of Byrd’s term is that Manchin doesn’t want to wait two yrs. to get his WV “Senator for Life” job. Shelley isn’t going to run; she’ll take her Congressional seat when she is forced to choose. Unless there is some self-financing millionaire who wants to take on Manchin in Nov., there will be no one running as a Republican – or the Republican will be so under financed and of so little consequence, nobody but his wife will know his name until they see it on the ballot.
Unfortunately, it is not legal or Constitutional to set rules for a dead person’s replacement after his death. The US Constitution forbids all ex post facto laws. Changing succession after the fact violates Article One of the US Constitution, written long before the Bill of Rights.
Yes, that’s exactly what happened. Similarly, in 2000, Lieberman ran for re-election to the Senate – that’s why he survived as a nominal Democrat until the 2006 election – and he was, of course, Gore’s VP candidate at the same time. Further, Joe Biden was re-elected to his Senate seat in 2008 while simultaneously running for and winning the Vice Presidency, as we all well know. Those are three recent examples. There may well be more. The bottom line is that if state law allows it, the candidate can run for two federal offices at the same time.