RT @Taniel: Republicans land a candidate in West Virginia: It’ll be John Raese’s 3rd Senate bid, and he’ll be sure to spend millions of his money.
RT @Taniel: Republicans land a candidate in West Virginia: It’ll be John Raese’s 3rd Senate bid, and he’ll be sure to spend millions of his money.
Raese came very, very close to winning in his previous Senate and gubernatorial elections with the exception of 2006, when he ran against the unbeatable Byrd in a strong Democratic year. He’s definitely an underdog, but he’s a relatively good candidate overall.
That’s good news….West Virginia can certainly use the “stimulus” money brought to its economy by Raese’s millions. In fact I think the next round of election finance reform should be to require each Congressional and Senatorial campaign to include at least one self-funded millionaire candidate.
By the way as far as I can tell, Raese has been in just 3 prior statewide races. Yes…in 1984 he came close to Rockefeller…losing by 4 points for the Senate….But in his only Gubenatorial race (1988) he lost in the republican primary so never really had a chance to take on the Dem candidate. He did not then run for another statewide office for 18 years until 2006 when he lost to Byrd 64% to 34%. So I am not sure that these past candidacies make him a “relatively good candidate overall.” Though obviously he has the money to get his message across.
Er, you’re correct — I misread the gubernatorial section. Still, nearly knocking off the sitting governor in a primary is nothing to sneeze at.
*aaa-choo!*
Sure, but that near Gubernatorial win was 22 years ago. Tough to draw to many conclusions from that, times have changed since then 🙂
Yeah, the main change being, West Virginia is way more Republican-friendly now.