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Sunday, Nov 22, 2009
Democrats outnumber Republicans 2-to-1 in West Virginia, but they still have doubts about Gore.
Oct 29, 2000 | "He's an Appalachian, just like us," says Sen. John Rockefeller IV, D-W. Va., who was born and raised in New York and is worth about $200 million. He's here vouching for Vice President Al Gore.
We're at a Friday morning rally on the steps of the state Capitol, where an all-star lineup is lauding the vice president. Union members are stacked up 30 wide, 50 thick, treated to speeches by Rockefeller, Bill Cosby, United Mine Workers of America president Cecil Roberts and AFL-CIO treasurer Rich Trumka.
On the Kanawha River adjacent to the Capitol, a riverboat with a "Bush-Cheney" banner is docked, and indeed Bush's presence is felt here in other ways as well. The presidential race is so tight, Gore's going after West Virginia's piddly five electoral votes like pork-lovin' Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.V., at an Appropriations hearing.
The most recent poll has Bush up by 10 points -- 49 percent to 39 percent -- in West Virginia, even though the state has a 2-to-1 edge for registered Democrats, and has only gone for a Republican presidential candidate three times in the past 80 years -- only when the Republican was the incumbent. It's gotten so hairy here, Gore felt the need to swoop in Thursday night on Air Force II -- for his first time as a candidate -- to counter the aggressive campaign waged by his opposition.
Not only does he need to counter two successful campaign appearances apiece by Gov. George W. Bush and his running mate, former defense secretary Dick Cheney, he needs to respond to months and months of GOP advertising blasting Gore as an environmentalist out to kill the coal industry.
It's a visit that shows just how spread thin Gore is in the waning days of this campaign. In Madison, Wis., Gore tried to convince his audiences that never mind what that Ralph Nader says -- he really is strong on the environment. A dizzying 24 hours later, hes trying to assure coal miners, who wonder if the vice president's tree-hugging is just foreplay.
With 18 swing states -- each with its own specific concerns -- Gore is left changing his message daily, and without obvious big campaign themes to fall back on.
"Over the last year, particularly over the summer, the Republican Party has put a lot of money throughout the state in negative ads, attacking Al Gore and painting him as an enemy of coal," says Gore spokesman Dan Pfeiffer. He adds that high-profile state Republicans like Gov. Cecil Underwood have been publicly bashing Gore as such since 1999.
"I've never seen that much money spent by the Republican Party in West Virginia, ever," says the Mine Workers' Roberts, who was born and raised in the state. In a "misrepresentation of reality," Roberts insists, the Republicans keep repeating "that if Al Gore is elected you're gonna lose your jobs."
You'd think Gore's rediscovered populism, at least, would find a home here, in a state ranked 49th in per capita income, where in many places the nation's economic prosperity is nothing but a rumor. So Roberts tells the crowd that while the coal owners might be for Bush, the coal miners are for Gore.
Gore's speech, however, is too long (35 minutes) and too incoherent; a laundry list of government programs he wants to pass. He seems dispirited and unsure of himself. The speech's only discernible theme is a John McCain-esque "X-Files" riff on the conspiracy of "the special interests" who want to fell him because he's for the working man.
Gore tells the crowd that this election is "not only about the future of our prosperity. It has to do with whether or not you're gonna have somebody who is willing to fight for you and not for the special interests. The other side won't tell it to you plainly that they're in it to fight for the special interests. Of course not! They fuzz it up like the math."
He continued: "They will try to use all of the special interest contributions to put misleading advertisements on the TV screen every few minutes to try to make you think that up is down and black is white and outside is inside."
But the Gore-bashing taking place here is pretty straightforward. Arguably the best reason for Gore's election is the prosperity that doesn't really exist in this state, where Wal-Mart is the largest employer. Coal-mining jobs have been phased out by the thousands: There were 120,000 West Virginia coal miners in 1980; there are just 19,000 today.
In Michigan, Gore's requiem for the internal combustion engine in his book "Earth in the Balance" has been repeated regularly to voters well aware of their state's automobile-industry-driven economy. Here as well, Republicans paint Gore as an environmental extremist out to kill jobs. Suspicious of his true intentions, the Mine Workers held off endorsing Gore until late September. And all the confusion over where, exactly, Gore stands has enabled the Bush campaign to make this just one more component in its caricature of the duplicitous Gore.
"He has no credibility on their issues," says Bush spokesman Bob Hopkins.
