What's next for Robert Byrd's Senate seat? By: Chris Stirewalt Political Editor 06/28/10 7:56 AM EDT Robert Byrd, elected to Congress in 1952 and having served in the Senate longer than anyone ever, has died.
Having worked in West Virginia news for many years, I spent an inordinate amount of my life studying what happens next.
State law dictates that had Byrd lived until July 3rd, the position would have been filled for the remaining two years and six months by a gubernatorial appointee. But because Byrd died just a week shy of the break point, the remainder of his term will be filled by an interim appointee until a snap election in November.
All eyes will be on West Virginia’s popular second-term governor – a conservative Democrat with coal industry backing and an absolute stranglehold on the state party – and the state’s only Republican member of Congress, moderate, five-term Rep. Shelley Moore Capito – the daughter of the popular three-term governor, Arch Moore.
This may be a Republican year, but Democrats hold a huge registration advantage among the elderly voters of West Virginia and Manchin is ardently anti-abortion, pro-gun and definitely pro coal with a huge war chest. He could have the advantage of being able to run against the Democratic establishment in Washington but with a registration advantage. Reelected in 2008 and looking forward to closing his administration with a series of lean budget years as the Obama administration hits the kill switch on the state’s dominant industry and major source of revenue, Manchin has every reason to run. And certainly the Obama administration will want him to run. He might be an unreliable vote, but any other candidate would mean a significant investment of time and money and still increase the chances of Republicans taking the seat.
Capito has grown into a political stalwart over her time in Congress, winning reelection by growing margins and staking out a position as a sensible Republican. She has been politically cautious but politically effective. She was a strong backer of the war on terror and tax-cutting during the Bush years but believes in global warming and that women have the right to elective abortions. Capito isn’t in a position to run to Manchin’s right and there is strong reason to believe that Jay Rockefeller, the state’s 73-year-old junior senator and her father’s old nemesis, will not seek another term in 2012. That means Capito has reason to avoid a fight now and prepare for the future, despite lots of arm-twisting from national Republicans for her to get in the race.
If she decides not to run, Manchin could an unpredictable battle in a snap election against an insurgent Republican even more conservative than he is. This is a weird year and we don’t call West Virginia wild and wonderful for nothing.
Charleston Daily Mail writer Ry Rivard, who gives rather too much to the notion that Byrd was still a vital force in politics in his final years instead of being the Democratic Strom Thurmond (in more ways than one ), does nicely capture the origins of the giant of Mountain State politics – the man about whom Bob Dole once joked couldn’t become commissioner of baseball because he would move all the teams to West Virginia.
“Byrd was born Cornelius Calvin Sale Jr. on Nov. 20, 1917, in North Wilkesboro, N.C. His mother died of the flu in 1918 when he was only 1. At the mother's request, his father dispersed the family children among relatives. He was given to the custody of an aunt and uncle, Vlurma and Titus Byrd, who renamed him Robert Carlyle Byrd and raised him in southern West Virginia.
He walked three miles down a hollow in the snow in order to catch a bus to attend a two-room school in Mercer County. After school, to help the family budget, he would go from house to house collecting scraps of food to feed the hogs they kept in a pen beside a railroad track.
He later became valedictorian of Mark Twain High School and would marry his high school sweetheart, Erma Ora James.”
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Whats-next-for-Robert-Byrds-Senate-seat-97295064.html#ixzz0s9k91hdB
