BECKLEY, W.Va. — The 2014 mid-term elections have been sticky business for the United Mine Workers Union.
President Cecil Roberts earlier this year outlined the organization’s dilemma with the national Democrat Party when he said the national party has forgotten about those who take a shower after work and started to cater to those who take a shower before work.
Despite the problems the union has with President Barack Obama and the party leadership in Congress, Roberts is urging voters and members to think longer and harder about what votes they make Nov. 4.
“We can’t say that every candidate that’s a Democrat is somehow related to Barrack Obama and his policies, that’s just not the truth,” Roberts said on MetroNews Talkline just before rallies in Beckley and Madison Thursday. “We have to be careful not to just be voting from a position of anger at President Obama. We can’t just be acting negative because of the President. We’ve got to be looking forward.”
Roberts and the UMWA are standing behind Democrat U.S. Senate candidate Natalie Tennant and Democrat Congressman Nick Rahall.
“Natalie made the choice to stand with us in the fight over 20,000 retirees and their healthcare against Patriot, Arch, and Peabody,” said Roberts.
He added Tennant showed up at a rally in Pittsburgh against the EPA and he didn’t even know she was there until he spotted her in the mass of people marching against the new EPA policies.
Rahall has been taken to task during the campaign for voting for a liberal backed budget in Congress which was dead on arrival. However, the symbolic budget proposal included a carbon tax and gave Rahall’s political adversaries ammunition for the fight.
“Nick Rahall would not cast a vote at gunpoint for a carbon tax if it was a vote being considered for actual legislation in Congress,” Roberts said. “Why he would chose to vote for that,even in a symbolic way, he would be best to ask about that.”
Roberts said the election Tuesday isn’t about the President, but about the future.
“I think what we really need are more people standing up for the coal industry, whether they are Republican or Democrat. I think Natalie and Nick’s record compare quite favorably to anybody in the United States,” Roberts said. “We’ve endorsed more Republicans nationwide in this election than in the last 30 years, mainly because they are standing up for our pensions and our healthcare.”