COMMENTARY
Pardon me because the political part of my brain keeps drifting back to 1996.
So, Marty McFly, let’s fire up the flux capacitor and take a journey back to the West Virginia political scene of 20 years ago.
Back in those days, Democrats outnumbered Republicans in the state by a 2-to-1 margin. Republicans had claimed one statewide race in eight years, and – think McFly! – that was the plumb position of Agriculture Commissioner.
The guy the Republicans put up to run for governor, Cecil Underwood, had lost in four consecutive races. He had all the sizzle of your breakfast toast.
But, as we can see through the hole we created in the space-time continuum, all the cosmic dust to shape the sea change we now call 2016 was swirling around Underwood.
His Democratic opponent was Charlotte Pritt, who had made waves four years earlier in a bitter race against incumbent governor Gaston Caperton, a guy in her own party.
See Underwood and Pritt debate.
Rising up against Pritt in 1996 was a group calling itself “Democrats for Underwood.” These days, those guys would be called “Republicans.” One of its top members was the former top legal counsel for Caperton. During one campaign stop, Pritt called members of the group “lily-livered cowards,” which is an excellent turn of phrase.
This year, Pritt resurfaced as the candidate of the Mountain Party, underscoring the split that West Virginia’s Democratic Party faces today. She called the 2016 Democratic Party candidate for governor, Jim Justice, just another Republican.
This week, Governor-elect Justice named former Democratic Party chairman Nick Casey to be his chief of staff. Back in 1996, Casey was serving as campaign treasurer for a guy named Joe Manchin.
In the 1996 timeline, Joe Manchin lost a pretty nasty Democratic primary to Charlotte Pritt. “What we have here is a desperate person who cannot seem to catch up with me” is one of the sweet things Pritt said about him back then.
The 2016 Joe Manchin is West Virginia’s senior senator and the alpha dog of a state Democratic Party that seems at a crossroads.
And, lo and behold, 2016 Manchin had his name floated just this week as a possibility for two different positions in the Republican administration of President-elect Donald Trump.
Yes, 1996er, THAT Donald Trump.
Oh, and 2016 Manchin actually campaigned in West Virginia for Trump’s Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.
What’s that? You’re still back in 1996? Yes, Bill Clinton’s wife ran for president, and the Clintons aren’t as popular in 2016 West Virginia as you might have been led to believe.
How is your equilibrium holding up, time traveler?
Do you need me to go back over the 1996 story of a first-time candidate for House of Delegates, Shelley Moore Capito? Yeah, we talked about her yesterday. She came in seventh in a seven-member House race and hasn’t stopped winning since.
I know, I know. The whole thing sounds crazy. Up is down. Down is up. And somehow, everything is actually still the same.
Temporal displacement is all I’ve got to say.