Ex-con coal baron's bid for W.Va. Senate seat gains traction - Entrepreneur Generations

Blankenship at his campaign kickoff in January.
(Associated Press photo by Steve Helber)

Don Blankenship's campaign for a U.S. Senate seat in West Virginia would have sounded like a pipe Massey Energy CEO just got out of prison for his role in 2010's Upper Big Branch coal mine explosion that killed 29 men. But "opponents who once dismissed his candidacy now see him as a credible threat in the Trump era, positioned to appeal to many West Virginians’ resentment of elites of any kind," Trip Gabriel reports for The New York Times.
dream in years past. After all, the former

Blankenship's campaign events have drawn protesters, but some in coal country support his claims that he is former "political prisoner," a victim who was unfairly targeted by federal prosecutors and safety inspectors. No evidence has been found to back up those claims, but Gabriel notes that Blankenship "is running for office in an era of nationwide voter credulity for conspiracy theories." That dovetails with many West Virginians' belief that the federal government--especially Barack Obama--is to blame for coal's decline.

Coal barons were once hated, but as West Virginia became more conservative, the populace began to dislike unions more and see coal mine operators as job creators. R. Booth Goodwin II, who prosecuted Mr. Blankenship as a United States attorney and then ran for governor unsuccessfully in 2016, told Gabriel: "I have heard people say, 'When Don was in charge, we always worked.' . . . The coal industry is still perpetuating a lie that coal mining is coming back, and it’s going to be just like it was before, when all objective evidence is to the contrary."





from The Rural Blog http://ift.tt/2orOAZ2 Ex-con coal baron's bid for W.Va. Senate seat gains traction - Entrepreneur Generations

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