Cheney Headlines Wakim Fundraiser; Mollohan Kicked off House Ethics Committee

The momentum is rapidly building behind the congressional campaign of Delegate Chris Wakim, R-Wheeling, in his bid to unseat 12-term Congressman Alan Mollohan, D-Fairmont.

Today, Wakim held a fundraiser in Morgantown with Vice President Dick Cheney. Sources in attendance say the event raised at least $140,000 and maybe as much as $200,000 for Wakim's campaign. This post will be updated to reflect more accurate information as it becomes available.

While the fundraiser was occurring, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, announced that Congressman Mollohan was stepping down from the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct (aka the House Ethics Committee) just a day after Mollohan insisted he would remain in his post. This was clearly a forced move. Mollohan probably received a nice little phone call from "Bill" from Chappaqua, New York, encouraging him to step aside before they throw him under the bus.

Both Mollohan and Wakim are unopposed in their respective primary elections on May 9.

Sighting

If this is indicative of the way the Ruling Party's legislative candidates are spending their money, we have little to fear in November:

While traveling toward Charleston on US 119 today, I saw a billboard for House of Delegates candidate Nancy Peoples Guthrie, who I take is a big lib--probably a socialist given her campaign advertising of being "a progressive leader"--vying for one of the 7 Democratic nominations in the 30th District. There would be nothing wrong with this billboard had I not seen it in Boone County more than 10 miles outside the district.

The 30th House district is a monster, a 7-member district encompassing almost 130,000 of Kanawha County's residents. Even the incumbents fail to attain the ideal fundraising target of $1 per constituent that I think is necessary to run a high-visibility campaign.