Skip to main content

Could this 'military guy' Democrat find a magic formula to win back blue-collar voters?

When Richard Ojeda first comes into view, he barrels down the hallway like a bowling ball and with barely a pleasantry exchanged, he’s already on the attack.

“I’m fit’na light a fire today!” are nearly the first words out of the West Virginia state senator’s mouth. He’s animated about a state supreme court justice accused of bilking taxpayers with a lavish office redesign, including a $32,000 couch. “You’re gonna see how I roll, just wait.”

There is a wait indeed, as the session of the state senate dawdles on well into the night. Ojeda has to hold his fury until the last order of business around 8pm, and fellow lawmakers seem mostly uninterested by then in his dramatic call for impeachment.

“I’m a military guy, and these guys mess with my military time,” he says of life as a legislator after more than two decades spent jumping out of planes with the US army, retiring as a major after tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Ojeda is part of a wave of blue-collar and military-minded Democrats challenging for congressional seats in the 2018 election in districts where Donald Trump won by double digits.

The district Ojeda is competing for: West Virginia’s third, where he was born and raised, elected Trump by an eye-popping 49-point margin. The current Republican House representative, Evan Jenkins, whose seat he is hoping to take, won by nearly as much.


Source :- theguardian

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Russia 'on wrong side of history' over Syria chemical weapons – US

A top US disarmament official has accused Russia of being on the wrong side of history on chemical weapon use in Syria, after reports of a chlorine attack in the besieged enclave of eastern Ghouta and the leaking of a UN reportinto the supply of related items from North Korea. The world’s chemical weapons watchdog is said to have opened an investigation into the latest reports of chemical attacks in Ghouta, where doctors said more than a dozen civilians had been treated for symptoms that matched those of exposure to chlorine gas.The investigation also comes a day after details of a UN report were leaked, which said North Korea had sent Syria more than 40 items used in ballistic and chemical weapons programmes in the five years from 2012 to 2017. Bashar al-Assad’s government was supposed to have given up its chemical weapons arsenal under a deal brokered in 2013 between the US and Russia, but the agreement does not include chlorine because of its industrial uses. A senior US disarmament...

A life in science: Stephen Hawking

Stephen Hawking always had something to say. He shook up the world of cosmology with more than 150 papers, dozens of which became renowned. He was told he had only a brief time on Earth, but spent half a century captivating audiences in lecture halls, on TV and in the pages of his books. For newspaper editors, almost any utterance of his could make a headline, and he knew it. Hawking warned about the threats of nuclear war, genetically modified viruses, artificial intelligence and marauding aliens. He pronounced on the human condition and once dismissed the role of God in creating the universe. The statement caused a fuss, as the denial of invisible superbeings still can in the 21st century. It is an unwritten law of nature that when a personality steps into the foreground, their work must take a step back. In Hawking’s case, being the most famous scientist of our time had a mysterious ability to eclipse his actual achievements. At his best Hawking was spectacular: he made intuitive le...

What to know as Billy Graham becomes fourth citizen to 'lie in honor' at US Capitol

There are few distinctions in Congress as high as the one afforded the late Rev. Billy Graham at the U.S. Capitol Wednesday and Thursday. Graham will “lie in honor” in the Capitol Rotunda. Note that Graham will “lie in honor,” not “in state.” We should refer to Graham as “lying in honor” rather than “lying in state.” There is little which distinguishes someone from “lying in honor” rather that in “state.” Officially, “lying in honor” is one step below “lying in state.” The pomp and circumstance is much the same. But it formally is one level below “state.” The Capitol Rotunda is considered to be the the most “holy” place in the American political experience. That’s why Congress reserves such ceremonies in the Rotunda for some of the country’s most-eminent citizens. Source :- foxnews