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babylonsister

(170,955 posts)
Sun Jan 14, 2018, 08:36 PM Jan 2018

Meet the Coal Miners Daughter Taking on Joe Manchin for Senate in West Virginia


Web Only / Features » January 11, 2018
Meet the Coal Miner’s Daughter Taking on Joe Manchin for Senate in West Virginia

Paula Jean Swearengin supported Bernie Sanders in 2016. Now she’s challenging Big Coal and the Senate’s most conservative Democrat.
BY Ed Rampell


Our incumbents, Democrats and Republicans, have been coal industry servants. They haven’t been servants for the people and definitely haven’t been friends of coal miners.

On Dec. 27, 2017, self-professed “hillbilly” Paula Jean Swearengin flew from her hometown of West Virginia to the posh enclave of Beverly Hills, Calif., to participate in a forum of reform-minded women running for Congress. But Swearengin, who is running in the Democratic primary for West Virginia Senate against incumbent Joe Manchin, has more in common with feisty fictional Southern union organizer Norma Rae than with the Clampetts of “Beverly Hillbillies.”

Unlike the oil rich Clampetts who struck “black gold” on their land, Swearengin is critical of the energy industry, especially coal, which she told the forum’s standing room-only crowd had led to her relatives’ deaths by way of black lung disease.

“I saw my grandfather suffocate to death,” thundered the 43-year-old single mother of four. “I’m not going to worship a black rock.”

The forum, billed as a “Nearly New Year’s Revolution Party,” was organized by the Justice Democrats, a federal political action committee which has endorsed 51 Senate and House candidates, including Swearengin, who all oppose the Democratic Party’s corporate wing and have pledged not to take donations from corporations and SuperPACs.

In the May 8 primary, Swearengin will go up against Manchin, a conservative Democrat and longtime ally of the coal industry who voted for Scott Pruitt, President Trump’s pick to head the EPA, and supported leaving the Paris Climate Treaty. Swearengin, meanwhile, is running on a platform of single-payer healthcare, a $15 minimum wage, free public college tuition and an end to fracking and mountaintop removal.

In this candid conversation, Swearengin, discusses her dark horse candidacy, her views on a Green New Deal, socialism, economic justice and much more.

more...

http://inthesetimes.com/article/20828/paula-jean-swearengin-joe-manchin-senate-west-virginia
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Meet the Coal Miners Daughter Taking on Joe Manchin for Senate in West Virginia (Original Post) babylonsister Jan 2018 OP
I'd vote for her if I lived there :) shenmue Jan 2018 #1
Not crazy about conservadem Sen Manchin! Not crazy about TheDebbieDee Jan 2018 #2
Well she can give it a shot but it is WV. PragmaticDem Jan 2018 #3
That's what they said about Alabama. nt babylonsister Jan 2018 #8
True but she is going up against a popular Democrat. PragmaticDem Jan 2018 #9
She would do well to focus on WV's attempt at a technology alley. Roland99 Jan 2018 #4
This is going to be entertaining Jake Stern Jan 2018 #5
What an impressive alternative to Manchin. democrank Jan 2018 #6
She sounds like my type of candidate. secondwind Jan 2018 #7
Convicted criminal Don Blankenship is also running as a Republican. Blankenship's doc03 Jan 2018 #10
 

TheDebbieDee

(11,119 posts)
2. Not crazy about conservadem Sen Manchin! Not crazy about
Sun Jan 14, 2018, 08:44 PM
Jan 2018

how his wife and daughter engineered windfall profits for the daughters pharmaceutical company by orchestrating legislation nationwide to require schools to keep those emergency anaphylactic shock injection pens on hand, then jacking up the price 700%!

ETA: I'm not from West Virginia - I'm from Missouri...

 

PragmaticDem

(320 posts)
9. True but she is going up against a popular Democrat.
Sun Jan 14, 2018, 09:25 PM
Jan 2018

The situation is different, but it is worth a shot to get her name out there.

Roland99

(53,342 posts)
4. She would do well to focus on WV's attempt at a technology alley.
Sun Jan 14, 2018, 08:48 PM
Jan 2018

And maybe push for R&D expansion at WVU

doc03

(35,143 posts)
10. Convicted criminal Don Blankenship is also running as a Republican. Blankenship's
Sun Jan 14, 2018, 10:16 PM
Jan 2018

ads are laughable. One guy is talking about what a great man he is, what a great boss he
was and how great he was with mine safety it is like he should made Saint Don Blankenship.

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