Free Republic

With a little help from his friends, former congressman Virgil Goode has taken a key step toward getting his name on November’s presidential ballot in Virginia, submitting more than 14,000 signatures to the State Board of Elections.... ..Goode was a Democrat for much of his career, then became an Independent and finally a Republican for his last six years on Capitol Hill. Now Goode is getting assistance from yet another party, the Independent Greens, whose members have collected thousands of signatures for him.... ...“Virgil supports rail, and that’s our big issue and he’s with us on that,” said Carey Campbell,...

MARTINSBURG, W.Va. -- “Last week, I was talking about some coal deals,” businessman and Republican U.S. Senate candidate John Raese told a packed crowd at the local Holiday Inn Saturday night, “and I said let’s close the deals before the hammer-and-sickle come down.” The 200-plus guests at the Berkley County Republican dinner here cheered. They knew exactly what Raese was talking about: the Obama administration’s assault on the coal industry that is the economic backbone of West Virginia. Almost to a person, Republicans we spoke to here agree that a series of regulations and rulings from the Environmental Protection Agency...