Charleston Daily Mail: In 2nd District U.S. House race, go with the one you know

— *** Newspaper Endorsements 2014 ***—

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Imagine that you are the boss of a big organization. Let’s call it, hypothetically speaking, the 2nd Congressional District. You are tasked with hiring someone for an important job.

The person now holding the job has done well. She is up for promotion and you must replace her. Five individuals have passed the test to be considered. All five offer something unique, but you are truly considering only two.

There is Candidate A, whom for this hypothetical example, we’ll call Alex.

Alex is a go-getter. He’s relatively young. He’s idealistic. He really wants the job. He just recently moved into your operating territory, so few of your neighbors know him. Still, he’s coming on strong. He’s got people from all around the nation calling you to say, “Select Alex.”

While you feel confident Alex can do the job, you’ve got this nagging feeling that he wants the job for the wrong reasons. You’re not sure he’ll work well with others and truly represent the concerns of your broad organization.

Your other top candidate, we’ll call him Candidate C, or Casey, in this hypothetical example, is the opposite. Everybody likes him. You know his character. Many locals speak up for him.

Casey is mature. He is a team player who handles himself well. He’d be the perfect candidate for this job, you think, if he just didn’t have this big, distracting ink spot on his resume.

Therein lies the not-so-hypothetical problem for the voters of West Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District in the race to replace Republican Shelley Moore Capito.

Alex Mooney is the brash Republican who seeks to be a political star. He’s a strong campaigner, has received numerous endorsements, but voters are left to wonder about his real motives.

Democrat Nick Casey is the gentleman we all know, having lived his life in West Virginia and served in volunteer capacity with many state organizations, including the state’s Catholic Diocese, the St. Francis Hospital Board of Directors and the West Virginia State Bar.

A moderate to conservative Democrat, it’s not so much the D beside his name that bothers many conservatives, but the fact that one of his leadership positions — the ink spot on his resume — was chairing the state Democratic Party from 2004 to 2010 and aligning with the unpopular Barack Obama.

In another election year, such as if a Republican majority were at stake in the U.S. House, Mooney might be the necessary choice. But the GOP majority is safe. At this point, the House of Representatives needs people who can get along. The mysterious Mooney seems to be more of an ideologue that wouldn’t work well with the other party.

At age 60, Casey is not looking to be a career politician. He says he entered the race to be a reasonable voice and reduce the dysfunction in Washington. That’s what is needed in this position today more than an ideologue.

For those reasons, the Daily Mail endorses Nick Casey for the U.S. House of Representatives 2nd District.