An editorial from The Dominion Post
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — The Dominion Post endorses Bill Cole for governor, Doug Reynolds for attorney general and John Buckley for secretary of state.
Cole freely admits he’s a businessman, not a politician. His track record clearly backs that up.
His tenure in the Legislature —one term in the House of Delegates and one in the state Senate — doesn’t make him a career politician.
Furthermore, he insists he will govern with total disregard for polls and re-election.
Whether you agree or disagree with the legislation he has presided over, he embodies the idea that business is results driven.
Passage of 262 pieces of legislation in 2015 and 276 bills in 2016 are on par with past regular legislative sessions, despite the sea of change in the legislature’s composition and leadership.
He also believes business can be a force for good for all state residents, and allows nothing, including socially divisive legislation, to stand in the way of reforms that generate job creation.
Many of those reforms are controversial and the verdict is still out on them. But as Cole declared to our Editorial Board, “Anybody can be part of the problem. You have to man up to be part of the solution.”
He may never make a politician, but we suspect he knows a thing or two or three about fiscal policy, solvency and responsibility.
Reynolds was not an easy endorsement for us and came with much deliberation.
Yet, his experience in the business sector and his decade-long service in the Legislature strikes the right balance again for this public office.
In that vein, he wants to create a hotline in the attorney general’s office to serve as a clearinghouse for steering small business concerns.
He will not drop the state’s lawsuit against the EPA and the Clean Power Plan, but his approach is to protect people’s way of life, not just an industry.
He also argued cases on both sides of the aisle in courtrooms, having served as a public defender and an assistant prosecutor.
Reynolds is also all too familiar with the scourge of heroin and prescription drug abuse, having represented the greater Huntington area.
Finally, Buckley, a longtime lawyer, former legislator and an administrator, comes well prepared to serve as secretary of state.
As a Libertarian, he is correct to refer himself as uniquely suited to play referee between the two major political parties. And with up to 20 percent of the state’s eligible voters now not affiliated with any party, there’s a strong case for a referee.
He’s also a proponent of inclusive elections and sees technology as the way of the world.
