Moore Capito finally taking the plunge!

[Keystone Phil]

She will run for the U.S. Senate in 2014 - http://politicalwire.com/archives/2012/11/25/capito_will_challenge_rockefeller.html

[RogueBeaver]

Booyeah!   The question is will Rocky stay and fight, or retire as expected? After all, he was trailing her even before the possibly intentional self-nuke on coal.

[Talleyrand]

This seat is gone. No ifs or buts. The only person who can beat her is Manchin- and he's occupied.

I really wish she had gone for Governor in 2011 or 2012.

[Antonio the Sixth]

[Ronnie]

Exactly why are you sporting an 'R' avatar?

[retromike22]

Why do they have to announce so early?! Wait until June of the year before at least.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Exactly why are you sporting an 'R' avatar?

French stuff, completely unrelated to US politics. Didn't you know I'm a left-wing democrat?

[Skill and Chance]

Well, this is now Lean R pending Rockefeller's decision.  So between WV, AR, LA, AK, and SD there are now exactly 5 high profile R pickup opportunities in McCain-Romney states (MT looks pretty D downballot these days).  A lot of Republicans may wish they had been nicer to Angus King this year...    

[Ronnie]

Exactly why are you sporting an 'R' avatar?

French stuff, completely unrelated to US politics. Didn't you know I'm a left-wing democrat?

Nah, I haven't been active lately.  Good to know though.

[Warren 4 Secretary of Everything]

This seat is gone. No ifs or buts. The only person who can beat her is Manchin- and he's occupied.

I really wish she had gone for Governor in 2011 or 2012.

Lets not get ahead of ourselves here. The DNC knows how to run a campaign and how to microtarget. They'll have the Obama machine and voter-ID technology. Lets be honest. We all thought Jon Tester, Bill Nelson, Tammy Baldwin, and Heidi Heitkamp would go down earlier this year. 2 years in politics is like 200 years. Anything could happen. For all we know we could be in a Reagan-Revovery in 2014.

[Miles]

Damn.

The Saints lost today and now this...rough day for me

[Talleyrand]

This seat is gone. No ifs or buts. The only person who can beat her is Manchin- and he's occupied.

I really wish she had gone for Governor in 2011 or 2012.

Lets not get ahead of ourselves here. The DNC knows how to run a campaign and how to microtarget. They'll have the Obama machine and voter-ID technology. Lets be honest. We all thought Jon Tester, Bill Nelson, Tammy Baldwin, and Heidi Heitkamp would go down earlier this year. 2 years in politics is like 200 years. Anything could happen. For all we know we could be in a Reagan-Revovery in 2014.

This is WV, and we're not running against "Drunken Boat Crash+Sue the Fire Department" Denny Rehberg, "The Charlie Sheen of Florida" Connie Mack, "My opponent is Joe Biden" Thompson, or the lackluster Rick Berg.

We're running against the toughest politician (besides Manchin) in a state going hard, hard right.

You're right that anything could happen, but this is what I currently believe is likely.

[Vosem]

So...that makes 2 Democratic seats where Republicans have already recruited somebody who can take on all comers, basically (SD-Rounds, WV-Capito). Neither seem to be logical TP targets, and in both states they definitely start off as favorites against the strongest Democrat. Nice.

Even nicer, it seems the 2014 cycle already seems to be slowly but surely gearing up to a start, which is good news for junkies like me. Haven't been paying attention, but I'm pretty sure I read on DKE that PPP would start polling again next week, which would be even nicer.

[tmthforu94]

Considering West Virginia politics, Capito wouldn't be running for this seat unless she knew she was going to win, so I would bet that Rockefeller has informed her that he will not be running for re-election.

Her and Manchin are probably the two most well-respected politicians in West Virginia - if I had to guess, Democrats will just concede this race now and focus on other battleground races.

[RogueBeaver]

I think Rocky's coal speech was his retirement announcement.

[Frodo]

Well this clears things up at the Senate level -has Rep. Nick Joe Rahall gave any indications on whether or not he intends to retire after 2014?  

[Meeker]

Capito is the best candidate Republicans have here, but this isn't even Lean R unless Rockefeller retires. Rockefeller has been involved in WV politics for nearly 50 years and has been continually re-elected by voters there since 1976. Capito vs. Rockefeller would be a very tough race.

I would also remind folks that four out of four times in the past three years West Virginia voters have re-elected their Democratic incumbents for Governor and Senator. Yes Capito is a significantly better candidate than Raese or Maloney, but the point is that being a Democrat is far from a scarlet letter.

Anyways, if Rockefeller does retire, Carte Goodwin will be the Democratic nominee and I suspect Rockefeller will throw his whole machine behind him. Goodwin's wife is a longtime Rockefeller aide.

[DrScholl]

Here we go again. Regardless of rather you think you are going to win a seat, Senator Berg and Senator Thompson should teach you that nothing is ever inevitable. Remember how unstoppable those two were? I think it's wise to learn from the past. I'm not saying Capito won't win, but writing off seats one way or another is a bit premature almost two years out.

[Miles]

Well this clears things up at the Senate level -has Rep. Nick Joe Rahall gave any indications on whether or not he intends to retire after 2014?  

He could possibly retire. His margin this year was lower than his 2010 margin. Still, he's actually the same age as Manchin.

[tmthforu94]

Here we go again. Regardless of rather you think you are going to win a seat, Senator Berg and Senator Thompson should teach you that nothing is ever inevitable. Remember how unstoppable those two were? I think it's wise to learn from the past. I'm not saying Capito won't win, but writing off seats one way or another is a bit premature almost two years out.

What serious person said that Mr. Berg was unstoppable? And I never saw Wisconsin as an easy pick-up either.

As I said earlier, I think this one will be an easy pick-up because I don't think Rockefeller would run - I doubt Capito would be running for this seat (especially so early) unless she knew that Rockefeller would be stepping down. The difference here is that you have a very competent, experienced, and proven leader in Capito, and especially in a likely unfavorable climate for Democrats, I don't think the Democrats have anyone who could make this competitive.

Also, didn't Rockefeller make an anti-coal comment last year?

[Marokai Backbeat]

I am usually not one to make predictions or be so declarative, but..

This seat is gone. No ifs or buts.

[DrScholl]

What serious person said that Mr. Berg was unstoppable? And I never saw Wisconsin as an easy pick-up either.

As I said earlier, I think this one will be an easy pick-up because I don't think Rockefeller would run - I doubt Capito would be running for this seat (especially so early) unless she knew that Rockefeller would be stepping down. The difference here is that you have a very competent, experienced, and proven leader in Capito, and especially in a likely unfavorable climate for Democrats, I don't think the Democrats have anyone who could make this competitive.

Also, didn't Rockefeller make an anti-coal comment last year?

Most were pretty bullish on Berg, it was an open seat in a Republican state and Heitkamp wasn't taken that seriously until the middle of this year. And Thompson was guaranteed to beat extremely liberal Baldwin, up until after the Democratic Convention.

I'm just saying in terms of predictions, it's wise to be prudent.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

Aaaand we're fucked.

[Frodo]

What serious person said that Mr. Berg was unstoppable? And I never saw Wisconsin as an easy pick-up either.

As I said earlier, I think this one will be an easy pick-up because I don't think Rockefeller would run - I doubt Capito would be running for this seat (especially so early) unless she knew that Rockefeller would be stepping down. The difference here is that you have a very competent, experienced, and proven leader in Capito, and especially in a likely unfavorable climate for Democrats, I don't think the Democrats have anyone who could make this competitive.

Also, didn't Rockefeller make an anti-coal comment last year?

Most were pretty bullish on Berg, it was an open seat in a Republican state and Heitkamp wasn't taken that seriously until the middle of this year. And Thompson was guaranteed to beat extremely liberal Baldwin, up until after the Democratic Convention.

I'm just saying in terms of predictions, it's wise to be prudent.

Mid-term elections typically see a different electorate than what we generally see in presidential election years.

There are solid reasons for pessimism in 2014 if you're a Democrat.  And while I am sure there are exceptions -generally more often than not, it is usually the incumbent party in the White House that suffers. 

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Not that I'm going to sugarcoat this or anything, but the game can change when we don't expect it.  I thought Kohl's seat was gone for sure, but the tide started to change in the last few weeks.  If the economy brings us an unexpected boom, there might be more reason to feel slightly optimistic.  Looking at things now, however, this news definitely isn't encouraging.

We knew that 2014 after an Obama victory didn't look good from the start, though.