Oct. 25, 2006
 
ELECTION COUNTDOWN: WV Federation of Young Republicans Revived
 
By Tony Rutherford
Huntington News Network Writer
 
Huntington, WV (HNN) -- Ashley Stinnett, previously a leader in the Wayne County Young Republicans, has been elected chairman of the West Virginia Federation of Young Republicans. This auxiliary organization to the state GOP concentrates on the 18-40 demographic in registering voters, helping candidates, and assisting with fundraising.
 
Prior to this year, the state group’s membership in the national organization had lapsed, so, Clay Barclay, southern regional vice chairman of the Young Republican Committee, and Doug Grammer, former chairman of the Georgia Federation of Young Republicans, attended the mini-convention of about 12 representatives Oct. 13 at the Charleston Marriott. U.S. Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, R-WV, was the speaker.
 
Within the next weeks, Stinnett will take a petition of 100 names to the Young Republican National Committee in Louisville, Kentucky, which will officially reinstate West Virginia’s chapter. Their first major project is to raise funds to get a website back up which can register voters on-line.
 
The officers of the revived group include: Tim Word (Beckley), vice chairman; Joseph Chambers (Morgantown), secretary); Ian Wiley (Wayne), national committee chair; and Carrie Bentley (Wayne), national committeewoman.
 
“Since we’re the governing body for all 55 counties, we would like to have a CPA (or someone with a similar financial background) for the vacant spot of treasurer,” Stinnett said.
 
Commenting on the upcoming election , the 26-year-old Marshall University graduate explained, “I get really political and busy during election cycles.”
 
The W.Va. Federation “will education and educate,” Stinnett said, explaining that people under 35 get most of their news through the internet, yet older folks relay on newspapers where “the Associated Press puts a smokescreen up. I get sick and tired of people on television telling me how to think,” he added.
 
One of the issues on which Stinnett has strong feelings concerns the Second Amendment. Despite the Homeland Security concerns, he explained that the right of citizens to have guns in their homes extends to the founding fathers who wanted to ensure that ordinary citizens “could repel anyone who invades our shores.”
 
The occasional fill-in on radio’s Tom Rottan show made a few against the mainstream media predictions on the election outcome.
 
“Republicans are going to lose seats in the House of Representatives, but I do not think they will lose control.” He surmised that the Foley scandal will not have as much impact as suggested due to other polls which says “the majority of Americans are happy with his or her Congressional person in their district.”
 
Stinnett cautioned poll watchers as most of the organizations conducting them have a liberal bias.
 
The politician who doubles as a filmmaker (“Lake Forest,” “We Are Marshall” “Brothers of the Badge” ) called the desires of Mountain State voters as “a unique in retrospect to the rest of the country. We carried George W. Bush twice, but Secretary of State Betty Ireland knocked off Ken Heckler and Warren McGraw was defeated for reelection to the West Virginia Supreme Court.
 
“The majority of West Virginia is apathetic i.e. they do not go out and vote. You could carry a governors seat in West Virginia for all that do not vote.” However, Stinnett has detected a mood that “people are looking and saying it is time for a change. We’ve had 75 years of one party rule [in the West Virginia legislature], give someone else a chance,” he suggested.
 
In fact, he dissected the West Virginia Democratic Party into three sections -- conservative Democrats who do not have power and the “union” and “trial lawyer” Democrats who control the state legislature.
 
He’s pleased that Gov. Joe Manchin has started promoting business, but claims the ideas now championed by democrats had their roots in the state GOP. “West Virginia is running small business completely out of the state,” Stinnett observed, noting that younger men and women leave upon graduation.
 
As for the Foley factor, Stinnett shrugged it off outside of the disgraced representative’s own district. In fact, he recalled a Democratic congressman [Mass. Rep. Gerry Studds, who died Oct. 14, 2006] in the 1990s who admitted to a sexual relationship with a page – and who was reelected.