October, 2023

 I haven't posted much on this blog lately. I used to write about all the places I visited, one or two a month, and post lots of pictures, mostly of historic places. It took hours, and at most 20 people would read what I wrote. Lately, I've been putting a few pictures on Facebook, without much commentary, and 75 or 80 people give me a "like" or make a comment. 

I've also gotten a lot more private about how I'm feeling and what I'm doing. I was diagnosed, long ago, with "mild, chronic depression," whatever that means, But turning 74 last week really hurt. I know I'm in better shape than most men my age, the ones who haven' t died yet, anyway, and when I look in the mirror, I think I look better than most my age. Still, I've had two cancer diagnoses since the summer, one a skin cancer thing that was ugly, but is fixed except for a scar. I'm scheduled for an operation to remove my thyroid gland this Friday, November 3, and that is stressing me out. The doctors thought they saw something on my pancreas this summer, but after an endoscopy, said it wasn't a big deal, "come back in six months" and have it rechecked. Then they called two weeks later to tell me they wanted to take another look. My mother lived with pancreatic cancer for fifteen months. She was diagnosed at the age I was in August. She said at the time "How long was I going to live anyway?" I think about that a lot. She and I too, don't want to end up in a nursing home, like her mother, my grandmother, with no memory of anything. And I feel like my time has come and gone. The world is not what it was and, while at one time I had some power in it, now I don't think I do.

I ran for Congress last year against a MAGA-Republican hack who had not done anything in several terms of office, who beat a more rational Republican in a primary with signs that had his name over Trump's. He never appeared in this area, which was new to him, refused to debate, and didn't run a campaign. We did an interview together with the Morgantown Dominion-Post where we could only answer questions, not debate. I didn't think he had anything to say, and the paper endorsed me. I won only in this county. The race wasn't close, only closer than predicted. He's now running for Senate against our Governor, Jim Justice, a shameless liar, deadbeat and grifter, originally elected as a Democrat, who switched to the Republican Party in short order. I was at the state convention where he was nominated, and almost no one at the convention liked him, in fact, most of us there walked out of his speech. Joe Manchin wanted him, so that's who we got. He has a high popularity rating in the state. Don't ask me how that is possible.

It's not just this state. The Republicans, who have a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, just elected a speaker, without Democratic support. He has railed against same-gender marriage and abortion rights, which one might expect from a radical Christofascist, but he also is open to cutting Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid, against aid to Ukraine, and wrote many of Trump's lawsuits arguing, falsely, that he won the 2020 election. This is what the United States has come to. 

Meanwhile, there is a war in Israel-Gaza-Palestine. My friends on the right blame Obama and Biden and say Trump would have taken care of this. My friends on the left think Israel is totally the villain here, that the country is a "colonial power," engages in "apartheid" and "genocide." I grew up in an apartheid state called "Maryland" and as to genocide and "colonialism" if you're an American of European origin, you need to tread carefully, given our history on this continent. Yes, Israel could conform to international law and not risk murdering innocent civilians, But Hamas has to go. There should have been a reckoning a long time ago among the nations about Palestine, but no one wants to touch it. Israel took in Jewish refugees from Iraq, Iran, Egypt and the rest of the Arab world, yet Palestinians cling to the false hope that they will be able to turn back the clock, and they've lived in refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt for 75 years. The Jewish homeland is in Israel/Palestine. There is nowhere else. I've seen signs that say "Anti-Zionism is not Anti-Semitism." It's a thin line. Jewish students at Cornell are afraid to leave their rooms, and in a former Soviet republic, protestors attacked a plane from Tel Aviv, looking for Jews to beat up. It's scary now for all of us. When I was in high school, a speaker came to my Jewish youth group. He was a Holocaust survivor from Poland, and had been in college in Poland in the 1930s. He was probably only 45 at the time he spoke to us, but he told us that Jews were treated badly by other Polish students and faculty at his campus. I am reminded of that by the events today.

I'm out of patience with everyone. While on City Council, I was called a "centrist" which was a high insult to the person who lobbed that word at me. I still consider myself on the left, but I don't really fit in that community anymore. The Republican Party would love to reach out to me and profess how they "Love Israel." It's American Jews they don't much care for, especially those of us in same-gender marriages who also think corporations have too much power.

You might notice that I'm not relaxed. I'm working on it. Tonight is Halloween, and I'll give out candy to the goblins and ghouls who come to our door. Tomorrow, November 1, is the 15th anniversary of my marriage to Joe Hample, and we'll celebrate that milestone. Friday is my operation, and I'm told that the prognosis is good. 

I still want to live, I'm just not sure I want to continue to interact with the rest of the world. Maybe I'll just fade away as I continue to age. I'll update this when/if I recover.

The Post-Election Rant

 Maybe it's too soon to write this. I need to heal both physically and emotionally from what transpired. I've had an ongoing sinus and bronchial infection since before Election Day. They swabbed me twice at Urgent Care and said "It's not COVID, not RSV, not flu." I had a flu shot in October. They couldn't tell me what was wrong, just to rest and hydrate. I'm not terribly good at either of those things. I try to walk in my neighborhood every day, about a mile and a half, and I do sit-ups, push-ups, stretches and a yoga pose involving balance most mornings. I'm always afraid that if I don't exercise, my heart will stop or I'll get fat. Emotionally, I don't know what's wrong. I went back to my former therapist, but I didn't have much to tell him, only to show him my paper calendar, scribbled all over every day in October, and totally blank in December. 

Three things made me ill. One was riding in the WVU Homecoming parade in a vintage Mustang convertible, which I loved, except it was cool out, and we were stopped for a long time, while the unfiltered exhaust from the car wafted back over me. I love old cars, but this 1964 1/2 Mustang had a 3-speed on the floor, no pollution controls, and an AM-only radio. It's a pretty car, a classic, but I'd rather drive my 2012 Suzuki. Another thing that didn't help was coming back one night from West Virginia's Northern Panhandle, about 70 miles away, driving uphill out of Wheeling on I-70, under reconstruction for what seems like years, going 50 in a 45 mph zone, in the left lane, where the right lane is about to disappear in a few feet, and there's a car there, and a giant truck getting up within two feet of my car, blasting his horn and flashing his lights at me. The trucking company was VSP. I regret that I didn't contact them as soon as I got home. The last thing to send me into a spiral, was when a friend in Morgan County said I should look at Nate Silver's "Five Thirty-Eight." I did and it said that I had a less than one percent chance of winning and that I might get thirty-three percent of the vote. 

My committee thought all along that I would win. I knew that this was an overwhelmingly Republican district. I went to as many events as I could in as many places as I could. I met some wonderful people, almost all Democrats, putting up a fight for their values. In Morgan and Hampshire Counties, I was fussed over by the Democrats. Morgan County found me an old Humvee to ride in for their Apple Butter Festival Parade. Neither Morgan nor Hampshire Counties had any other Democrats on their ballot. 

Alex Mooney, my opponent, never showed up anywhere in the District, even though he was unknown in north central West Virginia and the northern panhandle. His claim to fame was an endorsement from Donald Trump. His primary opponent, David McKinley, the long-time Congressman in out area and the Northern Panhandle, was endorsed in the Republican primary by our Democratic Senator, Joe Manchin. McKinley used to be a climate-change denier, but the last few years suggested we should study the problem for twenty years or so before taking any action. He is a totally-owned subsidiary of the coal industry. That didn't help him in the primary. I had no endorsements from anyone. The national Working Families Party endorsed me, but the local chapter head wouldn't return phone calls from my campaign manager. West Virginia Can't Wait interviewed me, and then said they couldn't endorse me. The Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, which endorses LGBT candidates, had me fill out a complicated form, then told me it would be sixty days before they could make a decision. I emailed them after sixty days, and they responded that they would not endorse me. The national Democratic Party, the DCCC, ignored me. All of these groups asked me almost every day to send them money for other candidates. The week of the election, I blocked all of them. 

Mooney and I were together on an interview with the Morgantown Dominion-Post. We took turns answering the same questions. I was nervous about going up against a five-term congressman, but I spoke more clearly and forcefully than he did, and in my opinion, I gave much better answers, even given that we are on opposite ends of the political spectrum. The article about the interviews, written by David Beard, who I think is a Republican-leaning reporter, made Mooney sound better than he was.

Still, the Dominion-Post endorsed me, which was a surprise. Not that I wasn't the better candidate, but that they tend to ignore me as much as possible. I also spoke to Leah Willingham, an AP reporter based in Charleston. We talked for a long time, but the article she wrote was mostly about Mooney's plan to challenge Joe Manchin for Senate in 2024. I ran into Senator Manchin at a West Virginia Federation of Democratic Women luncheon in Charleston, and I introduced myself. He said "Good luck to you" and walked away. His communication manager handed me his business card. I spoke with him, and requested an endorsement from Senator Manchin. He said he would talk to Manchin's campaign manager, who would get back to me. He didn't.

So Mooney won in 26 of the 27 counties. I won in Monongalia County, my home county and the second largest in population in the district. I beat Nate Silver's prediction of 33% of the vote by getting over 34%. Mooney announced a week after the election that he would challenge Joe Manchin for U. S. Senate in 2024. Manchin says he hasn't decided if he will run again. He's older than I am, so I can see his issue.

I met good candidates from all over the district, running for State Senate and House of Delegates. That "red wave" that didn't happen nationally, did happen in West Virginia. All of the seats in the House of Delegates were on the ballot; only twelve of one hundred seats were won by Democrats. In the Senate, Barbara Evans Fleischauer, a long-time House of Delegates member, lost a Senate race to Michael Oliverio, who had been in the Legislature as a Democrat at one time, but is now a Republican, and  the state representative of ALEC, the corporate lobbying group. The people who lost wanted to put coal miners' health above coal company profits, wanted to bring infrastructure money into West Virginia, reduce medical costs and expand Medicaid,  and bring back the Extended Child Care Tax Credit, that had lifted 40,000 children out of poverty in our state.

We're all depressed. I'm sure people had their reasons for voting for Republicans, who are anti-abortion, openly hostile to LGBT people and immigrants, and consistently put corporations over people. They support pollution, and are anti-public schools. Many people have talked about giving up, and if they can, moving away. I understand that, but now that I'm well-known, at least among active Democrats in the northern part of the state, I feel an obligation to stay and fight for my people.

Today, Saturday, November 19, I rested much of the day, although I got out to walk once the temperature went above freezing, and my physical symptoms are starting to subside. I'm out of politics for now. A friend, a retired union organizer, suggested I run again in two years. It's doubtful.

For now, I'm grateful to the group of women who managed the campaign, worked the website, created the graphics, put ads on Facebook and Google, and took care of the lawn signs. Democratic Party members in overwhelmingly Republican counties welcomed me with open arms; candidates for local offices became my friends. I had about two hundred donors, all friends, family members, people I met in the district and out, and people I don't know from out-of-state who must have heard about my campaign somewhere. I had no corporate money and ran an entire campaign on $25,000. I'm deeply grateful to everyone who worked or donated to the campaign, and I'm proud of what we accomplished.

West Virginia Democratic Women August 8, 2022

I was invited to speak to this group on 8/8/22 Here's what I said:

I am Barry Lee Wendell,  the Democratic Party candidate in West Virginia’s Second Congressional District. The District is rated R +30, so a hard race to win. As a 72-year old Jew in a same-gender marriage, I may not be the best person to run for this office. Two of us stepped up, and I won the primary. 

I had a scare Friday. A friend, a recently retired high school science teacher in Long Beach, California,  a friend of at least thirty years, was in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he was born and raised. His father had just died at 90 and they conducted a shiva minyan, a Jewish prayer service held every day for a week after a death, from the assisted living facility where his father had lived. Jonathan is married to a Mexican-American man who has a PhD. In early childhood education for children who lack language skills in both English and Spanish. George teaches elementary school in Long Beach. Jonathan and George have an adopted son who just graduated from high school this year. Jonathan’s father was born to a Jewish family in Warsaw, Poland, in 1931. A Polish family hid him and his parents during World War II. They all survived, but were not permitted to stay in Poland. They settled in Canada. 

Candidates in the United States have flirted with Nazi ideas, most closely, Doug Mastriano, the Republican candidate for Governor in Pennsylvania, who has a Jewish opponent, Josh Shapiro. In our own state, Delegate Danielle Walker has faced threats, including from a man wearing Nazi paraphernalia when she was at a Black Lives Matter rally in Preston County. 

The attacks on women’s rights, starting with the Supreme Court’s majority vote overturning  Roe vs.Wade, is a prelude to worse things. I attended the so-called hearing on HB 302 in Charleston two weeks ago. While Justice Alito said this doesn’t mean they will try to overturn same-gender marriage, Justice Thomas said it very well might. Ruth Rowan, a delegate from Hampshire County who introduced an anti-abortion amendment last year in the Legislature  said “West Virginia is a Christian state” as her reason for introducing the bill. I wrote to her and told her there is no established religion in this country. I worry about people like Jonathan and George and their apparently happy and well-adjusted son, Jimmy.

I make it clear in my campaign that “Mountaineers are always free” and that we are all entitled to “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” I always say I am pro-choice, a religious Jew, and married to a man, Morgantown’s Rabbi Joe. People often tell me I’m brave. The truth is that my father died at 69 and my mother at 75. I’ll be 73 by Election Day and I don’t see a long future ahead of me, nor do I have a career that will be upended by a defeat in this election. 

I have a dedicated group of volunteers. I love traveling around the state, I think I write and speak well. In Los Angeles, I studied both writing and acting. I don’t have the technological skills of today’s third graders, and I prefer that someone else raise money. I’m grateful that I have people who have volunteered to help or take charge of those things. 

We have about eighty donors to the campaign, all friends and family across the country, and people in West Virginia who have heard me speak or seen me online. I can’t match Alex Mooney for money, and I tell people not to fret that they don’t have enough money to send me. I tell them I’m grateful for every dollar, and I am, and that they should tell their friends and neighbors about the campaign. 

Alex Mooney has done nothing for West Virginia. He voted against the various Infrastructure and Build Back Better Acts, he voted against getting our veterans who are ill from burn pits the benefits they deserve, against lowering the cost of life-saving drugs like insulin. He has said “ Life begins at conception” and “Marriage is only between a man and a woman.” That gets personal for me. 

Liberal institutions have not given my campaign their support, and my sister called me to say that she saw in The Washington Post that the national Democratic Party wouldn’t contest the incumbents in West Virginia. Danielle Walker, the new vice-chair of the West Virginia Democratic Party, has spoken at my events and touted my candidacy online, but that’s the extent of state support. My campaign has reached out to County chairs in the counties in my district. I’ve gotten support and encouragement from Berkeley, Hampshire, Marshall and Tucker Counties. Individuals in Mineral and Wood Counties have reached out to me.

Joe Statler, the lone Republican delegate in Monongalia County, saw me in Charleston. He laughed when I asked him to vote against banning abortion, and asked how my campaign is going. I said “It’s going great. I’ll be a shoo-in once Mooney and Trump go to jail.” It was my turn to laugh.

This is the choice: Do we just want to let it go that we have a corporate extremist ideologue in Congress, or are we willing to fight to bring real democracy by backing a non-corporate, open-hearted and open-minded candidate who wants people in West Virginia to have better lives. I ask for your support and encouragement in this campaign. Thanks you for inviting me and allowing me to speak.

The Campaign So Far

 I haven't written on this blog about my campaign for Congress since I signed up to run, more than four months ago. I had a challenger in the primary, Angela J. Dwyer, a Black woman from Martinsburg, in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia. We met once in person, at the opening of the Democratic Party office in Shepherdstown, at the far end of the Eastern Panhandle. Rather than drive back from there, over 150 miles, I drove to my sister's house in Maryland and spent two nights with her. 

I attended events in Brooke, Hardy, Jefferson, Marion, Marshall, Ohio, Randolph, Taylor and Wetzel Counties before the primary. I met online with people in Berkeley County, and recorded a video for Tucker County. I understand better how beautiful West Virginia is, driving home through the hills and mountains, watching the change of seasons from winter to spring, sometimes on one trip across the mountains. 

I heard from people about problems I didn't understand, like the long wait to get an appointment at the VA Hospitals in Clarksburg and Martinsburg. I learned from reading about students at WVU lobbying in Charleston,  about the mental health crisis on college campuses nationally and in our state. 

I won the primary, although Angela Dwyer won a few counties and did not embarrass herself in any way. It was a good, clean campaign. The Republican candidates, who had much more money, endorsements and name recognition, ran ads on television. Alex Mooney, endorsed by Donald Trump, ran ads accusing his opponent, David McKinley, endorsed by Governor Jim Justice and Democratic Senator Joe Manchin,  of being a supporter of Nancy Pelosi and giving Biden "a victory" by voting for the infrastructure bill, which will bring billions of dollars to West Virginia to repair our crumbling roads and bridges. McKinley bragged that he "Voted with Trump 92% of the time."

Alex Mooney won the Republican primary to the chagrin of many. He faces an ethics investigation over his use of campaign funds for personal use and lying about it. The Dominion-Post, our local paper in Morgantown, ran an editorial against Mooney, suggesting that McKinley could get back in the race somehow. My name was not mentioned.

I've recently met online with Lacy Watson, the sole Democratic candidate in District 1, our state's other Congressional District. He's bright and articulate, and he was wearing a "Doors" tank top. We aim to be the Raphael Warnock and John Ossoff of West Virginia.

Lacy and I noted that the Charleston Gazette-Mail has not mentioned either of us since the election. The Morgantown Dominion Post hasn't mentioned me either, although they have trashed Alex Mooney. Today (6/5) they printed a letter I wrote about the need to ban assault weapons. Originally it was an op-ed piece, but they insisted I shorten it to a letter, and cut out the political part, naming names of people who have failed America, notably Ronald Reagan, Mitch McConnell and West Virginia's Senator Shelley Moore Capito. I did a twenty-minute interview with Channel 10 and WRNR in Martinsburg, and there was a front-page interview with me in the Parkersburg  News and Sentinel, so there is some coverage of the campaign in the district. 

I haven't raised a lot of money, and half of that has been from friends and family in Maryland, Florida, New York and California. The other half is from people I know here in West Virginia, and people who want an alternative to Alex Mooney. I'm disappointed about not having more support from the state and national Democratic Party, from the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, and West Virginia Can't Wait. I've gotten advice, but no official endorsement, from Working Families Party. 

Still, I have an organization that's meeting weekly and I'm hoping to get things done soon. Yesterday (June 4) I drove to Martinsburg to spend time at the Eastern Panhandle Pride event. The event was different from what I'm used to, but I lived in West Hollywood. Times have changed, too. There are a lot more variations on "gay" "lesbian" and "queer" than there used to be. I met lots of people and gave out flyers for my campaign. I feel like I've aged out of the active LGBT community, but it was great to be with my spiritual grandchildren for an afternoon.

I'm optimistic about the campaign, partly because Alex Mooney is in deep trouble over ethics violations, and because the last President's influence is waning. I have something to say to people: I will be present, I will support women's rights, trade unions, people over corporations. I want to ban assault weapons, strengthen the background checks for gun purchases and have a national permitting plan. That resonates with my constituency. I'm also proud that so many people have offered to help, from my junior high classmates (Sudbrook 1964, Pikesville Maryland) to people I've met on the way and others who've heard about my campaign. I have to also thank my husband, Joe Hample for encouraging and supporting me, even if it means being away from him more than either of us want.

Even if I don't win, I've had something important to say. I've come to know the northern half of the state much better, to appreciate its natural beauty and the diversity of the population. It's a thrilling ride, by far the coolest thing I've ever attempted.

Barry Wendell for Congress

 Thanks to redistricting, and our state's population loss over the last ten years, West Virginia has gone from three congresspeople to two in this year's election. Our representative, David McKinley, was placed in the same district as another incumbent, Alex Mooney. People have been looking at this as a contest between two Republicans, McKinley as a "moderate" and Mooney as a full-on MAGA devotee. While McKinley did vote for the infrastructure bill, he calls Build Back Better "reckless social spending." He also claims President Biden has done nothing to stop the pandemic. His party has not proposed anything to help. Mooney criticizes McKinley for supporting Nancy Pelosi and the infrastructure bill. He also touts his own endorsement by the previous President.

This race leaves an opening for a Democrat, someone open-hearted, who favors social justice spending by the government, who is  pro-family, pro-choice, pro-science and willing to do whatever is best for the country, not just for a political party. I've asked at the last few monthly county Democratic Party meetings if anyone had signed up to run against McKinley and Mooney, and was met with silence. 

I'm a Maryland native who lived in Miami and Los Angeles for most of my adult life. I'm Jewish and a gay man in a same-gender marriage. I'm also seventy-two years old. I used these as an excuse not to put in my name for this contest. But I'm younger than David McKinley, and I've lived in West Virginia longer than Alex Mooney. I was elected twice to Morgantown's City Council, the second time, in 2019, with seventy-three percent of the vote. 

There is now another candidate for the Democratic nomination in our district, a woman in Martinsburg. I don't know her. Nominations must be postmarked by tonight (Saturday, January 29), so it will be a few days before we all know if there are other candidates.

I've done interviews with news sources already, and I have calls and emails to return tonight. I still need a treasurer and a campaign manager, and I have ethics forms to complete, so everything is canceled while I get to work on my campaign.

I know it's a long shot, but West Virginians need a candidate who stands for civility, working people, unions, the environment and the science of public health. I'm that person.

Contact me at barryforcongress2022@gmail.com