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.

Autobiography- Early morning 4/12

 The first school year I was in New Orleans, I had a roommate named Jack. We found each other from Tulane's housing office, and rented a shotgun house a block from the Mississippi near Audubon Park.  Jack was a senior undergraduate in engineering; I was a first year grad student in Urban Studies. Jack was from a prominent South Alabama family, and a good student, but tried to be rough. He bathed infrequently, rode a motorcycle and liked to sky dive as a hobby. He had a disturbed girlfriend from a decaying Chattanooga family. Jack was crazy handsome when he cleaned up, not that I noticed. 

We moved in together fifty years ago this coming fall. We only stayed together that one school year. He wanted to keep the house, so I took an apartment alone the next year, and we rarely saw each other after that. I left New Orleans a year later.

I still think about Jack, mostly what he said to me when we split up our household. He said " I think you're gonna make it big one day, Wendell, but I ain't sayin' how old you'll be." I didn't sleep well tonight, maybe because I had my second booster shot against COVID-19 on Friday, maybe because of what I ate ( I cooked tonight), or because I walked in Core Arboretum for nearly ninety minutes this afternoon and overdid it. 

So as I lay awake, I thought about what Jack said to me in May of 1973. Maybe he was right. I've been with the same man for more than sixteen years now. We're married, we own a home and two cars, and we have an old cat, who is on "home hospice" with us. And I'm running for United States Congress. Others are shocked that I could run for Congress, and maybe I'm surprised, too. I know enough now, and while I am not likely to win, it's not because I can't do the job or lack qualifications. It's taken me the fifty years since Tulane to become that person who is stable, confident and capable.

 Maybe some other night when I can't sleep, I'll write more about what I've gone through.

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