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Editor, News-Register:
Johnny Haught's recent column declaring that "independent" is no longer a bad word skips an uncomfortable possibility: sometimes the party didn't fail the candidate.
Sometimes, voters simply rejected the candidate.
That possibility seems strangely absent from the post-election analysis of Haught and Dave Cantrell.
Both suffered overwhelming defeats in 2024. Yet rather than asking what they personally could have done differently, we increasingly hear about everything that supposedly failed them.
There is plenty to criticize about our current two-party system.
But losing badly does not prove your party failed you.
At some point, candidates must look at the scoreboard and engage in a little self-reflection.
Cantrell's current campaign makes that point particularly well.
He recently issued a statement highlighting a previously reported and subsequently dismissed incident involving one of his opponents, while also demanding answers from the very party he once championed.
What struck me was the apparent lack of consideration for the alleged victim -- all based on a 12-word news brief.
If your concern is genuinely about protecting victims, turning someone else's personal experience into campaign ammunition deserves considerably more thought.
It speaks as much to personal character as it does to political judgment.
Then there is the West Virginia Mountain Party.
For a party that presents itself as an alternative to the two major parties, the Mountain Party's recent Facebook post is remarkable: it endorsed Cantrell, called for the nominee of his former party to withdraw, and essentially demanded the rest of that party fall in line behind a now-independent candidate.
That's an interesting definition of offering voters more political choice.
The Mountain Party's sudden interest in holding parties accountable for allegations also deserves some historical perspective.
This is the same Mountain Party whose president publicly inserted himself into a West Virginia Senate primary to promote Zach Shrewsbury, then rushed to Shrewsbury's defense when informational mailers raised questions about him and his ties to WV Can't Wait, the Mountain Party, and the subsequent socialist takeover of West Virginia.
Shrewsbury was again a candidate in this year's West Virginia Senate primary while receiving support from the same current Mountain Party leadership.
During that campaign, a massage therapist publicly accused him of inappropriate sexual contact.
Shrewsbury disputed the characterization. Yet I saw no comparable public demand for accountability from the Mountain Party.
You cannot demand guilt by association when allegations involve your political opponents, and amnesia by association when they involve your political friends.
Haught and Cantrell are free to become independents. The Mountain Party is free to criticize the system.
But changing your political label does not change an election result.
Sometimes parties fail candidates.
Sometimes political systems deserve criticism.
And sometimes democracy produces a much simpler answer:
The voters said no.