CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) - While West Virginia’s coal industry shrivels and unemployment surges, billionaire businessman Jim Justice is dreaming about the next Dollywood, Disney World or Idaho potato in his Democratic bid for governor.
The coal and agriculture magnate is promising outside-the-box ideas to get his downtrodden state working, saying he’s put plenty of people to work in the private sector. So far, he hasn’t been sweating many policy specifics.
“Think big! Promote our state to a much bigger, broader audience. Attract the next Dollywood or Disney type resort,” read some bullet points of ’Jim’s Jobs Vision.’ “Find our niche crop. Why can’t we have the next Vidalia onion or Idaho potato?”
In the May 10 Democratic primary, Justice’s big-picture vows to create jobs and his business record are drawing scrutiny from his opponents, former U.S. Attorney Booth Goodwin and state Senate Minority Leader Jeff Kessler.
Justice is taking heat for being delinquent on millions of dollars in bills, taxes and mine safety fines at his companies.
The winner-take-all primary presents a critical choice for West Virginia Democrats, who long ran the state with a conservative tilt before losing ground to Republicans in recent years. Democrats took a beating in the 2014 election, which helped the GOP grab the reins of the Legislature for the first time in more than eight decades.
The winner faces GOP Senate President Bill Cole. Justice says he’s the only one equipped to beat Cole. The Republican Governors Association has spent $600,000 on TV ads to boost Cole’s name recognition.
In the aftermath of the 2014 election, state Democrats have splintered in three directions for governor.
Goodwin is charting a moderate path as a member of a politically influential family with support from former U.S. Sen. Jay Rockefeller and former Gov. Bob Wise.
Kessler, the progressive option, is the only candidate who has endorsed anyone for president: He yelled that he was “feeling the Bern” while warming up a crowd for Bernie Sanders last week. He’s the only candidate directly calling for higher taxes to shore up the state’s finances.
Justice, once a Republican, is the conservative Democrat backed by U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, West Virginia’s last Democrat in Congress. He’s the only Democrat in the field to cast doubt on mankind’s contribution to global warming.
For conservative Democrats, Justice is drawing crossover appeal with another billionaire: Republican Donald Trump. Jeremy Livingood, a 39-year-old registered Democrat and coal contractor from Gilbert, said he’ll vote for Justice in the primary. But he’ll leave the Democratic ballot blank for president and says he wants to vote for Trump in November.
“I think from the top on down in this country, it’s so corrupt that it’s going to take someone with both of those fellas’ stances on things, and businessmen that can’t be persuaded,” Livingood said.
Justice spent $2.1 million before the primary, and had at least a seven-fold money advantage, with about $2 million of his own money and $683,700 in donations. A theme of his advertising has been buying and reviving The Greenbrier resort in southern West Virginia.
Down the home stretch, the race’s messaging has been less friendly.
Americans for Integrity in Government Officials Inc., which doesn’t disclose its donors, is blasting Justice with $110,600 in TV ads. Justice has blamed the ads on Goodwin, who said his campaign isn’t behind them. One showed a video of a December 2014 traffic stop in which Justice calls a police officer a “total lunatic.” Another attacked his business dealings.
Americans for Integrity in Government Officials replied to an email from The Associated Press and defended its right to remain anonymous, but didn’t address any other questions from the message.
Justice has promised to pay all his debts and says he could have taken a coward’s way out through bankruptcy, but didn’t.
He lashed back in an ad that said Goodwin “spent much of his life on a government payroll, has little real world experience and has never created a single job.” The ad also accused Goodwin of accepting campaign checks from lawyers with cases in front of his father, U.S. District Judge Joseph Goodwin.
Goodwin said Justice was lying. Goodwin also said he has “taken on corporate fat cats like (Justice) before and he doesn’t scare me.”
Justice also criticized Goodwin for only landing a misdemeanor conviction against ex-Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship. Justice said Goodwin used the case to promote his political career.
Blankenship was sentenced to the maximum penalties of a year in prison and a $250,000 fine for conspiring to willfully violate mine safety standards at Upper Big Branch Mine, where an explosion killed 29 men in 2010. The jury acquitted him of felonies that could’ve stretched his sentence to 30 years.
In another Goodwin ad, a family member of a miner who died at Upper Big Branch responds to Justice’s criticisms.
Anyone who would “create this kind of pain by criticizing the prosecution is not somebody who deserves to lead we as West Virginians,” said Judy Jones Petersen in the ad. Her brother, Dean Jones, died in the explosion.
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