GOP/POLITICAL FIGURES: “The devastating explosion in the Upper Big Branch coal mine killed 29 men in 2010 and scarred West Virginia like few events in modern memory. Don Blankenship, the head of the mining company, went to prison over it.
Not many people would call that a springboard for a career in politics.
Yet when Mr. Blankenship emerged last year from his one-year sentence for conspiracy to violate mine safety laws, rather than express remorse or contrition over the tragedy, he announced a run for the United States Senate, in a state where coal has been as much a cultural identity as an economic one.
His return to the public eye has reawakened painful memories in West Virginia, especially for relatives of the disaster’s victims. ‘You took 29 lives away from families like mine,’ said Judy Jones Petersen in an interview, as if she were addressing Mr. Blankenship. Her brother, Dean Jones, was killed in the disaster. ‘Shame on you for coming back,’ she said…
Mr. Blankenship claims that the federal government, not the coal company, is to blame for the explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine near Montcoal, W.Va. Investigators found no evidence to support his claims, but he is running for office in an era of nationwide voter credulity for conspiracy theories.
And his candidacy is unfolding in a state where many people embrace a sense of persecution over coal’s decline. Economists say that a host of factors are responsible, chiefly the abundance of cheap natural gas, which has undercut coal in the energy marketplace. But that is not what many West Virginians choose to hear.”
-Trip Gabriel, “Coal Country Divides Over an Unrepentant Boss’s Senate Bid,” The New York Times online, Feb. 26, 2018