Manchin jokes around

By Mackenzie Carpenter

Just after 9:15,  Governor Manchin and his wife Gail are announced...to a crowd that has been loosened up while waiting for the official announcement.  But he isn't speaking yet, so I will make these observations: Jay Rockefeller is really tall.  And Larry Puccio, head of the Democratic state party, is really short.  And he has a way with words: your next senator will still come back to West Virginia.  "He'll still be back for the Walnut festival!".                         

Here's the governor: "Leaving the governor's office was one of the toughest decisions we had to make... But when I look at the challenges we face I need to take the fight there."   

Washington "is broken," he said, "they can learn some common sense from West Virginia."  Not a single mention of Barack Obama's name.  Nor any mention of whether his opponent had conceded. "We had an air attack and a ground attack," he said in reference to the campaignn which featured a negative campaign ad blitz from both sides.