If the 2018 midterm election were a season of “The Apprentice,” we would already have a front-runner to beat out everyone else: Don Blankenship, fresh out of prison, who stands a decent chance of becoming West Virginia’s next Republican nominee for the Senate.
Among this year’s crop of red-state Republican candidates, there are more than a few who seem as eager as the contestants on President Donald Trump’s old reality show to cast themselves as his clones. But when it comes to being an exemplar of the principles, or lack of them, that put Trump where he is today, none quite matches the former coal baron once considered the most reviled person in West Virginia.