There is an old fable about a dog crossing a bridge with a bone in his mouth. He glances down at the water, spots his own reflection, and mistakes it for another dog with a bigger, better bone. Consumed by that illusion, he lunges for it, drops what he already has, and surfaces with nothing. Aesop meant it as a lesson about greed. But it translates well as a lesson about political miscalculation.
Governor Patrick Morrisey is spending political capital at a remarkable clip this primary season. He is endorsing in contested Republican legislative primaries across the state, inserting himself into intraparty races where most governors, most of the time, choose to stay generally neutral. The question worth asking is not whether he has the right to spend his capital. He does. The question is whether he is spending it wisely, or whether he is chasing a reflection.
Political capital is real currency. It accumulates through elections won, relationships built, and goodwill extended. It depletes through controversial decisions, broken alliances, and bridges burned. Every politician carries a finite supply of it. How they choose to spend it tells you everything about their judgment, their priorities, and their theory of power.
Morrisey’s theory, as best it can be read, is ideological. He is not simply rewarding loyalists or punishing enemies for sport. He appears to believe that endorsing certain candidates will produce a legislative majority more aligned with his governing agenda, one that will move his priorities forward with greater speed and reliability. That is, at minimum, a coherent rationale. It is also a significant gamble.
A Scene at the Monroe County Republican Dinner
The endorsement strategy became impossible to ignore at the Monroe County Republican Dinner, where Morrisey publicly backed Jonathan Comer over incumbent State Senator Vince Deeds while Deeds himself sat in the room. What followed was described by an eyewitness as something between a broadside and a bolt for the exit.
Steve Dunford, a member of the Greenbrier County Republican Executive Committee who was present that night, posted this account publicly:
“I just want to say what I witnessed our Governor of West Virginia, Patrick Morrisey, do tonight at the Monroe County Republican Dinner was so uncalled for and so unprofessional for a sitting Governor to do. Our Governor came to supposedly speak and then proceeded to tell the room that he is supporting another candidate over a truly proven and godly man and incumbent Senator Vince Deeds, while Vince and the Greenbrier County Executive Committee members who were in attendance sitting there is totally unacceptable! He praised the other candidate, and then when he was done, both he and the First Lady ran out and left. Let’s just say us Executive Committee Members were pretty upset and furious.”
Dunford is not a political outsider. He is a party officer, a Greenbrier County executive committee member, a Republican activist in Vince Deeds’ home territory. His reaction represents the precise constituency a governor cannot afford to alienate if he expects to govern effectively for four years.
The County Chairs Speak, Then Go Quiet
The fallout did not stop with rank-and-file committee members. Ben Anderson, the chairman of the county chairs association within the WVGOP and the Greenbrier County Republican chairman, posted a statement that was widely understood to refer to the campaign apparatus operated by the Morriseys. Anderson wrote:
“The Greenbrier County Republican Executive Committee will not be endorsing this primary. We do, however, express our profound disappointment at out-of-state influences spreading lies in our district, as well as statewide leadership (directing these out-of-state influences) who have chosen to break Reagan’s 11th Commandment: ‘Thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Republican.’ Our primaries should be decided by the people, not by those with ulterior motives and deceptive interests. Keep your eyes open, your ears peeled, and your spirit clean.”
Reagan’s 11th Commandment exists for a reason. Primary wounds, inflicted publicly and with the authority of the governor’s office behind them, do not heal quickly. The activists, committee members, and county chairs who watch a sitting governor come into their territory, endorse against their incumbent, and leave before the conversation can happen are not people who forget easily.
The Majority He May Never See
Here is the core problem with Morrisey’s theory of the case. He is burning significant political capital, real and finite currency, in pursuit of a legislative majority that may never materialize in the form he envisions. West Virginia’s legislative map is not so malleable that a handful of primary wins will hand him a governing coalition built entirely from personal loyalty. The legislature has its own institutional culture, its own leadership structures, and its own members who have been there far longer than any governor’s endorsement operation.
The dog in Aesop’s fable did not lose his bone through stupidity. He lost it through fixation on something that looked better than what he already had. Morrisey came to the governorship with some measure of political capital: a statewide election win, a party unified enough to celebrate it, and a goodwill account funded by years of service as Attorney General. That capital was real. It was in his mouth.
What he is chasing is the reflection of a compliant legislature, a governing majority that will move his agenda without friction. It is an understandable thing to want. But the manner in which he is pursuing it, publicly humiliating incumbents, directing out-of-state campaign pressure into local Republican communities, and breaking the basic norms of intraparty conduct, is costing him the relationships he will need whether he wins those primaries or not.
If his endorsed candidates win, he will have legislators who owe him a debt. But he will also have a party apparatus full of county chairs, committee members, and local activists who watched how he operates and drew their conclusions. If his endorsed candidates lose, he will have spent all of that capital for nothing, and the legislators who survived his opposition will remember it for the rest of his term.
Either way, the bone he started with is getting harder to see.
The WASP’s Assessment
Governors who govern well do so because they understand that political capital is not inexhaustible, and that the party infrastructure beneath them is not a tool to be wielded at will. It is a coalition to be maintained. The county chairs, the executive committee members, the local activists who spend their evenings at Republican dinners in Monroe and Greenbrier counties are not obstacles to Morrisey’s agenda. They are its foundation.
What this governor appears to have decided is that those people will fall in line regardless of how they are treated, because they are Republicans, and he is their governor. That is a theory of politics built on a very shaky assumption. West Virginia Republicans have demonstrated, repeatedly, that they are not a monolith. They have institutional memories, personal loyalties, and a deep and genuine commitment to the idea that primaries belong to the people.
Ben Anderson said it plainly: our primaries should be decided by the people, not by those with ulterior motives and deceptive interests.
Patrick Morrisey still has his term to finish. How he spends his political capital now will determine whether his term produces a governing legacy or a cautionary tale. Right now, he is staring at his reflection in the water, convinced it is something worth having.
The WV WASP will be watching to see if he drops the bone.
The WV WASP is a West Virginia political news, satire, and commentary outlet. Follow us on X: @wvwasp | wvwasp.com 🐝