She was finally going to run. After half a decade and repeated attempts by party leaders to recruit her, Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) was ready to challenge a political titan of West Virginia for his long-held Senate seat.
“In 2012, I decided I was ready to go up or out,” Capito said in an interview. But first came the task of telling Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), the inscrutable Senate GOP chief who had tried unsuccessfully to get Capito, then a House member, to run as their nominee.
“I go to McConnell, and we’re sitting in his office, and I said, ‘Well, I’m going to run against Sen. Rockefeller,’ and he sits there like he does,” Capito told the Washington Examiner, settling into a lower octave to match his gravelly baritone. “And he goes, ‘Shelley, you’ve been a bridesmaid too many times. Prove it!’”
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV). (Graeme Jennings/Washington Examiner)
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