Felon's performance in election shows WV's dissatisfaction with - Beckley, Bluefield & Lewisburg News, Weather, Sports

At the polls Tuesday, a number of West Virginia Democrats sent a not-so-clear message to President Barack Obama – they would rather see a convicted felon at the top of their ticket in November.

The message is not completely clear because of a number of factors. Did more than 40 percent of Democrat voters intentionally cast a protest vote against the regionally unpopular president, or did they blindly select anyone but Obama?

"This guy is a Rastafarian Christian, has a dreadlock mullet. He is in no way reflective of what the polity in West Virginia thinks," said Fox News political analyst Chris Stirewalt. "This is very clearly a protest vote. This is nothing to do with the candidate himself."

The candidate in question is Keith Judd – also known as Beaumont Federal Correctional Institution Inmate No. 11593-051 – who is currently serving time in Texas after making threats at the University of Mexico in 1999. Judd gave Obama a solid run, scoring 41 percent of votes cast in the election.

In number, Judd won nearly as many votes as leading Republican candidate Mitt Romney. Registered Democrats greatly outnumber Republicans in West Virginia.

Stirewalt said there will be those who choose to poke fun at the state.

"Those who would be ignorant enough to point and laugh would not be convinced otherwise anyway," he said. "I think what this very clearly is, is a protest vote. I don't think there's a danger of people assuming West Virginians really want a Rastafarian president. For those people who want to make a joke out of it, then that's their problem."

Robert Rupp, a history professor at West Virginia Wesleyan, also expects some national attention to fall on West Virginia for its near approval of a convicted felon.

"The national media is going to come in and portray that negatively in terms of racism or in terms of voters not being informed," Rupp said. "I think the key thing is that Obama has never done well in West Virginia in 2008. His policies are very unpopular. I was disappointed that the vehicle was a Texas convict, I was not surprised by the extent of anti-Obama vote."

More surprising than the strong anti-Obama vote, Rupp said, was the fact that 20 percent more people voted in the Democratic U.S. Senate primary than in the presidential primary.

"I think that what that means is those 20,000 would have voted against Obama, but didn't want to vote for the Texas convict," Rupp said. "It shows that (Sen. Joe Manchin) is still one, strongly popular, and two, that his instinct way-back to distance from Obama may have not helped him in Washington, but certainly helped him in West Virginia."

Rupp said he doesn't expect those protest votes to transfer to Romney's totals come November.

"In the primary, a protest vote is safe," Rupp said. "You know Obama is going to win anyway. … I think it's a lot different casting a protest vote in the primary versus casting a vote in the general election when the vote really counts."

Judd has run for president in every race since 1996, occasionally turning up on various state ballots. With a fee of $2,500 and filing a form of notarized certification of announcement, Judd was able to get listed on the West Virginia ballot.

"It's quite simple," said Secretary of State Natalie Tennant. "It is the law, and we follow the law. We consistently, fairly and evenly apply the law of state code when it comes to candidates having their certificate of announcement and being on the ballot."

Tennant said there are only very few conditions in which a candidate's right to be on the ballot is denied. Judd did not meet any of those conditions.

Typically, 15 percent of the vote would qualify a candidate for a delegate to the Democratic National Convention, but Democratic Party Executive Director Derek Scarbro said nobody has filed to be a delegate for Judd.

"It is not likely that he will earn any delegates to the national convention," Scarbro said. "No one filed to run as a national convention delegate to support him for president, and he may not be eligible to serve anyways, since he is currently an inmate in a federal prison. The state party is reviewing the national party's rules to see if he met the requirements to earn delegates. All candidates for president are required to file certain papers with the party, but it does not appear that he has done so."

Judd won the race in 10 of West Virginia's 55 counties and more than 50 percent of the vote in Boone, Clay, Gilmer, Hardy, Lincoln, Logan, Mingo, Tucker, Webster and Wyoming counties. His best showing was in Mingo County, where he received more than 60 percent of the vote.

According to Judd's profile on Project Vote Smart, he says he attended political science classes at Harvard in 1998 and in various schools in the West. He said he studied business, music, dance, speech communications, theatre, psychology, physics, nuclear physics and acoustics.

According to his profile, Judd said he plays bass guitar, has bowled a perfect 300, enjoys pool and enjoys vacationing in Yellowstone National Park. He also wrote that his father designed the first atomic bomb and worked for 30 years on the Atomic Energy Commission.

Judd said if he could meet one person dead or alive it would be Mozart, because "he was cool."

Judd also claims to have extra sensory perception and can tell the future. He also claims to have spent 1976 from 1982 serving as a member of the Federation of Super Heroes.

Among the issues addressed in his Project Vote Smart profile, Judd wants to "outlaw plea agreements and paid snitches," "eliminate health insurance" and have the government operate "on its own self-produced money."

He said he would address global warming with a "chemical process that changes CO2 into O2 and carbon."

Rupp said he blames media outlets in West Virginia for not adequately informing voters, because many likely did not even know he was incarcerated. Judd also said unfortunate voters had not looked that information up before casting their ballots.

Ultimately, Rupp said, it comes down to it being very unlikely that Obama will take the Mountain State. The news may not be too disappointing for a candidate who has not historically actively campaigned in the state with only five electoral votes.

"Obama didn't win West Virginia in 2008, and he won't win it in 2012," Rupp  said. "The fact is that he doesn't need to."