Pritt trial begins - Underwood agrees to testify for Pritt!

[Lt. Governor 2B]

http://sundaygazettemail.com/section/News/Other%20News/2006030325?pt=10

March 04, 2006
Pritt libel case begins 8 years later

By Susan Williams
Staff writer

FAYETTEVILLE — A long-delayed libel suit that a former Democratic candidate for governor brought against three Republican organizations started Friday in Fayette County Circuit Court. Former state Sen. Charlotte Pritt believes that ads paid for by Republicans who lived out of state distorted her voting record in the final days of her campaign and cost her a chance to be West Virginia’s first woman governor....

....Roberts said the Victory Committee was born to handle ads against Pritt and dissolved soon after Pritt was defeated. Roberts also said the address for the West Virginia Victory Committee was the same as the Washington address for National Republican Senatorial Committee, and it had the same officers. In researching for the case, Roberts and his co-counsel, Roger Forman, discovered that all the people who gave money to the West Virginia Victory Committee were from out of state. They could not find a single dollar contributed by a West Virginian.

....Although Pritt’s Republican opponent for governor was Cecil Underwood, her lawyer made clear that the suit was not against Underwood. Underwood rejected the ads, AND HE WILL BE A WITNESS FOR PRITT.

[hollowdweller]

1. Pritt would have been a fantastic governor!

Not just herself, but the people she would have appointed. I believe that that in my lifetime that was the closest we ever came in WV to electing a regular person to governor rather than a business or coal shill.

What amazed me about Pritt were how different her two campaigns were. When she almost knocked Caperton off in the Primary she could do no wrong. She spoke on her feet great I mean she had it.

However her whole campaign against Underwood just seemed so disjointed. She didn't seem to have her flair for communicating. It was like a whole difft person was running. Then she suffered that onslaught of GOP money, and not having any deep pocket business connections she was cut down.

It was interesting to read in the papers after about how that she was working to get her campaign loans paid off and it really made me sad, because her plight is just a perfect example of how hard it is for a regular person to run. An industry shill would immediately be hired by whatever companies they pimped for before running and paid an inflated salary to pay off their debt, but a schoolteacher who ran against corporate interests doesn't have that option.

It was especially irritating to me when the so called "liberal" paper the Charleston Gazzete endorsed Underwood! I was a loyal Gazette reader for over 25 years. The night before the election I made a vow that if Pritt lost I would NEVER buy another copy of the Gazette. I never have!

[Hubert Flottz]

2. Cecil Underwood is afraid that if he don't help Charlotte Pritt he

might get dragged into the case and lose a dollar. I hate to think one good thought about Cecil Underwood and I know there has got to be an angle. Underwood and Moore are two of a kind. I remember when Underwood was in office the first time. Half the people in the state had to leave to find a job. How can working people be stupid enough to vote for GOP recessions and depressions over and over and over?

I hope Charlotte Pritt wins. I think she's a good person.