It's an election year. And without belaboring the task ahead for the nation, we can borrow Ronald Reagan's refrain from 1980 to help judge our course.
"Ask yourself, Are you better off now than you were four years ago? Is it easier for you to go and buy things in the stores than it was four years ago? Is there more or less unemployment in the country than there was four years ago? Is America as respected throughout the world as it was?"
It's pretty clear that most West Virginians are going to answer that question this fall by telling Barack Obama to take his sweater and peanuts back to Plains, Ga. … or some other mixed metaphor. That result doesn't seem to be in doubt to any West Virginian outside a drum circle.
Today, if you believe the pages of this publication and others like it, the No. 1 most important issue in West Virginia is jobs. And the standard-bearer of that issue is this cracker plant.
You know the deal. The Marcellus and Utica wells in West Virginia, western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio are spitting out market-changing amounts of natural gas liquids.
While natural gas itself hits historic lows, the true cream from these underground dairies is the ethane, pentane and propane that rise to the top with the methane. That's why, even with the natural gas glut in North America, drills will keep running in the wet gas window near us.
This cracker will bust up the ethane into more usable and marketable chemicals and likely ensures a burgeoning bolt-on industry of other nearby plants and end users. It could be truly region-changing in terms of economics.
Royal Dutch Shell has been out front in looking for a site. Brazilian chemical maker Braskem has been reported as the other likely builder. Braskem already has a facility in Wayne County and another near Pittsburgh.
This is the ultimate public bet for the new governor. While his spokesmen already hedge their bets in public comments, the reality is that West Virginia is in competition with Ohio and Pennsylvania to see which state can do more to attract this facility. Jet fuel has been burned to put governors in Houston. Bills have been passed. Tax credits have been proposed.
But already, those who talk as proxies for Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin are hedging their bets. They are saying that no matter where the cracker lands, it's going to be a huge benefit to all three states.
Maybe. But let's look at the question, "Are you better today than four years ago?" Apply that to West Virginia. Apply that to companies who want to build plants and create jobs.
Four years ago, Chesapeake Energy got a $400-million surprise when a company Chesapeake bought in West Virginia was on the losing side of a royalties lawsuit. Regardless of the merits of the case, West Virginia did not afford Chesapeake or the other company the right to appeal one of the largest verdicts in corporate history.
That decision ensured that hundreds of jobs didn't come to a new multi-million dollar home on a hill near Yeager Airport. Words mean things.
And that hasn't changed. Period. While there has been talk of and proposals for some sort of civil business courts, there still is no guaranteed right of appeal for anything.
Are companies better off than they were four years ago? Is this still a "judicial hellhole?" Nothing has changed, regardless of what governors and legislatures promise.
The West Virginia Supreme Court has even added an extra plaintiff lawyer to the panel in Menis Ketchum to ensure fairness. The leading candidate to fill this year's open seat on the same panel is the wife of yet another millionaire trial lawyer.
On the flip side, unions here spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on TV ads castigating Dominion for daring to use any non-union labor to build their natural gas facilities in the Northern Panhandle.
Actively campaigning against jobs is obviously the best way to welcome new business to West Virginia. I'm sure that seems very welcoming when translated into Portugese.
West Virginia is a bodybuilder trying to press too much weight. No matter how strong the economy, how determined any leader, the reality is that there is too much weight. On one end of the barbell, a stack of anti-economy judges and an attorney general who will sue over anything but Obamacare. On the other, unions and business taxes who aren't a factor across the river or borders.
No matter how strong the governor thinks he is, big companies like Shell doubt he can clean the weight. If Joe Manchin couldn't protect Chesapeake's jobs by sheer force of will, the odds that Tomblin can land Shell are even longer.
While TV ads fighting jobs run here in every break, Ohio is doing its best to flip from a tiny producer of energy to a huge one in less than a year. Companies are falling over themselves trying to move equipment and people there from Pennsylvania and West Virginia to produce oil.
And next week, Ohio Gov. John Kasich has moved his State of the State address to Steubenville. The narrative of his administration is fixing economically depressed eastern Ohio.
That speech, scheduled for Feb. 7, will take place just a couple golf shots away from Weirton Steel in West Virginia, and it would be a great day to make a big industrial announcement.
Because, until we can take some weight off the bar, West Virginia will always be an economic long shot for companies who aren't tied here by a mineral lease. In four years, that hasn't changed a bit.
Rob Cornelius is a broadcaster and former political consultant. Follow his thoughts online on Twitter @RobCWV.
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