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West Virginia governor Jim Justice seems bound for the US Senate. His secret weapon? A 62-pound English bulldog who might be the best retail politician the state has ever known.West Virginia governor Jim Justice seems bound for the US Senate. His secret weapon? A 62-pound English bulldog who might be the best retail politician the state has ever known.was holding court at the governor’s mansion.
In preparation to meet Babydog, I’d spoken to a motley crew of West Virginians—a handful of political operatives, the employees of Babydog’s favorite Wendy’s, a pollster, a statehouse reporter, and an assemblage of voters—trying to discern her meaning to the state. She’s like West Virginia’s mascot, they said, a “homegrown celebrity” but also a “prop.” She’s a “part of the governor’s persona,” his “secret sauce,” and “quite possibly the most popular political figure in West Virginia.
A few moments later, a state trooper in a gray checked suit grasped Justice’s hand. “One, two, three,” the men counted, and the trooper heaved the governor from the armchair. Upright, he achieved a fearsome height. “I’ve got to go see the press now,” Justice murmured to the gaggle of staffers who’d engulfed him, before ambling from the library into the hall.
With another politician, the dog shtick might feel contrived—but Justice is a man who seems never to have encountered a focus group. He loves fast food and turkey hunting. He talks in dizzying backcountry idioms, and for his entire stint as governor, he’s insisted on keeping his; Justice lives two hours away in Lewisburg and commutes to Charleston a few times a week. Because of it, he strikes voters as an everyday guy, not someone who’s wheeled out a bulldog for show.
As “quite possibly the most popular political figure in West Virginia,” Babydog transcends partisan lines. Photograph courtesy of Governor Jim Justice. Captain Drew Pendleton—the state trooper in the gray checked suit, the head of Justice’s security detail—emerged, at that moment, from a corner. “Oh, Drew, you want to airlift her?” Justice said, then introduced him to me as the “keeper of Babydog.”While he pulled himself upright, Pendleton’s voice strained: “Come on, Baby—good God.”Outside the mansion, a thick rain fell, and the trooper tenderly deposited Babydog onto the grass. She immediately peed.
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