The price of Don Blankenship's support

Kelli Sobonya has learned that having Don Blankenship's support can be expensive.

Sobonya, a Republican who represents the 16th District in the House of Delegates, was at The Herald-Dispatch earlier today buying some more ad space. While she was here, she talked with me about her re-election campaign. She's gotten grief for taking $1,000 from Blankenship. I told her I was jealous that Executive Editor Ed Dawson had received a Democratic Party mailer at home showing a photo of fellow Republican Delegate Greg Howard as a puppet being controlled by Blankenship, and I hadn't.

"We have spent more money defending our position of taking a legal donation than we got from the donation," Sobonya said.

Sobonya said she and Howard have discussed whether accepting Blankenships' money was worth it and whether they would do it again. Sobonya said she would take it. She said she won't let the Democratic Party tell her whose legal donations she could accept and whose she couldn't, even if it costs her the election. And that's true even if her opponents receive more donations from Blankenship's opponents than she received from Blankenship, she said.