f there was any question whether Gov. Joe Manchin believes he's in a race for the U.S. Senate special election, his latest commercial removed all doubt.

Some Republican operatives misidentified Manchin's initial ad as an attack ad, but merely pointing out that one's opponent is running attack ads and noting that negative campaigns drag down the whole electoral process is in itself not an attack.

However, the new "he's not one of us" spot is very clearly an attack ad -- and one that suggests the Manchin campaign is going to take aim at John Raese's potentially biggest vulnerability.

The strategy seems to be to show that Raese is not the ordinary Joe he portrays himself to be, walking around the streets of Morgantown in blue jeans, but a multi-multi-millionaire born into wealth, who is flown around in a private jet and has second-home mansions in Colorado and Florida.

(Not to mention that his wife and daughters are so fond of West Virginia that they opt to reside in Palm Beach, Fla., instead.)

The ad also takes aim at some of Raese's out-there political views, including his support for repealing the minimum wage.

Last week, Raese was quoted in the Daily Caller Washington political newsletter as saying he would also like to eliminate a number of federal agencies, including the Department of Education ("I'd certainly like to dismantle in 2011 the Department of Education," Raese was quoted.) and the Department of Energy ("What do they do? Do they drill a well or open a mine?" he said).

Presumably, Raese didn't think he was misquoted or misrepresented in the Daily Caller article -- since he posted it on his campaign website.

When I first saw Manchin's new ad, my first thought was that I had heard that tagline, "he's not one of us," in a previous campaign.

Then it hit me: It was good old Randy Schoonover who used that slogan in his 1998 state Senate race against then-Greenbrier County prosecutor Mark Burnette.

Schooney was not targeting Burnette so much for wealth, but for the fact that he was a WVU and Harvard Law grad, out of touch with voters in the rural parts of the 10th Senatorial District. And it worked. Schoonover won the primary by nearly 800 votes, despite Burnette's release of his "rap sheet" showing three domestic violence charges, along with numerous misdemeanors...

Speaking of senators, Culture and History commissioner Randall Reid-Smith last week ordered two employees, Tim Walton and Betty Gay, to make an overnight trip to Washington, D.C., at taxpayer expense to deliver artwork for Sen. Carte Goodwin's U.S. Senate office. (Whose walls are undoubtedly pretty bare with all of Sen. Byrd's memorabilia gone.)

RR-S has provided a similar service for legislators, and many legislative offices and committee rooms at the Capitol -- particularly on the Senate side -- feature art and archival photographs on loan from Culture and History.

Presumably, RR-S had the travel approved by his boss, Education and Arts Secretary Kay Goodwin, Carte's aunt.

I couldn't resist calling state Republican Party chairman Mike Stuart after he issued a statement calling for the Manchin administration to release the federal subpoenas they received last month.

I told him if he wanted to know what's in the subpoenas, why didn't he just call? The one for Highways is for contracts with Puccio and York; the one for Administration is for contracts involving the governor's mansion and governor's office suite.

Stuart replied that if the head of the Democratic Party in the state, party chairman Larry Puccio, is under federal investigation, the public has the right to know.

"Any cloud over him, it seems to me, needs to be cleared up," Stuart said. "He's the spokesman for something like 650,000 registered Democrats in this state."

Asked why he doesn't just cut to the chase and call for Puccio's resignation, Stuart said, "If the rumors are true, I would think the Democrats would want to call for his resignation."

In fact, the current situation could be working to Stuart's and the GOP's benefit, since the normally loquacious Puccio has been invisible so far this campaign cycle.

Finally, let us take a moment to remember Joan Renee Kirby of North Charleston, S.C., formerly of this Charleston, who passed away last week.

Her obituary in the Post and Courier newspaper stated that visitation, which was held Saturday, Sept. 18, would be from 4 to 6 p.m., "so that there won't be a conflict with the West Virginia Mountaineers football game."

In the immortal words of Pat White, "Once a Mountaineer, always a Mountaineer..."

Reach Phil Kabler at ph...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-1220.