"That's only continued," he said.

He joined the Mountain Party when it formed in 2000. On Wednesday, the 60-year-old Glenville resident filed paperwork to run in West Virginia's October general election for governor.   

The Democratic and Republican gubernatorial primaries are scheduled for Saturday. The Mountain Party already picked Baber as its nominee, at a convention at the Town Square Cafe in Sutton earlier this month.

"We're out on the front in the electoral process," Baber said. "And we're also out on front on leadership."

What separates him from Republican and Democratic candidates is his attitude toward the coal industry, he said.

"All they want to do is say, protect the industry," he said. "I'm saying, let's transition the industry over time."

West Virginia should develop jobs in renewable energy and reclaiming abandoned mine sites, Baber said.

"At the moment, we're all consumers of coal and oil and gas. And we will be for the foreseeable future," he said. "But we've got to start making a plan for the future."

He emphasized that he has friends who work in mountaintop removal mining.

"We cannot throw those folks out in the street," he said. "They're good, hard-working people."

But he pointed to declining coal production in West Virginia, and competition from other coal-producing regions, such as Wyoming's Powder River Basin.

"Coal's era in West Virginia is already waning," he said. "It's not going to be the EPA that ends mountaintop removal. ... What's going to end it is capitalism."

Baber works in fundraising at Glenville State College. A former mayor of Richwood, he also is a poet, author and artist. He just published an autobiographical book called "Pure Orange Sunshine." He says it's "90 percent true."

Fiscal responsibility will be his No. 1 issue in the campaign, he said.

"I am tight," he said. "I do not like waste."

 If elected, he said, he would donate 25 percent of his governor's salary to charity, and challenge department heads to get rid of waste. That money, he said, should be invested in broadband development and tax breaks for small businesses.

He wants to raise severance taxes for coal, oil and gas, and assess the taxes that these industries pay on their land.

"The corporations are not paying their fair share of what they own," he said.

He believes Marcellus Shale development could produce clean energy and jobs, but said the state "needs to step up to the plate and regulate this industry so that landowners, air and water are protected."

Gas companies have surveyed his land, so he's experiencing the issue first-hand, he said.

Democrats and Republicans "take big money from whoever will give it to them," Baber said.

With that comes obligations to corporations, not the people, he said.

Baber calls the Mountain Party a "bake-sale party" -- its members know what it's like to struggle for money.

For the governor's campaign, he plans to approach national environmental organizations and progressive groups for contributions. 

When he paid his filing fee Wednesday, the money came from his own pocket. He wrote out the $1,500 sum on a Betty Boop check.

His party is affiliated with the national Green Party. In last year's special election for the U.S. Senate, the Mountain Party's Jesse Johnson received 2 percent of the vote.

Baber was born in New York. His father was from Richwood, and as a child, Baber often spent time in Greenbrier County, where his grandparents had a farm.

"I truly believe that I came back in time and geography to reclaim my Appalachian heritage," he said. "And I want to reclaim West Virginia for the common people of the state."

Reach Alison Knezevich at alis...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-1240.