Cleve Benedict
| Cleve Benedict | |
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| Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from West Virginia's 2nd district |
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In office January 3, 1981 – January 3, 1983 |
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| Preceded by | Harley Staggers |
| Succeeded by | Buckey Staggers |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
Cleveland Keith Benedict March 21, 1935 Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Political party | Republican |
| Alma mater | Princeton University |
Cleveland Keith "Cleve" Benedict (born March 21, 1935) is a retired Republican politician from West Virginia.
Benedict was born in 1935 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He graduated from The Hill School in 1953 and then graduated from Princeton University in 1957. He later attended a school for cattlemen in Kansas and settled near Lewisburg, West Virginia.
Benedict held several appointed positions in the Republican state administration of Arch Moore from 1969 to 1977. In 1970, he was an unsuccessful candidate for the state Senate's 11th District.
Benedict was the Republican nominee for the United States House of Representatives in the 2nd congressional district in 1980. The incumbent, Harley O. Staggers, had retired and the Democratic Party had gone through a bruising 10-way primary election. The Democrats also faced the burden of the extremely unpopular federal administration of Jimmy Carter and state administration of Jay Rockefeller, both of whom carried the state, but lost the 2nd District by large margins.
Benedict won the general election and was subsequently appointed to the Committee on Energy and Commerce.
In 1982, Benedict decided, at the urging of Howard Baker, to forgo re-election and challenge incumbent Senator Robert C. Byrd in the statewide race for the United States Senate. He was unsuccessful, although his campaign made great note of Byrd's record of high office in the Ku Klux Klan, his avoidance of service in World War II, and the fact that Byrd, then alone among members of Congress, owned no home in the state he represented. His campaign represented the last serious and well-funded effort to unseat Byrd, spending $1,098,218.
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