John Raese On The Issues: Space Lasers And Slashing The Federal Government

Just a few months ago, nobody would have believed that it would be possible, and maybe even likely, for West Virginia to send a Republican Senator to Washington for the first time in 52 years.

But in this turbulent political climate, nothing is for certain, not even the candidacy of a popular Democratic Governor battling against John Raese, a wealthy businessman and perpetual candidate who recently proudly proclaimed that minimum wage laws should be repealed.

And so, in the highly anti-Obama but pro-Democratic state, recent polls showed Gov. Joe Manchin trailing by a slim margin behind the Tea Party-backed Republican, who told CNN's Dana Bash this month that the conservative movement was "a little bit left of me."

With the potential now arising that West Virginia voters could be sending Raese to the Senate in November, HuffPost has done a little digging into Raese's positions -- some of which may seem familiar from other Tea Party candidates -- and has catalogued the most surprising: