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.
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.
Benedict was then appointed as a deputy assistant secretary in the Department of Energy. In 1988, he ran for statewide election as commissioner of the West Virginia Department of Agriculture, winning by a large margin. He chose not to seek re-election in 1992, choosing instead to run for Governor of West Virginia. That November, he was defeated by a large margin in a three-way race. He finished behind incumbent governor Gaston Caperton.
Benedict has since retired to his dairy farm and has eschewed overtures to again seek elective office. He was a delegate to the 1996 Republican National Convention; however, he supported Democratic gubernatorial nominee Charlotte Pritt, who had run against Benedict and Caperton in the 1992 governor's race. Again in 2000, Benedict was elected as a delegate-at-large to the Republican National Convention committed to George W. Bush. He received the second largest number of votes. In 2006, he opposed a 124-turbine, $300 million Beech Ridge Energy wind farm to be built in Greenbrier County.[3]
Family
He is the son of Cooper Procter Benedict (1907–1968) and Laura DeLamater Benedict Beury (1911-d.). His parents married on April 14, 1934. He had a younger brother, Oakley DeLamater Benedict (1938–1940), who died young and was named after their maternal grandfather; and a younger sister, Elizabeth Hasbrouck Benedict Rice (b. 1941), named after their maternal grandmother. Cleve was named after their paternal grandfather, Rev. Cleveland Keith Benedict (1864–1936).
On August 10, 1957, in Winchester, Virginia, he married Ann Farrar Arthur (1933–2021), a native of Winchester. Together, they had three children: Cooper Procter Benedict II, Ruth Farrar (Benedict) Mercer, and noted author and college professor Pinckney Arthur Benedict. Pinckney named his son Cleveland Keith Benedict III after his father and great-grandfather.
