Just one last “Fuck you” from Joe ‘That Fuckin’ Guy’ Manchin:
Stranger
He’s basically a MAGA Republican at this point.
Does anyone outside of West Virginia care? Does anyone in West (by god) Virginia care?
Is Manchin still relevant in any way?
I think not.
He’s gunning for a job with the coal lobby. That’s the only way I can make sense of his pathological dedication to the idea that the Senate should be permanently paralyzed and unable to pass popular legislation.
With the Senate as close as it is, he was relevant for confirmation votes. He’s reliable for at least that much. And that’s actually very important.
But in terms of endorsements? Fuck no. Squirrel shit is worth more than his opinion.
213 judges and counting, Biden is currently outpacing Trump. So, yeah - Manchin isn’t worthless. He just isn’t worth much 
.
His lack of endorsement will reduce Harris’ chances of winning the great state of West Virginia from zero to a slightly smaller value of zero.
West Virginia is one of the most red states in the country, with a PVI of R+35.5 (c 2021). That’s redder than Alabama or Mississippi. I tend to cut Manchin some slack: he was reasonably clear about what he wanted and he didn’t play games. I also don’t expect him to take on the coal industry, any more than I expect Chuck Schumer to go all Elizabeth Warren on Wall Street.
Manchin caucused with the Dems and didn’t block the Inflation Reduction Act. I cut him a lot of slack. I have less patience for Sinema who hailed from a R=7.6 and moreover was an unpopular and ineffective politician.
That’s fair. Nonetheless, I’ll be glad to see them both exit the political stage.
Of course there’s always the theory that Manchin still believes he can be elected President. (I’ve heard nothing similar about Sinema.) If he goes for it I hope he’s slapped down quite early in the process. Despite the pro-Democratic votes for which he does deserve credit, on the whole he seems to be a self-important, disingenuous tool of the right. (Of COURSE he had to make a big noise about not supporting Harris—how else could he keep those donations from the coal and oil industries flowing in?)
That’s more or less what happened. He’s not standing for re-election almost certainly because he realized his time was up.
And he floated the idea of running earlier this year. That clearly went nowhere, even to the extent it’s not remembered.
He represents a wing of the Democrats that no longer exists in any significant numbers. Those folks shifted left or joined the Republicans. Mostly the latter (and/or died out).
There was a flurry of talk about him challenging Harris right when Biden said he wouldn’t run. Manchin would have had to go back to being a Democrat, reversing his change to becoming an Independent.
I could swear I’d seen stories weeks after that trial balloon collapsed, about Manchin standing by to take over the Dem nomination in 2028 when (supposedly) Harris would have failed–either by losing to Trump this year or by being elected and being wildly unpopular.
But I’m not finding them, so maybe I dreamed it. (Manchin would be 81 by 2028…)
The July 2024 flurry of alleged interest in Manchin:
https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2024/07/21/joe-biden-drops-out-election/phil-murphy-rallies-new-jersey-delegates-harris-00170229
It never stops