No “five-star [Democratic] primary candidate” will be electable as Joe Manchin. I despise the guy, but he has figured out how to ride the fence as a Democrat in a state that has otherwise refused to elect Democrats since the Clinton era, and this gives him a big, powerful lever to get what he wants.
Stranger
But aren’t most of the measures in the bill popular in his state?
Yep, the way to push him to the back bench is to get a few other states to shift to the D column. With 52 Democratic Senators, Manchin won’t get his way. And it would be better if he was in the Senate in that scenario rather than some West Virginian Republican.
I agree with this. But I think it would be fair to point out to West Virginia voters, as MyFootsZZZ mentioned:
It’s true that Manchin gets votes that a generic Democratic candidate would NOT get. So the only way to primary him effectively would be to run someone who has huge name recognition (and favorability) and is good at talking the moderate/centrist talk. That would include talking about Coal in a way that doesn’t terrify the ‘we are Coal’ voters but instead emphasizes Jobs Jobs Jobs in a transition to Jobs Jobs Jobs (based on something other than coal, but never mention coal without emphasizing Jobs Jobs Jobs).
It might be possible. But it would require a huge investment (including getting John Cena to run. Or someone else with that required-for-WV ‘manly white guy’ image).
The main appeal of making this investment would be to sweeten the medicine for Congressional progressives—who need to vote in whatever Manchin will okay. And that will be INCREDIBLY painful for them. But if they don’t do it, we get a GOP House (and Senate, possibly) and then we get full-blown fascism. Not immediately—but inch by inch, very, very surely.
The prospect of unseating Manchin with another Democrat would give them the strength to do what they need to do: accept his current requirements for the bills, and vote them in.
This was true of Obamacare as well. But package it up and tie it with a bow, and suddenly, it was something terrible.
People don’t make sense a lot of the time.
With the population or the corporate financial interests who back him? “Sorry, guys, I’d like to vote for all this economic stimulus stuff, but watch this film from the Institute of Corporate Finance about how stimulus that doesn’t go directly to corporations will cause your skin to melt off.” And frankly, West Virginia, a state with an economy even more rooted in coal mining than Kentucky or Pennsylvania, Democrats talking about ‘green energy’ are about as popular as pork spareribs as a bar mitzvah.
Good luck with that; the 2022 Senate electoral map doesn’t look very favorable to that goal. Although the Republicans have 20 seats up for election versus the 14 that Democrats currently hold, all but three of those previously won by margins of >5%, whereas Democrats have four seats that were won by margins of >5%, and Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire having won in 2016 by a margin of less than 0.1%. The margins and wins in 2020 were lower than polling indicated, and unless you think there will be a sea change in the next two years the past performance is probably a best case estimate, with reality being somewhat less favorable. It will be a minor miracle if Democrats are able to just hold on to their even ‘majority’, much less pull in two more seats.
Stranger
HA!
Now you lib fucks finally know how I felt about John McCain.
A guy on your team isn’t playing how you want him to and you don’t like it.
Sucks, doesn’t it?
There’s one in every crowd.
Stranger
Yes. They usually drive a p/u truck with a “Trump Won” flag, sport a beard to hide their Meth-Mouth, smell like B.O., and they spend their days lassoing flies as they play first person shooter games on Discord or Twitch.
( It’s only a shame that one of them posts here… )
I think while Manchin had something like 95% of the leverage here, he was very invested in getting the bipartisan bill passed and it makes sense to put up resistance to get climate and social services in return (they REALLY should have pushed harder on healthcare IMO but that’s a different issue).
The Democrats should assume they’re going to lose at least 1 chamber in 2022, and we don’t know when we’ll get another chance to do something like this.
Bull. McCain played the “Maverick” on TV but voted party line more than Manchin ever did.
It has been infuriating and dumbfounding to watch Democrats step-by-step make exactly the same mistakes as they did with the ACA and invite exactly the same electoral consequences.
Pretty close, and where he deviated it more represented the GOP shifting hard right rather than McCain being contrarian to traditional Republican policy ideals:
Stranger
It seems like they’ve learned the wrong lessons from that.
They still seem to be operating under the theory that the more they do the greater risk that some perfect GOP talking point will come out of this and derail them. And in 2009 obviously any Democratic policy outcome was going to be called “socialism” but that doesn’t seem to even be happening now. They’re getting called socialists because they’re making the kids read Toni Morrison - the GOP has been so ineffective at hitting the dems on any of their economic platform.
McCain frequently spoke out of both sides of his mouth making the job of other members of his party harder. When I complained about McCain on these boards I was told to suck it up.
Now it’s your turn. Have some honor and take your medicine, son. A member of your team isn’t playing how you want him to and you don’t like it.
It’s not like Manchin is overall a full on Blue Dog. WTF would you cry babies do with one of those?
Have you always been this much of a goon or did you just forget to take off your Halloween costume?
Stranger
You haven’t answered my question.
I would match wits with you but I wouldn’t want to be accused of attacking an unarmed man.
Stranger
Um… vote them out?
Did I win?
So why hasn’t Manchin been voted out yet? He didn’t just start being a centrist Democrat this morning.