FOX News:
Today's Power Play: GOP Sweetens its Offer to Manchin
Republicans are making some big promises to try to lure West Virginia Senator-elect Joe Manchin to cross the aisle.
Aside from his pick of committee assignments (likely the Energy and Natural Resources Committee), Manchin might get support for one of his pet projects - a plant to convert coal to diesel fuel that has stalled under Democratic leadership in Washington.
It's one of Manchin's pet projects and could mean big money for the state's coal producers.
"Republicans believe in an ‘all of the above' approach to energy," one top Senate aide told Power Play. "And coal-to-diesel could certainly be part of that."
Manchin's switch could mean Republican support for not just $1 billion in seed money for the project but also a deal, much sought in coal country, to require the armed forces to use converted coal for fuel.
Republicans of course are now denying the bribe offer, but after spending the better part of two years railing against things like the "Cornhusker Kickback" (which never became law), what would you expect them to do? Publicly admit that they offered a bribe of $1 billion to woo a Democratic U.S. Senator across the aisle? Fat chance! Nonetheless, unless Fox completely made up the quote from the top Senate aide, there does seem to be meat behind the is story, yet somehow, for some reason, we don't hear any howls of outrage from the teahadists. Sounds like the smell of IOKIYAR spirit, eh?
For his part, Team Manchin is trying to distance itself from the report. Yesterday, Fox quoted a Manchin adviser leaving the door open to a switch:
"He was elected as a Democrat and he has to go to Washington as a Democrat to try, in good faith, to make the changes in the party he campaigned on," said one Manchin advisor. "Now, if that doesn't work and Democrats aren't receptive, I don't know what possibilities that leaves open."
By the end of the day, his political operation realized how toxic this could become, and issued a statement saying he was a committed "lifelong Democrat" and was "not switching parties."
Maybe now the GOP will try to come back with $2 billion.