I am as angry about King Manchin’s antics as anybody here. I don’t know what his motives are or what is driving his thinking. I do know that his actions are both stupid generally and politically stupid. While Joe Manchin must in general have great political instincts for West Virginia, his most recent positions are not smart there or anywhere else in the country. Limiting who gets the $1400 direct payment and how long unemployment insurance lasts and how much supplemental income is provided and opposing increasing the minimum wage to $15/hr are all both bad policy positions and political mistakes, even in West Virginia.
We are limited in our options. President Biden isn’t personally popular in West Virginia given that he lost the state by 39 points to Donald Trump. West Virginia is a very conservative state. So, President Biden isn’t going to be a great messenger for any political message there. West Virginia Democrats know that Joe Manchin is as progressive a Democratic senator as we can get out of West Virginia. So, they won’t vote for or back a different democrat. There are democrats who win individual districts in West Virginia. If they are more progressive than Joe Manchin, then they can’t win statewide because West Virginia is a very conservative state since Donald Trump won the state by 39 points. Others may be democrats only because their ancestors were democrats because they opposed republican reconstruction.
Joe Manchin won his last election recently. So, he won’t have to face any voters for four years. Alienating him means we lose his vote and control of the US Senate until at least 2022 and he won’t face any consequences until at least 2024. Some have suggested that we threaten Joe Manchin by threatening to primary him . Others have suggested that we threaten to investigate his daughter. Since we won’t have the help of most West Virginia Democrats, then threatening to primary him is an empty threat. While it might be difficult for Joe Manchin to win re-election in 2024 as an independent or a republican, he might be able to do it. He might face difficult odds, but we would face impossible odds. The probability that we could hold or win this seat without Joe Manchin is zero. So, his odds might not be great, but our odds are zero. That means that this for sure hurts us and only possibly hurts him and even if it harms him politically, that harm won’t take place for three plus years. This means that a threaten to primary him is empty and he knows that. And for the next three plus years, we would be without his vote. So, we would be in the minority until at least November 2022. Threatening to investigate the progeny of Joe Manchin because we are angry at him for political reasons is unethical, likely illegal, and politically self-defeating. Right now, we have no evidence that his daughter committed a crime. Our motive is clearly political revenge or almost political blackmail. There can be no doubt about this given the context (ie the diary) that the comments took place in. It is no better when we do it than when Donald Trump tried to do it to his political opponent. Trump tried to do this to Joe Biden’s offspring, Hunter Biden, in order to hurt Joe Biden politically. We would be doing this to Joe Manchin’s offspring, his daughter, in order to hurt Joe Manchin politically. Not only would it be wrong, but it would mean that Joe Manchin would immediately become a republican. Sure he might not win a republican primary or as an independent, but that won’t happen for four years. So, it won’t help us get his vote. He might win as an independent and he might win a republican primary. Even if his odds again are not great, our odds of holding the seat without him are zero.
We don’t have leverage over King Manchin. I hate it. You hate it. However, there are some actions that we can take that might help. We need to poll West Virginia for the COVID relief bill . It seems likely to have majority support even in West Virginia. We poll the policies Manchin is opposing like raising the minimum wage to $15/hr and extending and supplementing unemployment insurance. If the poll numbers in West Virginia are what I expect, then we go to Governor Justice and ask him to promote the policies which are popular in West Virginia. Governor Justice would be a great messenger there. We offer pork or whatever he needs in order to get him to advocate for these policies as well as the COVID relief bill. We poll the democracy bill there as well. A lot of that bill would be popular in West Virginia or it might have a chance with the electorate there. We see if Governor Justice is okay with the democracy bill. There is no reason he would not be. If he isn’t, then we need a different messenger. We try to find a politician who is personally popular there in West Virginia who is good with the democracy bill that the House of Representatives already passed. We could poll the filibuster as well. We use the results of the polls in West Virginia to demonstrate to King Manchin that his voters want what is in the COVID relief bill and what is in the democracy bill.
That would not be threatening King Manchin. It would simply be determining where the West Virginia electorate is on these issues and promoting these policies there. Proving that the policies in our bills are popular with West Virginia voters and getting a personally popular politician in West Virginia to promote these policies and bills would encourage him to vote for them. We try to find carrots for him voting our way as well.
I could be wrong, but I suspect that most of the COVID relief bill (especially the direct payments and the unemployment compensation) and most of the democracy bill are popular with West Virginia voters. We also reason with him regarding filibuster reform. We point out that the filibuster was supposed to encourage actual debate on the issue and there were supposed to be 41 senators actually present and debating the merits of the bill with the majority. We explain that right now what is happening is not what the filibuster was meant to be. We make it clear that right now that we don’t have what the filibuster was intended for: 41 senators debating the merits of the bill. We point out that voters care about whether or not they get action on their behalf far more than they do about arcane senate procedures and rules which can be changed.
In 2022, we win the Pennsylvania and Wisconsin US Senator seats and Joe Manchin loses some of his power.
There are actions, I am sure, which are neither right nor wrong. Choosing which candidate to vote for is not such an act. The choice of who one votes for is not an act that is devoid of ethics or morality. Voting for a bad person is an an immoral act. Voting for candidates who are evil and who if put in power will help harm the residents of a country is an immoral act. A substantial amount of the damage King Manchin has done to the country could have been avoided if Biden voters in Maine had all voted for Speaker Sara Gideon. The root of the problem is that the US Constitution assigns two US Senators to every state regardless of population.
This at least gives us a plan on how to deal with Senator King Manchin until November 2022.