Put Not Your Faith in Manchin
Joe Manchin had many opportunities to switch parties. The fact that he has remained a Democrat throughout is all you need to know.
by Scott McKay
October 21, 2021, 11:33 PM
By now you’ve at least heard about, though probably not read, that Mother Jones story about how Sen. Joe Manchin, the “conservative” West Virginia Democrat who has stood athwart his party’s plans to spend the country into peonage, is threatening to abandon the “D” next to his name.
In recent days, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) has told associates that he is considering leaving the Democratic Party if President Joe Biden and Democrats on Capitol Hill do not agree to his demand to cut the size of the social infrastructure bill from $3.5 trillion to $1.75 trillion, according to people who have heard Manchin discuss this. Manchin has said that if this were to happen, he would declare himself an “American Independent.” And he has devised a detailed exit strategy for his departure.
Manchin has been in the center of a wild rush of negotiations with his fellow Democrats and the White House over a possible compromise regarding Biden’s ambitious Build Back Better package, and Manchin’s opposition to key provisions — including Medicare and Medicaid expansion, an expanded child tax credit, and measures to address climate change — has been an obstacle that the Democrats have yet to overcome. As these talks have proceeded, Manchin has discussed bolting from the Democratic Party—perhaps to place pressure on Biden and Democrats in these negotiations.
He told associates that he has a two-step plan for exiting the party. First, he would send a letter to Sen. Chuck Schumer, the top Senate Democrat, removing himself from the Democratic leadership of the Senate. (He is vice chair of the Senate Democrats’ policy and communications committee.) Manchin hopes that would send a signal. He would then wait and see if that move had any impact on the negotiations. After about a week, he said, he would change his voter registration from Democrat to independent.
When the story came out, Manchin immediately disparaged it as fake news … or rather, a slightly stronger term…
more
https://spectator.org/put-not-your-faith-in-manchin/
