It’s official. WV Senator Joe Manchin says he won’t run for re-election. Not that he’d have won if he’d taken another crack at it but he’s finally admitted what’s long been obvious. He can’t (especially as a Democrat) win in Ruby Red West by god Virginia anymore. He can’t win if he switches Parties either. For all his denials you know damn well he quietly explored doing so and finally accepted that. It’s why he began his dalliance with No Labels. He had hopes of a Presidential run. But there’s RFJ Jr. to contend with so that’s out.
Manchin is done and knows it. Has known it for a long time in fact. He waited longer than he should to make his announcement but at least he didn’t wait until the very last minute. At least WV Democrats can vet some candidates, although it’s almost certain that seat is going to flip to the GOP next year regardless. As NBC reports:
The decision by Manchin, a former governor who was elected to the Senate in a 2010 special election, all but assures Republicans a pickup in the ruby-red state of West Virginia, where Manchin has defied political gravity for years by keeping the seat in his party’s hands.
When I dropped out of the beltway rat-race in 2003 it was for the eastern panhandle of WV so I learned more about Manchin than I ever cared to know. I saw him a a self-serving, grifting P.O.S. unworthy to be mentioned in the same breath of the man he replaced, Jay Rockefeller. The ONLY thing about Manchin that got me to vote for him was as awful as he was, his opponents were even worse! And his ego which was far outsized compared to his actual worth as a person and Senator got worse with such a close margin between Democrats and Republicans in the Senate. It will suck knowing we won’t have his vote on at least routine stuff and have to put up with a GOPer opposing worthy legislation. However, we also won’t have to deal with his chain-yanking and sometimes pretending to go along only to screw fellow Democrats over. Yes, he’s that corrupt and always has been and I for one have no doubt much of it was because he got paid in some way.
What caused me to chuckle was upon hearing the news and seeing a former staffer on MSNBC singing his praises (WTF?) was the staffer’s “He wants to travel the country to learn how he can help” comment. My immediate reaction is that Manchin can help by doing three things.
For the remainder of his terms STOP effing over the Democratic Party.
When the election is over next fall STFU
In addition to #2 go away. Never been seen or heard from again.
I’m sure in the weeks and months ahead I’ll have plenty more to say about Joe Manchin. I doubt any of it will be positive. But we finally know for sure what anyone who’s paid attention to WV politics and/or next years Senate election map has long known. Joe Manchin was going to lose next fall. So, rather than suffer that humiliation he’s not even going to try for another term. Good. Even if the Democrat who runs gets whupped it’s long past time to start finding new people in that state that can engage in the long, hard work of making the Democratic Party relevant in WV again.
I hope he spends the rest of his time modeling for his “milk carton” photos.
When I last visited a small town near a federal prison, it was a shock. Driving downtown on a bright Saturday morning, I saw no one walking around. It felt like a twilight zone episode. Some of the buildings were once nice, but it was a ghost town. Talk about poor. Ripe territory for some Democrat to tout what Biden has done for them and tried to do but was stopped by the Republicans. Show how the richest 400 people paid a less tax rate than the middle class due to trump’s tax cut. Take up a populist message with facts to back it up. Oh and definitely bring up the Republicans lying in public saying they don’t want to end social security and medicare…etc. Time to take the gloves off.
I returned to my social services roots in 2009. Though I started working at a Children’s Home I switched to working with Developmentally Disabled Adults. Up in WV I had two titles, Therapeutic Consultant (for clients that lived in apts./houses and Clinical Supervisor for my clients that lived in a group home. (I transferred to NC in 2014 as a CS for two group homes. Long story) Up at our office in Martinsburg, WV our clients, as are almost all such people around the country funded via the Medicaid Waiver program although some also get Medicare funding for their services.
Yet, up in WV damned near all of my co-workers be they direct care staff, colleagues on my level or my second boss were hard core Republicans. When I’d point out to them that EVERY DOLLAR of their salaries came from Medicaid/Medicare and that the GOP was doing all it could to GUT those programs while Democrats fought to create them and have always fought to maintain (and expand) them they just shut down. They refused to deal with that reality! I marvelled then and still do over the cognitive dissonance of such people.
But that’s WV. And southern Illinois where I spent my first 26 years before heading off to become a Marine. And so many other places. MAGAs would rather lose their jobs, their homes, everything just to “own the libs.” It’s nothing new. It’s just gotten more pronounced since Trump came along.
I read a lot of comments, here and elsewhere. I’ve read so many of these it makes we want to cry. Perhaps, having read so many over the years by completely different folks and reading more of them lately, “those people” who only live to “own the libs” are going to disappear by dying off because the services that they depend on will disappear thanks to who they voted for. They’ll never make the connection, even though you tried. Either that or one by one they’ll give up and maybe not repent but just stop being so aggressively stupid. We can only hope…
I doubt most will repent. I know too many such people from back in my hometown and from my years in WV in a place that was very much like where I grew up. I think the best we can hope for is that their fervor will cool down some. Hopefully a lot but that will take a long time. Also, these people raise children and poison their minds with this MAGA crap. Like the song from the old musical South Pacific says, “You’ve got to be taught, to hate and fear; You’ve got to be taught, from year to year; It’s got to be drummed in your dear little ear; You’ve got to be carefully taught. You’ve got to be taught, before it’s too late; Before you are six, or seven or eight; To hate all the people your relatives hate; You’ve got to be carefully taught.”
Trust me when I say the MAGA asshats ARE carefully and diligently teaching their young so hopes that this crap will die out is foolish.
Reading the MSM today, I learned that I, as a Democrat, ought to feel bad about this.
Nah. Resigned to it maybe. But I’ve said over and over for a couple of years Manchin was in his last term. His margin of victory shrunk with each election and he didn’t win by much last time. Hell, when he moved from Gov. to Senator his popularity was already suffering although he won his first Senate term handily. But he’s been toast for a while now. He (and his family) long ago grifted enough money to live high on the hog but he’s loved the attention he’s garnered for himself in recent years. His Presidential delusions of grandeur are exactly that. He’s setting himself up for an epic humiliation if he actually tries to mount a campaign.
Thanks, that about sums it up. And the truth is, I don’t feel bad about it at all.