"I'll be 71 years old in August, you're going to whip me? Kiss my you know what," Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) said of anyone trying to influence his vote on Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, particularly Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
Schumer said this week after Trump's announcement ceremony that he's going to fight Kavanaugh with "everything he's got," meaning he's undoubtedly going to try and sway the members of his party to voting against the nominee. Yet, red state Democrats like Manchin plan on resisting those attempts. If anything, it seems Manchin is leaning toward "yes."
"He has all the right qualities," Manchin said of the nominee this week.
Vulnerable Sens. Joe Donnelly (IN), and Heidi Heitkamp (ND) also plan on making up their mind on SCOTUS sans Schumer's input.
Donnelly said his decision on Kavanaugh "won’t have anything to do with Chuck Schumer" and Heitkamp said she'll "vote the way I'm going to vote regardless of what the leader says."
Other Democrats are warning party leaders about being too aggressive.
“The worst thing you can do is to try to strong arm a resilient, experienced, independent senator from a red state,” said Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii, a member of the whip team, which is charged with preserving party unity.
“It just wouldn’t work to try to break arms. They wouldn’t respond well to that.”
Let's hope more Democrats than just the vulnerable ones are going to consider Kavanaugh's credentials instead of worrying about pleasing Schumer. One can understand their desperation though, as retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy's absence from the bench means the court will tilt to the right if Kavanaugh is confirmed.