Well, he said he wasn’t going to nuke the filibuster, he wants a bipartisan way forward on COVID relief, and he won’t support any such bill with a minimum wage increase. That’s the line in the sand Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) has drawn—and it’s not insane. Manchin is one of the few Democratic senators Republicans could actually work with on a host of issues. The other might be Sen. Krysten Sinema (D-AZ). Both have pledged to prevent the destruction of the legislative filibuster. With regards to budget reconciliation, that’s a whole other issue, but the Biden White House did well to screw things up when Kamala Harris decided to drop by West Virginia, not tell Manchin, and only referred to coal mines, a key industry in the state, as land mines. Manchin is the one vote you cannot lose, but this White House managed to put that in jeopardy in less than a month.
Yet, Manchin has another issue to look out for when it comes time for his re-election: the crew of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Yeah, former operatives for her upset 2018 run are forming a PAC, specifically to find someone who can challenge Manchin and Sinema. It’s part of the enforcement arm of the far left. You don’t kowtow to the authoritarian progressive ethos—and you’re gone (via Politico):
A trio of progressives who helped launch Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s 2018 upset campaign are now setting their sights on Senate Democrats.
The co-founders of No Excuses PAC — Saikat Chakrabarti, Corbin Trent and Zack Exley — are starting a search for candidates to challenge incumbent Democrats they say are standing in the way of ambitious action to end the coronavirus pandemic and revive the economy.
West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin and Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema — who aren’t up for reelection until 2024 — are the first Democrats on their target list, the left-wing strategists shared first with POLITICO. Chakrabarti and Trent are also former aides to Ocasio-Cortez.
Manchin and Sinema’s opposition to eliminating the legislative filibuster — which requires a 60-vote threshold for most legislation — is the main reason No Excuses is putting a call out for possible challengers. Progressives have increasingly pressed Senate Democrats and President Joe Biden to end the filibuster, arguing that in an evenly divided Senate it will be nearly impossible to find enough Republicans to pass major pieces of Biden’s agenda.
“The only real way to pressure any of these folks and hold them accountable to their promises is to threaten their power, and threaten the seat that they hold and threaten their reelection,” said Chakrabarti, who is also a former chief-of-staff to Ocasio-Cortez. “We sort of have this theory that the voters in Arizona and the voters in West Virginia would care more about action, they care more about jobs and their community and money in their pockets than they do about an arcane Senate rule called the filibuster.”
Okay, off the bat, you can see how this group is already ahead of its skis. First, they admit that the West Virginia Democratic Party has no bench. Second, if Manchin goes, that’s one fewer Democrat in the US Senate come 2025. Is that a smart strategy? Manchin is excellent at retail politics. He’s well-liked. He’d be tough to beat. For starters, as we said, finding a progressive candidate crazy enough to challenge Manchin might be a task in itself.
And yes, West Virginians care about their jobs. Those will be dwindling as the Biden administration once again puts the screws to coal and kills local economies—all to satisfy the snobby condescending elites that dominate the Democratic Party. You saw how these people think when John Kerry said these folks could just start making solar panels. At the same time, I wouldn’t expect anything less from a member of the Forbes family. Rural Americans can die off, while the urban, ‘woke,’ and insufferable urban-based elites thrive. That’s not an economy built for the country. There are more working people than there are whiny soy-boy and gals who think they’re thought leaders because they got a college degree in ‘whine like a little [female dog]’ from Wossamotta U.
No jobs mean no money in the pocket, so yeah—please go ahead and challenge Manchin. He might have to make that point, which once again makes a case for why the man should just switch parties. As for Arizona, well, I admit, this No Excuses team might have more luck there.
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