Senate Dems Grapple With The Manchin Brick Wall In Front Of Their Voting Rights Push | Talking Points Memo

How about focusing on more Democratic Senators to replace Republicans?

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Senator Warren is on to something. No ten magical Republicans are coming from nowhere or other. Therefore, the focus of all Senate activity should switch immediately to defeating ten lying seditionist Republicans.

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The thought is unpleasant, but Manchin may suddenly switch parties. Recall that West Virginia Governor Jim Justice was elected as a Democrat, and then switched. Manchin is sort of like the last man standing in WV. (I remember how pissed off I was when Ben Nighthorse Campbell switch to the Republican party here in Colorado. A bitter pill to swallow.)

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Manchin is responding to republicans in his state and the local lobbying efforts. Republicans are the only people that matter to Manchin because of BiPaRtISaNsHiP with a party actively supporting domestic terrorism.

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If Manchin has any thoughts of switching, he’d best take a gander at the results of a poll announced yesterday on MSNBC (Maddow). I’m scratching my head here, can’t believe that the STRONG support of the Administration reflected in the poll result isn’t getting more traction.

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Steve Bannon has a campaign going on to persuade Manchin to switch.

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Even local republicans are in favor of some o the stuff he’s opposing.

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He did already vote for Biden’s stimulus bill via reconciliation though right?

Manchin is kind of stuck and is sort of begging for Dems to bail him out of his feedback loop. Dems have a real opportunity to engage him and bring him along because his pro-filibuster tour fell flat.

I think HR 1/S1 will pretty much end the GOP civil war against the Republic because it limits the ability of states to arbitrarily change the rules for voter eligibility and ballot access, and provides the election security to limit hacking and vote manipulation. That said, we don’t actually need all of it done now. The reality is that the GOP can’t change any voting rules for the '22 midterms in battlegrounds like NC, PA, WI, MI, NV b/c we have Dem Govs to block stuff or some court decisions/orders to block excessive gerrymandering (PA/NC). We also know what the GOP is doing in GA, AZ, TX with enough advance notice to plan.

If I were to take 3 things from HR 1/S1 to make law today it would be guaranteed VBM/EV, election security and limits on vote caging. All the rest of it can wait until 2023. Put that in a package with John Lewis VRAA and see if Manchin will accept it. I’d also dangle a phased in voter ID to crush GOP messaging. In addition, an amendment to the electoral count act (suggested by a reporter at the WH briefing yesterday…a rare, good question) to shut down the ability of legislators to appoint their own electoral slates and exploit the loopholes that Trump was trying to do would be good as well.

Now, if he says no, there may be some creative ways to get parts of this in through the budget appropriations process (e.g., election security and electoral vote count act amendments could be added as amendments to appropriations bills), AND Dems could extract a commitment from Manchin - support infrastructure without resistance now and pledge to support voting rights in '23.

In other words, it’s very early in the process. Manchin has got himself stuck on bipartisan island and no one is there to join him and he needs help reaching the shore. Dems can find different ways to get him to align with the caucus.

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Sadly, I think that explains Manchin completely. Just bright enough to figure out how to satisfy his narcissist longings. Nothing else matters to him. He shares those traits with Trump and many others.

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Yup as most of the media was doing lukewarm reporting on how the GOP efforts were going to shorten voting hours on Sunday there seemed to be no understanding that this issue of allowing right wing judges to declare election results invalid based on just suggestions/accusations of voter fraud is the most serious IMHO.

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I don’t think he believes there is 10 R votes for ANYTHING. I think he worries that his voters believe that, and that the media doesn’t print that theres no R votes for anything.

He needs to proove to the media and his WV voters. That can’t happen without proof, which (I think) a bunch of votes this moonth(and next) that all get fillibustered.

The he can say there is no compromise to be had and show proof.

Remember he has not voted no on any of these things, it’s just talk.

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This is the thing I really wasn’t aware of until today and it’s the one thing that is buoying my hopes so much right now. I can be patient. I had the idea the whole thing was going to fail.

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I’d rather Ted didn’t pass a shit for oh…two weeks should do it?

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Hehe…death by constipation would be no joke…for real…talk about painful…

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I’ve had it happen one time for three days. No idea why never had even a hint since. Ended up calling an ambulance because I couldn’t bend over far enough to drive. 6 hours and 5 pounds later… never felt better.

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I can imagine that not being any fun lol…I’d have been demanding an immediate c-section hahahaha

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Yea, him not voting for the COVID bill was the last straw. Add in his repeated votes against Biden’s adenda, like infrastructure and voting rights have ended Biden’s once promising Administration.

Oh, wait… he hasn’t done any of those things. Calm down and see how the votes play out.

You act like you have never seen a Senator say one thing and vote a different way.

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Strip Manchin of his committee assignments.

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You can be forgiven for feeling that way. Reading Josh’s thoughts(and listening on podcast) makes it seem like were losing.

Josh has said multiple times he is still scarred by the Obamacare fight(which he forgits we won). He isn’t a great source for rational picture framinig right now.

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