PURELY POLITICAL
If Joe Manchin challenges Joe Biden for the presidency he will do so as a Democrat
PURELY POLITICAL
By Jim Buckley
Joe Manchin is No Third-Party Candidate; he’s the Democrats’ Best Choice
Almost two years ago (June 2021) I suggested that, though I hated writing it, there was one way the Democrat Party could save itself from interment, and that would be by nominating Joe Manchin as its 2024 presidential candidate.
That could still happen.
I proffered that “The radical Left has a chokehold on the Democratic Party, and its elected officials don’t have the courage to stand up to the bullying, except for one man: West Virginia’s U.S. Senator Joe Manchin.”
Today, there is much talk of Mr. Manchin running as a third-party candidate, but I don’t believe that will or would happen. Donald Trump is more likely to head up a third party (but he won’t) than Mr. Manchin. And Manchin, in the end, is a good Democrat and nearly always comes through in signing legislation Democrat leaders feel is of vital interest to the Party.
However…
It’s not too late for Joe Manchin to challenge the other Joe – the one in the White House. After all, when Manchin caved and voted for the so-called “Inflation Reduction Act 2022”, President Biden made promises to the West Virginia Senator that he failed to keep.
A recent Wall Street Journal Editorial (5 Apr ’23) under the heading “Joe Manchin Gets Another Blow,” opined that the senator had been snookered yet again by President Biden. This time by proxy, when a Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals judgement struck down a permit for Mountain Valley Pipeline, a conduit meant to transport natural gas from places such as West Virginia to the mid-Atlantic region that had been blocked by environmental concerns.
Because Democrats refused to exclude the pipeline from judicial review, it fell to… judicial review. It certainly made Senator Manchin look stupid and weak. And really hurt his chances of re-election in the oil-and-gas-producing and very red state of West Virginia. It also apparently made him angry. Angry enough, one could surmise, to challenge Mr. Biden in the upcoming 2024 primaries.
I believe that’s a course he’ll consider very strongly. Not saying he will, but one can easily imagine the way such a turn could develop.
Even if it does develop, however, Manchin will still have a tough time overcoming the hard left’s and pro-abortion lobby’s antipathy towards him. After all, he voted with Republicans against the Democrats’ attempt to enshrine abortion as a federally protected “right.”
In June 2021, I also wrote: “Joe Manchin should announce his candidacy for president as a Democrat in early winter 2023. He would, of course be pilloried by the far Left. Alec Baldwin has already called Manchin ‘a traitorous Democrat’ for his vote with Republicans against the cynically mis-named ‘Women’s Health Protection Act.’ No doubt other far-Left types in Hollywood – and the Ilhan Omars and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortezes in Congress – would rail against him, but Manchin could possibly garner enough votes from the greater middle and saner contingent of the Democratic Party to overcome the Left’s noisy and likely nasty opposition.”
I did suggest it would be a long shot, but a Joe Manchin at the top of a Democrat ticket could overtake the 2024 Republican Party nominee, whether it be Mr. Trump, DeSantis, Pompeo, or any one among several other serious Republican candidates. Though, to be fair, I do believe we’ll have a Republican president occupying the White House come January 2025.
But just in case we don’t, if the Senate and House were controlled by Republicans, having a moderate Democrat such as Manchin in the White House would be some comfort. Many, including me, would be at least calmed with that situation, though my preference would be a total Republican overthrow of the entire governmental apparatus to expedite the changes necessary to save the Republic.
However…
Looking Into My Crystal Ball
I woke up on a recent morning, surprised and intrigued by the following missive, written in easily translatable Sanskrit through a mystical collusion of fallen flakes gathered at the bottom of my tabletop snow globe.
Now, I’m merely reporting on this portentous forecast of events likely to take place between now and the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November 2024. I was not visited by ghosts from the past, present, or future, and have no insightful knowledge of what may or may not actually occur, so digest the following with a modicum of skepticism.
Here you go; I do hope I’ve translated it correctly:
“The presidential contest between Democrat Gavin Newsom (or Joe Manchin) and Republican Donald J. Trump (or Ron DeSantis) will be tight but the Republican will pull out a squeaker. If the winning candidate turns out to be Trump, his Vice President will be Florida’s current governor Ron DeSantis, who, in the end, never contested the race and did not officially file his candidacy. In July 2024, DeSantis will endorse Mr. Trump for the presidency and will be rewarded with the Vice-Presidential slot at the Republican Convention.”
The magic snowflakes left room for error and foretold that if Mr. Trump dropped out of the race, Mr. DeSantis would be the Republican candidate, but didn’t predict who his running mate would be.
On the Democrat side, the leaves predicted that Joe Biden would decline to run for re-election after being challenged and beaten for the nomination by Joe Manchin in an early primary. California Governor Gavin Newsom would jump in immediately upon assessing the situation and with a pile of delegates from California and New York, will easily beat Manchin, who will then accept his role as Newsom’s running mate.
The contest will come down to a radical Democrat leftist (Newsom) pulled ever so slightly to the middle by his Vice President (Manchin) versus a former president (Trump) out to salvage his reputation – and the country – held in check by the slightly less conservative former governor of Florida (DeSantis), who would be heir apparent, possibly ushering in twelve years of conservative Republican governance.
I am accustomed to reading tea leaves but have never – up to now – been confronted with reading snowflakes. I do hope they prove as reliable as tea leaves.
Too many normie Dems are unaware of how radical and nuts their party has become. I’m regularly amazed by how accepting normies are of the Woke agenda. So even if RFK Jr. doesn’t stand a chance in hell of being elected, I’m hoping his presence in the race will awaken some of the clueless but otherwise decent Dems to how crazy their leaders have become.
A person doesn’t have to win an election to have a generally helpful effect on a race.
I'm going to vote and campaign for RFK jr. We need a Democrat to win back this country because too many people who are Democrats deep down long for someone like JFK or Bobby, the kind of Democrat who got them into the party. They just will never vote Republican and RFK jr is the one I believe can win. Mr. Hair Gel isn't really what they want.