West Virginia governor Jim Justice announced that he is running for US Senate on stage at the Greenbrier, the swanky hotel owned by his family, yesterday. “I absolutely will promise you to God above that I will do the job, and I will do the job that will make you proud,” said the larger-than-life Justice, with his pet bulldog (and political mascot) Babydog sitting in a red armchair next to him.
The announcement sets up the possibility of an epic showdown between Justice (a former Democrat, now a Republican) and his friend Joe Manchin. The race could be decisive when it comes to control of the Senate after 2024. Manchin is one of three Democratic senators up for reelection who represent states won by Donald Trump in 2020.
Manchin, though, is not just another Democrat hoping to hang on in a red state. He’s the only Democrat who stands a chance in West Virginia. He’s also a man who is extremely exasperated with, even angry at, his own party and the president. What, nervous Democrats wonder, will Manchin do next? Run again, an incumbent lumbered with what he sees as his own party’s many shortcomings? Retire? Perhaps he might even take a run at a bigger job and let out his frustration at Joe Biden by gunning for his job.
In a statement released the same day as Justice’s announcement, Manchin, who is yet to announce his 2024 plans, said: “Make no mistake, I will win any race I enter.” Fighting talk. But who, exactly, is he spoiling for a fight with.
Manchin hasn’t been shy about his frustration with the White House recently. The man who sealed the deal for Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act feels betrayed. After much negotiation, Manchin helped win funding for energy security in the bill. Now he claims that those provisions are being “disregarded completely” in the roll out. He is equally angry about tax provisions for elective vehicles which he sees as a betrayal of what he voted for last year and regulations that he (not unreasonably) says go way beyond what the legislation stipulates. In an interview with Sean Hannity this week, he threatened to vote to repeal the legislation if the administration “does not honor what it said it would do.”
I can hear the conservative readers yelling “what did you think would happen, you fool?!” at their screens as a self-styled independent complains of the consequences of voting for what was, in effect, a massive climate change bill. The strange afterlife of the Inflation Reduction Act, which proves more consequential by the month, is a story for another day.
As for Manchin, he is stuck in a trap he helped build for himself. He decided to trust Biden and got very little in return. He has undercut his own independent credentials and frustrated conservative supporters with his Yes on IRA. He hasn’t many friends on the left. Smelling blood, the most popular politician in his state is coming for his job.
Angry and isolated, what will Manchin do: go quietly, fight for his Senate seat, or attempt revenge on Biden with a dramatic presidential gambit?
On our radar
FED ACKNOWLEDGES ITS SVB MISTAKES The Federal Reserve has found itself to blame for failing to spot the problems that lead to Silicon Valley Bank’s demise in a report published today.
THE 10-4 PRESIDENCY In an Axios story about Joe Biden running for reelection in his eighties, Alex Thompson reports that “some White House officials say it’s difficult to schedule public or private events with the president in the morning, in the evening or on weekends” and notes that “the vast majority of Biden’s public events happen on weekdays, between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.”
COULD BIDEN BE FORCED TO DEBATE RFK JR.? Robert F. Kennedy Jr. entered the presidential race as a kooky vaccine skeptic with a helpful last name for someone running for office. He has raised eyebrows with some surprisingly strong early polls (see below). In his Friday newsletter, Cockburn wonders how much trouble he might be able to cause Joe Biden.
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New Founding foundering
New Founding, the anti-woke corporations group co-founded by the Claremont Institute’s Matt Peterson and real estate mogul Nate Fischer, is said to be on the ropes. Cockburn hears Peterson and Fischer have had a major personal falling out over the direction of the organization — and that one or the other might be headed out the door. New Founding has paused several of its initiatives amid the turmoil, including its ALIGN newsletter, which is supposed to direct consumers to non-woke businesses…
Will the White House take McCarthy seriously now?
On Wednesday night Kevin McCarthy managed what many said he couldn’t: uniting almost all House Republicans behind a budget. Writing for the site on the day of the vote, Ben Domenech tots up McCarthy’s wins since his painful ascent to the speakership: “Not only has he shepherded the slim Republican majority through multiple challenging situations in the early months, he’s also notched significant wins: the effective brushback of a White House veto threat on DC crime laws; the passage of HR-1, his energy bill, with bipartisan support; and now, he has garnered the votes necessary to succeed on his debt-ceiling gambit, with the bill passing 217-214.”
It is still early, but these achievements far exceed the low expectations set for him by the press. On the debt crisis, they have also confounded the president. Politico notes that the passage of the vote is forcing the president to “change tactics” after months sticking to asking a question he was betting McCarthy couldn’t answer: “What’s your plan?”
Politico: “But once it became clear that McCarthy lacked the influence to wrangle his conference, Biden’s team reasoned, Republicans would lose most of their leverage and eventually soften their demand for concessions.” Well, McCarthy has wrangled his conference and Republicans have not lost most of their leverage. Time, perhaps, for the White House to make some concessions.
–Oliver Wiseman
From the site
Ann Coulter: ‘Pro-life’ hardliners will get more babies killed
Freddy Gray: Is Trump still toxic to most Americans?
Dave Seminara: What Asa Hutchinson and the other long-shot candidates mean for 2024
Poll watch
PRESIDENT BIDEN JOB APPROVAL
Approve 42.9% | Disapprove 53.5% | Net Approval -10.6
(RCP average)
2024 DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL NOMINATION
Joe Biden 70% | Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 21% | Marianne Williamson 8%
(Emerson)
Best of the rest
Reihan Salam, the Atlantic: Searching for a conservatism of normalcy
Matthew Kassel, Jewish Insider: Establishment Republican donors reckoning with Trump’s staying power
Madison Hilly, New York Times: Nuclear waste is misunderstood
Arian Campo-Flores and Robbie Whelan, Wall Street Journal: DeSantis’s miscalculation on Disney
Billy House and Craig Torres, Bloomberg: San Francisco Fed’s role in the SVB collapse draws US House investigation
Mark Halperin, Wide World of News: Mitt Romney and Marjorie Taylor Greene agree
