Will Manchin Become a Republican?
The Wall Street Journal reports:
What happens if Republicans almost, but not quite, win a majority in the Senate next week? It could easily happen: Republicans currently hold 41 seats. According to RealClearPolitics, they are favored to hold all 20 of their seats that are up this year and to pick up four Democratic seats. Another seven races are listed as toss-ups, for a total of 52 seats that are either Republican or competitive.
If the GOP falls short by two, the Senate would split 50-50, as it did after the 2000 election. That would give the majority to the party in the White House, by virtue of the vice president's deciding vote. Also as in 2000, there will be--scratch that, there already is--speculation about a party switcher changing the minority. Back then, it was Jim Jeffords of Vermont, a liberal Republican who turned independent, joined the Democratic caucus, and made Tom Daschle majority leader. This year, as Commentary's Jennifer Rubin writes, "the focus would shift to Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson," both of whom are up for re-election in 2012.
Would Lieberman or Nelson switch parties? We're skeptical. True, Lieberman, dumped by his own party in 2006 before being re-elected as an independent, has flirted with the GOP. He strongly endorsed John McCain and even spoke at the Republican National Convention in 2008. But his differences with the Democrats have been largely over foreign policy, and the sharpest differences between the parties today are domestic. Further, even this year Connecticut does not appear to be Republican-friendly territory.
Nelson actually is more conservative than most fellow Democrats. But he wasn't conservative enough to refrain from casting the deciding vote in favor of ObamaCare--and it's hard to imagine that wouldn't be fatal to his hopes of winning a Republican primary in as conservative a state as Nebraska.
Are there any other Democrats who may switch parties in the Senate? We can think of one.
First, he'll have to get elected. Gov. Joe Manchin of West Virginia was supposed to cruise to victory in the special election to replace Sen. Robert Archaeopteryx, the most primitive Byrd ever discovered. Instead, Manchin leads Republican John Raese by just 3.5% in the RCP average, though the latest survey, by Public Policy Polling, has him up 50% to 44%.
The Mountain State, a longtime Democratic stronghold, has in the past decade or so moved more strongly toward the GOP than just about any other state. In 2008 John McCain became the first losing Republican candidate to carry West Virginia since 1916, and this year both of the state's Democratic House seats are in play (though Nate Silver rates the Third District's Nick Rahall as a favorite for re-election). As Silver also notes, Manchin has not been campaigning as an Obama Democrat:
Mr. Manchin opposes abortion, gun control and gay marriage, and is shooting bullet holes, literally, in the Democrats' cap-and-trade bill, which might create problems for West Virginia's coal-based economy. Mr. Manchin knows his state (and he looks a heck of a lot better sporting a gun than, say, Michael Dukakis looked in a tank).
What ought to be more disturbing to Democrats, however, is that Mr. Manchin is also abandoning them on bread-and-butter economic issues--the kind on which West Virginia Democrats once showed their blue stripes. Mr. Manchin--who once said he would have voted for the president's health care bill--continues to distance himself from what he now calls "Obamacare," threatening to support its repeal. In one of the nation's poorest states, Mr. Manchin has expressed support for extending the Bush-era tax cuts to high-income earners. In one of nation's most heavily unionized states, he has declined to support a key provision in the Employee Free Choice Act, which would ease union organizing.
It's little wonder Manchin would be eager to distance himself from the Obama agenda. The new PPP poll finds "Obama's approval rating in the state is only 31% with 65% of voters disapproving, the worst numbers PPP has found for him anywhere in the country this year."
