To the MSM, John McCain Was a Maverick. Joe Manchin Is an Obstacle. Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia has found himself in the hot seat after announcing he wouldn't support Build Back Better, President Joe Biden's ambitious climate and social spending bill. His colleagues in the Senate said he didn't have "the courage to do the right thing," and members of the House called the rationale for his vote "a farce." News outlets reported on Manchin's "betrayal" and questioned his status as a moderate. Some reporters leapt to Twitter to cry out that Manchin's decision was "objectively devastating" for the planet. But it wasn't so long ago that a senator bucking his party and his president was greeted by the press in a much different way. Former senator John McCain of Arizona cast perhaps his most famous vote in 2017, torpedoing the Republican effort to repeal Obamacare. This was an effort the GOP had made the centerpiece of its 2016 election strategy, and McCain's thumbs-down was a deliberate middle finger to his own party. McCain was greeted as a hero, a "maverick" who had "put country before party" for supposedly ending the repeal efforts that would continue on. Manchin's decision has been framed as a temporary roadblock and a self-interested betrayal.
Where the dems are flirting with another disaster is by treating Manchin as a whore: ie. that "we know what he is, we are just haggling over the price." And with that in mind they are scurrying around wthl all sorts of plans to pare the bill down and win on a lower cost bill. The problem with that is that- even though it is under-reported- Manchin also had/has a demand in there asking for/requiring that any legislation go through "regular order." Regular order being the process whereby bills go to committee, you have committee hearings, people speak pro and against and all sorts of good and bad things about the bill are hashed over. Then the committee has to vote it out on to the floor for a full vote. That is the way business was always done up until Obamacare where they just skipped all that and told you that you have vote on it to find out what is in it or every senator had to do their own sleuthing around to find out what the bills proponents were putting in there. I have not heard Manchin say he has given up on that just because they may/will lower the price tag. Some of that may look like I am going into the weeds a bit, but not really. The dems have a dilemma where they need to scurry around and get something passed to put some points up on the board. But at the same time the pundits are warning them about just gearing up to go again- they may be optimistic just because they lowered the cost but it could very easily just degenerate to more in-fighting and conflict during an election year- especially if Manchin insists on putting things under the microscope before committees. What to do? Such is the life of a dem these days.