Here’s an interesting theory. Did Democratic senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota disingenuously encourage speculation that they might join the Trump administration in order to win points with their constituents?
With West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin getting passed over for job in the Trump administration, Democrats are now waiting to see whether North Dakota’s Heidi Heitkamp also stays in the Senate. According to the New York Times, Republican leaders have been pushing Trump to tap a Democratic senator for his cabinet, but he hasn’t played along, picking former Texas Gov. Rick Perry over both Manchin and Heitkamp to head the Department of Energy.
Heitkamp is still reportedly under consideration for agriculture secretary, but former North Dakota Sen. Byron Dorgan says Heitkamp has “indicated she will not join” Trumpworld, in the words of the Times. In fact, unnamed Republicans are now fretting that Heitkamp and Manchin have never had any intention of abandoning the Democrats and have just been playing Trump to earn positive headlines back home. This is, of course, the kind of game politicians have played since the dawn of time, but it just feels unaccountably gross when Trump’s involved. We’ll have to see if anyone cares either way in two years’ time.
Now, Manchin was awarded a position in the Senate Democrat leadership team, as well as a seat on the Appropriations and Intelligence committees. I’m having trouble finding what committee assignments Heitkamp received. Both of them are going to have a hell of a time getting reelected based on the drift of the states they represent, but a lot will depend on whether the people of West Virginia and North Dakota are happy with the Trump administration in two years.
Could be that having played footsie with Trump doesn’t look like much of a positive in November 2018, even in dirty energy-producing Trump strongholds of the country.
From the Inauguration onward, time will tell how people react. The trump voters, whom we all know got played for chumps, are either going to get pissed off or they will be pissed off and pretend trump is still their guy. I don’t see huge numbers of the general population being thrilled with the disaster looming ahead of us, and most definitely not Democrats. And while the Republicans and the media will try their hardest to prop him up, I foresee an Administration that looks like a sieve, with trumpsters running around trying to patch the holes.
Depending on how quickly trump tanks the country, his followers will start bailing on him and hopefully it’s sooner than later.
Naw, they won’t bail on him; they’ll blame Obama and the Democrats and double down.
The cognitive dissonance of admitting being wrong will be too much to bear. So yeah, I expect doubling down as well. Besides, with so many targets to scapegoat, they’ll be chasing whatever shiny objects Comrade Donny is screaming about on Twitter.
” Could be that having played footsie with Trump doesn’t look like much of a positive in November 2018, even in dirty energy-producing Trump strongholds of the country. “
I don’t think that could be.
Manchin is an idiot
Blames all the drug overdoses in WV on pot
Yea see all the overdoses in Colorado
http://crooksandliars.com/2016/12/joe-manchin-wants-new-war-drugs-pot
Don’t forget who Manchin’s daughter is. Also, Manchin takes boatloads of money from those causing the legal drug crisis in WV.
Manchin’s daughter is CEO of Mylan. In addition to outrageous price increases of EpiPens, the company manufactures and sells opioid painkillers.
So what is it that daddy is concerned about? Marijuana!
An ethical cretin.
Speaking of ethical cretins….”The Bezzle (NC): “OxyContin goes global — “We’re only just getting started” [Los Angeles Times]. “Prescriptions for OxyContin have fallen nearly 40% since 2010, meaning billions in lost revenue for its Connecticut manufacturer, Purdue Pharma. So the company’s owners, the Sackler family, are pursuing a new strategy: Put the painkiller that set off the U.S. opioid crisis into medicine cabinets around the world. A network of international companies owned by the family is moving rapidly into Latin America, Asia, the Middle East, Africa and other regions, and pushing for broad use of painkillers in places ill-prepared to deal with the ravages of opioid abuse and addiction.” The Sacklers are, of course, highly respected international philanthropists.”
source attribution/link.
Answer: Of course they did. Living in a Trump world paradise means you need to play with the in crowd for any chance at all, right? But Heidi hosted a small gathering in DC of the more conservative dems, threatened to be swamped, with the idea of putting forth some ideas to keep them all relevant. So do we throw them overboard or try to help them out?
Three different Republican PACs already are planning to run heavy add campaigns against the five, so they probably should forget rolling over and playing Republican.
we need to help them out, the more Democrats the better
even if they’re only with us 50% of the time and they tend to do better than that, it’s better than having a tea party Republican who is with us 0% of the time
Also from Redstate
http://www.redstate.com/rs_insider/2016/12/21/joe-manchin-has-a-secret-reason-to-vocally-support-jef
f-sessions-for-ag/
But there’s another reason why Manchin may be especially keen to play nice with Sessions, and Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA), who heads the committee tasked with getting Sessions confirmed. Manchin’s daughter is the CEO of Pharma giant Mylan. And for what it’s worth, some very well-placed people in both parties counting likely votes on the Sessions nomination tell the Insider this is is a primary reason why Sessions will, no matter what, get confirmed on a bipartisan vote.
Contrary to what Mylan has claimed, it has not settled with the DOJ (recently, it has “clarified” that it is working to finalize a settlement). In fact, the DOJ has told Grassley that it cannot testify before a hearing he convened because the Department hasn’t agreed a settlement. That means this whole Mylan-DOJ dispute could easily still be a live problem for Manchin’s daughter when President-elect Trump assumes office, and something that just maybe Manchin thinks might be more easily resolved if a guy who arguably owes him one is in the Attorney-General’s job, not to mention if another Mylan foe also owes him one for help getting that Attorney-General confirmed with a bipartisan vote.
Still, nepotism doesn’t go over that well with the American public, or does it?
I’ve got a mixed bag. Fortunately, my immediate family are all very liberal. We argue between Hillary and Bernie but are pretty solid united against that other guy. So get togethers are not particularly stressful and confined to what happens next.
But I have an extended family in California – yes that California – who are about as right wing as they come. IN this case our arguments are confined to facebook, which I generally ignore.
I also have some rather conservative acquaintances from work and in the neighborhood since I live in a really red state. I find it is best to keep quiet most of the time although of late that has been impossible to do.
I’ve had dust ups with one or more from time to time. It seems crazy to me. I grew up with parents and grandparents and even one great who were dyed in the wool democrats, who all loved FDR, in NYC except for my father. They all teased him but he worked in a bank and was a bit on the right until JFK and MLK. He changed then. I said teased my father bc it seems they were all not quite so strident back then. But, and here is a confession, they were mostly all racist in one way or another. They lived in Brooklyn neighborhoods you know that defined who you were.
I remember Markos beating the drums for Heitkamp back in the day.