June 21, 2023 04:06 PM UTC

"Manchin Whisperer" Hick Works To Stop Ill-Conceived Prez Bid

•  
• by: Colorado Pols

As Politico’s Burgess Everett reports, West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, whose name is mud in many Democratic circles despite having voted after long deliberation with Democrats to pass important legislation in the first two years of Joe Biden’s term, is rumored to be entertaining a third-party presidential run supported by the “post-partisan” political organization No Labels–a group with a long and controversial history on the ground here in Colorado:

Manchin’s refusal to silence talk of a White House bid, potentially funded by centrist group No Labels, gives him leverage over party leaders: The more they need him to seek Senate reelection, the more attention he can get for his priorities.

That’s because Manchin is the only candidate with a prayer of keeping his Senate seat blue. And if Republicans win the presidency in 2024, they’d only need one Senate pick-up to take control.

So some fellow Democrats are letting Manchin know he’d be making a mistake.

“I have advised him against it. I think it would be a terrible idea,” said Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.) recalling a conversation with Manchin this spring. “It would help Donald Trump.” [Pols emphasis]

The acknowledgment Sen. John Hickenlooper got from Manchin is as much as anybody has:

Manchin’s private reaction, as recalled by Hickenlooper, reflects his public indecision: “He looked at me and he nodded.”

Although Manchin’s stalling and painful concessions demanded in order to pass legislation in the narrowly-divided Senate made him unpopular among liberal Democrats, our perception is that Manchin has always had a sense of the limits of his power, and came through at the critical moments to deliver enough for Democrats to claim big wins in the Biden administration’s first two years. Manchin is intelligent enough to understand the probability of being a spoiler for Donald Trump in a three-way race that includes himself, Trump, and Joe Biden, and we don’t think that’s where Manchin would choose for his legacy to end.

Unfortunately, we can’t make the same presumption of good faith with the No Labels organization, which in Colorado is best known for its controversial support for Cory Gardner in the 2014 election for U.S. Senate that barely unseated much-beloved Democratic incumbent Sen. Mark Udall. No Labels’ support for Gardner, as longtime readers will remember, led to Joe Manchin’s resignation from the organization immediately following the 2014 elections, after which at some point we assume they mended fences. Organizing as a minor political party of their own earlier this year, No Labels claims they will stand down a third-party bid if they determine it would help Trump–but does that mean Ron DeSantis is their post-partisan “Problem Solver?”

There’s nothing about “No Labels” that makes sense in 2024, unless the goal is, like it was in 2014, to elect Republicans.

In Colorado, we have the receipts.