I realize this is John’s home state Senator, so perhaps he’ll post about this useless fucker, too, but Joe Manchin isn’t certain he’ll vote for Obama. (via)
“I am just waiting for it to play out. I am not jumping in one way or another,” Manchin said. “I’m worried about me. I’ve said it’s not a team sport. You need to go out and work for yourself.”
At least he’s honest about the guy who matters most in his world: himself. I’ll bet his greatest pleasure in life is masturbating in front of a mirror.
Waynski
Unfortunately, we need the back-stabbing S.O.B. to hold the Senate and the little prick knows it.
The Other Bob
When will these assholes in reddish states realize that when given the chance to vote for a fake Republican Vs. an actual Republican, the voters will choose the one with an R after their name.
Just Some Fuckhead
Senator Manchin is with us on everything but the War To Get Obama Reelected.
BTD
West Virginia.
It’s not like he is the Senator from Connecticut.
Obviously, Manchin will never run for President as a Dem.
It’s about what you can get from West Virginia right? It’s like Nebraska.
BTD
@Just Some Fuckhead:
That’s the right reference.
Nicole
I think he’s trying to tell all those Scotch-Irish constituents that he’s just like them.
MomSense
@Nicole
Bingo!
fasteddie9318
He’s with us on everything except everything, except he’ll probably caucus with the Democrats anyway.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Nicole: No way! Manchin is a filthy Eyetalian.
Culture of Truth
It’s not a team sport? Really? Since when?
I swear you win one election and you think the sun shines out of your ass.
Nicole
@Just Some Fuckhead: He aspires to be their token.
SatanicPanic
This will no doubt appeal to moderates, centrists, independents and other stupid people.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Nicole: Don’t tar a noble people that wuz born fightin! with a coward like Manchin.
rlrr
@Waynski:
A graduate of the Lieberman school of assholery.
Ash Can
This is the best West Virginia can do? Really?
balconesfault
These people (see Webb yesterday) really are acting like idiots.
Instead of rolling over for the hateful right wing meme that Obama is just out to help the city dwelling colored folk … these guys should be out there telling everyone that without the Recovery Act their little slice of Appalacia would have probably had 50% unemployment and the GOP wouldn’t have lifted a hand to do a thing about it.
Obama has compiled an incredible record of supporting the middle and lower class workers. And these assholes channel their inner Limbaugh.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@BTD:
Or here in Misery. The only important vote “Dems” like Manchin and McCaskill make is for who’s the Senate leader.
WV is far more like Misery: same hard-right shift and same massive amount of Scotch-Irish in the electorate, well at least down south in the
AppalachiansOzarks.I will say for as much as I bitch about McCaskill, her votes and her stoopid public utterances that kneecap the President and the party, she doesn’t hold a candle to Manchin.
flukebucket
The only thing important is yourself? The bastard sounds like a Randian. I bet he and Paul Ryan would get along great.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@Ash Can: Yep. You either get this or no Dem at all, and as someone above so adroitly noted he knows we need him to hold the Senate, so he can do his little Lieberman dance and we’ve got to sit tight, grit our teeth, and take it.
Waynski
@rlrr:
Love that. Can we make the Moustache of Understanding the Dean of Douchebaggery?
rikryah
Here is the NBC/WSJ POLL with internals:
Overall poll
POTUS 49
Willard 43
Here are the internals:
Looking out for the middle class:
POTUS 48
Willard 27
Caring about average people
POTUS 52
Willard 22
Compassionate enough to understand average people
POTUS 52
Willard 23
the Conster (f/k/a Cat Lady)
@rikryah:
Willard looking out for the middle class – 27%. Spooky.
JPL
Does he agree with his opponent that if you ban smoking in restaurants, it’s the same as Hitler’s branding Jewish people? Enquiring minds want to know.
Culture of Truth
If he feels Obama doesn’t help him in his home state, that’s fine. Obama gets it, politics ain’t beanbag. But don’t go out of your way to be a dick about it, because he’s still a democrat, Obama is still the President and on the ballot, and their fortunes are tied together, like it or not.
Soylent Green
He may as well do what that useless fucker Ben Nighthorse Campbell did to us in Colorado, get elected as a Democrat then switch parties in the middle of his term.
Scott de B.
Ah, yes, the central tenet of Buddhism: “Every man for himself.”
gaz
First of all, why the hell is anyone asking this guy about his vote?
Secondly, why did he say anything about it?
This is just stupid. All of it.
Edit: Is there a pool on this gut getting primaried?
gaz
@Scott de B.: Aqua Buddha maybe
Culture of Truth
@Scott de B.: I see you’ve been reading your Nietzsche
Tonybrown74
@Soylent Green:
I am betting any amount of money that if the Senate switches control to the GOP then he is going to switch parties.
Citizen_X
All righty then: you’re every bit as stupid as I thought.
rikryah
I wrote it yesterday with Webb and will do so again with this clown:
to Manchin and his constituents,
if you wanna cling to Whiteness and vote against your own economic best interest, then go ahead.
be a dumb fuck.
cling to that Whiteness all the way to the poverty line.
cause Willard doesn’t give two shyt’s about your white trash ass.
Smiling Mortician
@Culture of Truth: I’ve worn dresses with higher IQs.
petesmom
Then let’s see how well he does without any help or funds from the DNC and DSCC, maybe a little financial help to his (hoped for) primary opponent.
Yes, I know, we need him to retain the majority. Maybe Sen. Reid can organize a metaphorical blanket party to explain that just because you can’t openly support your president or party for political reasons, doesn’t you can piss on them.
Origuy
Politics is a team sport like the Tour de France. One guy wears the yellow jersey but the team gets the prize money. Manchin wants to be Lance Armstrong, he doesn’t want to be a domestique.
beltane
@rikryah: Maybe if all those “born fighting” types focused their energy on improving their thinking skills instead of their fighting skills they’d be better off. I mean, you’d think that after watching every wave of immigrants over the past 300 years leave them in the dust, they might just get the message but I guess all that fightin’ doesn’t leave much time for self-reflection.
gnomedad
@the Conster (f/k/a Cat Lady):
What’s spooky is the numbers below 27%. That Mittster’s an overachiever.
Corner Stone
Yeah, Manchin may be a prick. But I will crawl on hands and knees over broken glass to vote for him this next election!
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@rikryah: So, a roughly 16% can’t stand Democrats/racist voting block.
Davis X. Machina
@petesmom: Former governor, small media markets, probably doesn’t need DSCC or DNC money at all.
The same dynamic up here in Maine. $3 million can buy all the media there is to be bought, and it’s a small enough state for everyone to know someone who knows the candidate, or knows the candidate, provided you’ve been an incumbent for a while.
It’s actually easier to primary someone statewide out in a larger state than in a CD, or in a smaller state.
Waynski
Maybe we’re being too hard on the guy. He’s running for office for Pete’s sake.
Seriously though, I think a lot of times these folks convince themselves that their “independent stance” is bravery, when it’s really just cowardice and short-sighted self-interest. People catch on to that eventually. I hope.
JGabriel
__
__
Joe Manchin:
Just what people want in a public servant: self-interest, not public interest.
How the fuck did this guy end up in the Democratic party? He sounds like just another asshole Republican.
.
kindness
I’m not too offended when Democrats in office back stab their party. What pisses me off is after having done so, they expect stuff like our support, our money, committee chairmanships and respect. They should get none of those and that is exactly what they should expect.
cathyx
Saying that it’s not a team sport is all we need to know. That is the definition of republican. Yes it is a team sport. We all help each other. You represent us when you go to Washington. We are all supposed to be in this together.
Hujo
I’m sick and tired of hearing about the Democratic “big tent”. But I agree we have to stick with this guy (for now).
Just Some Fuckhead
@JGabriel: See Raese, John.
BTD
@kindness:
FTW!
Mnemosyne
I’m still gobsmacked that any politician could get elected by joining one of the two major political parties and then declare, “it’s not a team sport.”
If it’s not a team sport, why did you join one of the fucking teams, asswipe?
Seriously, this is like Kobe Bryant doing an interview and declaring that basketball is not a team sport. WTF?
ETA: Also, too, as I wondered a couple of days ago, what idiot consultant is telling Dems to run against their own party after the massacre of 2010? Are people still taking advice from Mark fucking Penn or something?
SatanicPanic
@Hujo: You know what you can expect under a big tent? Clowns
Patricia Kayden
So why is he running as a Dem if he cannot even agree to something simple like voting for the Democratic incumbent President?
I have no problem with him losing.
Phil Perspective
@petesmom: Except you know the DSCC and DNC will back him to the hilt. They always do with assholes like these. And one other thing you have to remember. He’s the best WV can do only because corrupt shits like Blankenship buys off both parties in that state
Culture of Truth
Maybe Manchin is holding out for the white technocrat on the American Select ticket
blondie
@Just Some Fuckhead: It’s not just Obama he’s agin us on – it’s anything having to do with Big Coal, pollution, energy, the EPA. In short, he’s all fer anything that encourages looting by our Galtian overlords … provided, of course, that some of it sticks in his pockets.
ruemara
It must be ok. I’ve got Spitzer on the tv telling me that without ACA, Barack Obama hasn’t really got many accomplishments, jobs will probably go do, he doesn’t really connect with average people and many Democrats are telling him that they can live with a Romney presidency, because not much difference amirite? Fuck the goddamn Democratic shills. I’m tired of the armchair presidenting these assholes do and the undermining during a fucking election year. And Fuck Eliot Spitzer. An idiot who couldn’t keep it in his pants while he investigates banks is offering advice? Fuck him with a 2×4.
Phil Perspective
@JGabriel: He is. He’s no different from “Mad” Max Baucus or “Bad” Ben Nelson. They are only Democrats because those states didn’t have much of a Democratic bench so they could advance higher faster, especially since they are both rich and have rich backers.
Culture of Truth
It’s not ideology I mind, or even his lack of support for Obama. It’s his language and his attitude.
The unspoken agreement should be, ‘yes you don’t have to support every Dem party vote, or even Obama overtly, but you still get DSCC support, in exchange you don’t actively undermine the team for your own aggrandizement.’
eemom
@ruemara:
oh but dontcha know, it’s nobody’s business where elected officials park their dicks and so WHAT if he broke the same laws he was busting others over. Lemme tell ya buddy, if we’d recognized Spitzer for the fucking everyman hero he was every bankster on Wall Street would be in Gitmo by now.
/various and sundry assholes
khead
Didn’t we just go through this bullshit with Olympia “I will not be ignored” Snowe?
Elizabelle
Internal polling must say white working class males really don’t like the first black President.
Who’s a Democrat, already bad enough there.
Not like Mitt Romney or Eric Cantor are going to do squat for the working man.
Idjuts.
PS: I’d take Jim Webb over Joe Manchin any day of the week.
Elizabelle
@eemom:
Haven’t read the thread, so don’t know if this is snark:
Recall the glee and ugliness when Spitzer resigned.
He was getting too close for comfort to the banksters.
Do we know who dredged up the Client 9 business yet, and how?
Wouldn’t it be cool if that finally took Murdoch down?
rikryah
@gnomedad:
I LMAO when I saw the 27%
Culture of Truth
cripes Eliot shut up
Just Some Fuckhead
@blondie: It was the same for Lieberman: yer not sposed to talk about all the myriad ways they’re asshats.
NCSteve
I remember back when Zell Miller gave the Keynote at the 2004 Republican convention thinking it really wasn’t possible for me to hate a Democrat more than I hated Miller. (“Awwrmed with whut? Spitballlls?”)
A conservative relation gave me his book “A National Party No More” (Yes, he was talking about the Democrats, not the Confederate Party) and I quite literally used its pages to fuel my charcoal chimney over the course of a grilling season because I thought it would clog up my plumbing if I did what I really wanted.
Then came Lieberman and Nelson in their tag-team asshattery and backstabbing, and I found that, yes, hated them more precisely because they were actively impeding the Democratic agenda for no reason at all. Not for extortion like Landrieu or because they were scared stupid like Lincoln, but just because they were insurance company bought and paid for assholes.
But, I swear to God, in the annals of Democratic anal-orificery, there is no one to compare to Manchin. Yes we need the one vote he casts at the start of the session. Yes, if we come down on him, he could jump the ship like Jeffords and Specter did to the GOP. Yes, he’s from in West By God Virginia where his opposition compares non-smoking regulations to the Holocaust.
This time, I really do believe that we’ve hit the outer limit and that it’s not possible for me to hate a backstabbing red dog Democrat more than I hate Manchin, because it’s simply not possible for a person I’d hate more to be a Democrat.
NCSteve
@NCSteve: Aaaand here’s his opposition today:
http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/04/raese-digs-in-on-no-smoking-signs-and-hitler—-wont-be-intimidated-by-a-bunch-of-bullt.php?ref=fpnewsfeed
Screw Kansas, WTF is wrong with West Virginia? (No inbreeding jokes, please. I’m from East Kentucky myself, and I can tell you we hardy Scots-Irish don’t care for Outsiders telling such jokes, nope, not even a little bit.)
Clime Acts
Wow. Your utter lack of self awareness is epic, once again.
Politically speaking, please tell me, what matters more to President Obama than getting himself re-elected this Fall? Does this mean that BO also masturbates in front of a mirror?
Your total inability to try to see anything from a perspective other than as a complete Bot is troubling. :P
ruemara
@NCSteve: A deep and unfettered stupidity that breeds quite true all over America. Nothing wrong with West Virginny.
Kay
@ruemara:
I’ve never understood this, and pundits say it constantly. Obama does, actually, “connect with average people” if one looks at polls, and I don’t know where else to get that information. He consistently does well on (broadly) those “connects with average people” questions.
So what does this mean? Does Eliot Spitzer have some “average person” in mind that is different than pollsters “average person”? If he does, how is he finding this out? Because I think that’s what it is. Eliot Spitzer is not by any definition an “average person”, but he has an idea about average people and I think he has to share his definition, because this drives me crazy.
You’d think 3 YEARS of polling that contradicts it would get them off this, but it hasn’t, so where does it come from? Does he mean “white working class men”? I’d accept that, I don’t agree that that’s the measure of average, but okay. He should say that if that’s what we’re talking about.
rikryah
in case you didn’t already know,
Willard LIED about his father being born poor.
I know,…Willard lying…what a shock.
but, it was a damn lie as Lawrence O’Donnell covered it last night.
Brachiator
@Elizabelle:
Do we have to revisit this nonsense again?
Spitzer, like John Edwards or any other number of political assclowns, was a reckless fool who gave his enemies the hammer. They gladly used it.
Spitz was banging prostitutes while busting other politicians for banging prostitutes. The escort biz that Spitzer used is a small world.
It was easy to drop a dime on Spitzer because he was swimming in the same cesspool that he claimed to be cleaning up.
And some of the same banksters that Spitzer was supposedly going after probably were also renting the same escorts that Spitz was using.
Spitzer quickly became toxic. There is no rational universe in which he could have blown off or downplayed his hypocrisy. It’s kinda like being a Secret Service agent banging Colombian hookers. It’s not like no one will pay atention when the scandal breaks.
The asshat nonsense coming from Joe Manchin tangentially reminds me of Spitzer crap. I have no idea why some Democrats are intent on ignoring reality or planting seeds to try to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
eemom
@Brachiator:
Thank you.
God, I am so tired of dumbass bullshit in all the manifold directions from which it is flung.
eemom
@Just Some Fuckhead:
And yet just last night you were telling us we should STFU about Jim Webb because he VOTED for ACA, and what a pol does is more important than what he says and wingnuts screeching about Obama and guns, that’s why.
You’re a contrarian clown.
NCSteve
@Kay: When Spitzer says it, he means “white rich people.” When other say it, they mean “white poor people.” Because everyone is white, you see.
Kay
@ruemara:
It’s just silly. Obama is “likable enough”. Even people who won’t vote for him don’t dislike him, and this is accepted enough that Mitt Romney’s campaign is working around it. They see it as fact. Obama may have a lot of problems but “connecting with people” is not one of them.
So when will pundits like Dowd and Spitzer drop it? Never? I realize they committed to this idea early and have never budged, but I don’t think it’s true.
Just Some Fuckhead
@eemom: Yeah, that’s exactly how it all went down. If you were any dumber, they’d hang decorations on ya and celebrate Dumb Day.
Kay
@NCSteve:
That, or, I think he doesn’t fit their idea of a politician “average people” would “connect with.”
I just think if I were Elliot Spitzer or Maureen Dowd I would look outside myself for the “average person” index. MIGHT not be the best measure.
Linnaeus
If Manchin’s the best we can do in West Virginia, we’ll just have to accept that and find ways to work around him when possible.
Suffern ACE
@khead: indeed we did. And it’s probably true. I don’t actually think the president strokes the egos of senators and pundits and grandees by offering flattery and charm. It’s them he’s not connecting with. But the more I read about them the less I would want anyone connecting with them. Spritzer, for instance, inherited a modest fortune over 100 million. Beyond his secretary, how many average people do you think he talks to each day. Of course they can live with a Romney presidency. Nothing really bad ever happens to them that they didnt cause themselves.
liberal
@NCSteve:
Nelson might have backstabbed on the health insurance bill, but didn’t Lieberman actually actively campaign for McCain?
Lieberman’s actions crossed a line, IMHO, and as a result he should have been stripped of his committee assignments. Yeah, maybe it would have cost the Dems in the Senate something, but there’s got to be a limit, doesn’t there?
Manchin’s getting close to the line. If he actually says he wouldn’t vote for the presumptive Democratic nominee, he should also be penalized.
Treason ought to have a price.
blondie
@Just Some Fuckhead: Well, since I live in WV too (hi, John!) – and I’ve had direct dealings with Sleazy Joe – I’m entitled to talk about his asshattery.
Matoko Borgia-Steeler
@Kay:
*cough* 27% *cough* teabaggers *cough*
liberal
@kindness:
Agreed.
ruemara
@Kay: I have deduced that this means, “If only that negro would do as I think should be done, all would be well, because I am that awesome”. It’s nothing personal, it’s just that the brand of punditing means you’re awesome at presidenting legislating and all things, personal experience and foibles notwithstanding. Sometimes there are layers of class consciousness, colour consciousness, but mostly, it’s just arrogance. Considering I know people who’ve worked with Spitzer and Guiliani in the political offices of NY, I find Eliot’s everyman pov to be lacking.
Kay
@NCSteve:
Admittedly, I’m a radical feminist since the WoW began, but isn’t it amazingly insulting to take women out of the “average person” measure?
Maybe we’re above average.
Kay
@Matoko Borgia-Steeler:
Right. Them. But he can’t be at 60% “personal approval” and “understands people like me” if he isn’t “connecting” with people. Again, I haven’t spoken to 50 million people personally, but either has Elliot Spitzer.
gex
@rikryah: It’s weird. It seems the overall numbers factor in something other than issues…
Add 27 to those Willard numbers and you get to the national numbers I guess.
Matoko Borgia-Steeler
@Kay:
I thought Comrade Eliot addressed the adoring masses regularly on the boob-tube?
gex
@blondie: I suppose infiltrating the Democratic party with Republicans is a great strategy for conservatards. Vote Republican or republican!
@Kay: Your average person can be found at the Applebees salad bar. Did you check there?
Mnemosyne
@Kay:
To be fair, I’m sure that Spitzer asked every hooker he hired and they all just happened to agree with him that Obama just doesn’t connect with regular people like him.
It’s like having his own little stable of cab drivers.
eemom
@Just Some Fuckhead:
I am temporarily vaporized by the gamma-ray burst of your wit. Lemme get back to you later when my neighbor’s six year old gets home from school.
Kay
@Mnemosyne:
Don’t you think that, though? That George W Bush (or John Edwards) was their idea of sort of a standard “person” (although they aren’t, really: they’re both rich, Bush is an heir in all sorts of ways, etc.) and since Obama is not that person they can’t….. seem…. to make the leap?
eemom
@Kay:
dunno, I just kind of think it’s beyond mind-boggling — yea, even unto an emmessemmbot — for any human being with an IQ above freezing to comment with a straight face about Obama and the “average person” with Mitt Romney in the race.
HgMn
@Soylent Green:
that’s Ben ‘forked tongue’ Campbell
Suffern ACE
@Kay: Well, well-heeled democrats tend to hate their voters. Bunch of coastal elitists like themselves and who could like them? Otherwise its just women, blacks and gays. And that union guy who wouldn’t carry your bags in the airport while he was on break. Its the discounting of democratic voters, especially by high end democrats (especially those who, say, live in two cities in the Northeast), that helps the republicans delcare .1% electoral victories as overwhelming mandates.
AlanDean
Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest wanker of them all. He did hit the nail on the head– he’s only in it for himself. As a Senator, even. Sounds like Joe Lieberman. Who did campaign for McCain and also made the statement during the health care debate(?) when he stuck his finger in it’s eye and said– “Now I feel relevant.”
trollhattan
@Origuy:
Also, too, this means Manchin shaves his legs.
Just sayin’.
catclub
@liberal: Lieberman campaigned for McCain in 2008. Nothing was done. Nothing will be done to Manchin.
I can't believe this guy is a senator
I think the category for any posting on the head of the Corholio family should be Clown Shoes.
Brachiator
@khead: RE: The senator has regularly used floor speeches and closely watched votes to, as he puts it, “respectfully” highlight differences with Obama, especially on environmental issues. He said Obama has never called him or sought a one-on-one conversation.
This makes a certain sense. The Beltway is like high school with bags of money and the threat of somebody unleashing nuclear missles.
It shouldn’t be this way, but politicians might oppose shit just because they didn’t get a phone call, or an invitation to a political breakfast. I don’t know what Obama’s reputation is with respect to the Washington social BS that some pundits and politicians get off on, but that a politician whines about not getting enough love from the president is telling, in at least a small way.
@eemom:
The irony is amazing. The Republicans spent 2008 trying to paint Obama as an aloof, uncaring, aristocrat. And then they go and select for their nominee a man who is an aloof, uncaring, aristocrat.
Watching them try to untangle themselves from this mess will be one of the highlights of the campaign season.
FlipYrWhig
Whenever pundits say “people” or “Americans,” they mean “me” or, more generously, “people I know” or “people I imagine.”
FlipYrWhig
@Brachiator: They’re going to try to flip it into a positive for Romney. It’ll be that Romney is a serious, no-nonsense boss — you may not like hanging out with him, but you respect that he Gets Things Done. By contrast, the fable will go, Obama may be cool and fun to be around, but he doesn’t know what he’s doing, and in times like these we need competence rather than a buddy. And pundits will start to openly mock the idea that personal approval, “being comfortable in your skin,” and the “have a beer with” test ought to mean anything in politics.
balconesfault
@SatanicPanic: well, fwiw, you find clowns under little tents too … it’s just harder to get away from them.
Hujo
samara morgan
well, neither is freddie or Kain. but Cole front-paged them and you linked them.