Following is the email I sent to Sen Manchin upon reading today that he would probably not vote for Presdient Obama in the general election.
The Honorable Joe Manchin III
2.
I have noticed that Ms Sheirl Fletcher [Manchin's opponent in the primary] is
gloating because she has gotten the endorsement of West Virginians for Life,
and you have not, partly I guess because you refused to ban funds for Planned
Parenthood, a vote of which I approved.
Now might be the time for you to take a determined stand for women, to
publicly state that you believe women have a right, and can be trusted, to make
their own decisions about their own bodies, their own reproduction, their own
families, their own futures. And also
that it would be rank discrimination to deny them health insurance coverage for
contraceptives.
3.
I have noted that you are an ALEC alumni, the
only Democrat in the Senate to be a member, and probably the only Democratic
governor to have been associated with ALEC.
Now that ALEC’s agenda has become public, it might be a good idea for
you to distance yourself from them, and to disavow your former association with
them.
Cordially, etc., etc.,
[following is a copy of the news release announcing Manchin's decision]
Democratic Senator Joe Manchin Says He May Not Vote
For Obama
by Noah Rothman
| 12:10 pm, April 20th, 2012
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), who
won a special election in 2010 to serve the remainder of the late Sen. Robert
Byrd’s term and is up for reelection this year, says that he is considering
voting for the presumptive Republican nominee in November and not President
Obama.
National Journal reported on Thursday that Manchin, a centrist Democrat “who has done more than any other Democrat up for reelection this year to distance himself from President Obama” is weighing his options.
National Journal reported on Thursday that Manchin, a centrist Democrat “who has done more than any other Democrat up for reelection this year to distance himself from President Obama” is weighing his options.
“The people in West Virginia, they
basically look at the candidates—whatever you’re running for, whether it be the
president itself, or whatever—[they look at] the performance and the result
that’s been attained,” Manchin said when asked how he will vote. “Right now in
West Virginia, these first three and a half years haven’t been that good to
West Virginia. So, then you look [at] what the options will be, who will be on
the other end.”
West Virginia is one of the ten
states that Gallup pegged as being the most unfriendly to President
Obama. In 2011, Obama managed only 32.7 percent average job approval in West
Virginia – only six states had lower average job approval rankings for the
president.
While the Mountain State has an
earned reputation for being deeply pro-Republican on the presidential level and
quixotically blue on the local and state level, this condition is relatively
recent. In 2000, when the state voted Republican for the first time in decades
(West Virginia flipped in the 48 state landslide elections of 1984 and 1972,
but was reliably Democratic for much of the state’s history), it came as a
surprise to George W. Bush’s campaign staff.
Bush’s political advisor Karl
Rove famously quipped to
campaign staffer Coddy Johnson, “If you spend more than 30 seconds
thinking about West Virginia, you’ll be fired.”
Manchin, who served nearly two full
terms as West Virginia’s governor before becoming the state’s junior senator,
is in relatively good shape heading into the election year. He faces
businessman and likely GOP nominee John Raese, who Manchin defeated
comfortably in 2010. Raese ignited his own controversy this week when he
compared a ban on cigarette smoking to the Holocaust.
