THE HAUNTED MANCHIN

Pop quiz, folks.  Which Senate candidate said the following on FOX on Sunday?

"The president's plan -- 'Obamacare,' as it's been called -- is far too reaching. It's overreaching. It needs to have a lot of it repealed.  If you can't fix that, repeal the whole thing."

Sharron Angle?   Ken Buck?  Rand Paul?  Marco Rubio?  Surely it's one of the Tea Party faithful, yes?


Nope.  If you said West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin, take a drink.

The harsh take on President Obama's signature legislative achievement this Congress is just the latest effort by Manchin to distance himself from establishment Democrats. Last week, the governor of coal-heavy West Virginia said that Obama was "dead wrong" on climate policy and for supporting cap-and-trade legislation. 

Raese's campaign charges Manchin with sending mixed messages on healthcare. 

The GOP candidate's campaign flagged an appearance Manchin made over the weekend on Fox News in which Manchin said he "supported health reform," and that he still does -- at least in concept.

Manchin said he supports health reform as a matter of concept, and called on both parties to rally around reforms on which they agree.

Right, because what we really need to do is completely refight the health care reform argument.  Repeal and replace.  Amazing.


Look, I understand Joe Manchin is a popular Democratic governor running for the Senate for Robert Byrd's seat in the heart of coal country and has to pull a Jay Rockefeller on cap and trade, but I'm becoming increasingly convinced that Manchin running to the right of conservative Dems like Ben Nelson is one of the main reasons why he's gone from a shoo-in two months ago to increasingly behind in the polls.  Running dead against Obama on FOX on healthcare to the right of basically every Democrat in the Senate right now simply isn't going to get you elected.


People instead looking for the Republican candidate will elect the Republican, not Manchin.  And I don't see how he can pull this off, either.


Shame, too.   John Raese will be even worse than Manchin and he's got tons of his own problems too.  Just another depressing reminder that not all wingnuts are Republicans.