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joe manchin

Joe Manchin

It’s early December on a Tuesday. Schumer’s office at precisely 11:06 a.m. That’s an apparent time and location for a secret meeting — right before the Senate’s Tuesday lunches when the Capitol Hill reporters would pack the halls looking for scoops on the fate of Democrats’ social spending measure. The press, predictably, has taken note. They are now left to wait.

They are waiting for Joe. And they ponder as they wait.

“His entourage fled,” a reporter said.

“Perhaps they sneaked out the back,” a photographer speculates.

Waiting for Manchin has become a popular hobby in the nation’s capital. Hill reporters follow his every move on the Senate floor, staking out his office for hours at a time, then swirling around him like electrons as he traverses the corridors of Congress. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) saw such a crowd on her way to her office, which is close to Manchin’s, on a recent Monday morning. “What are you guys doing here?”

Burgess Everett, Politico’s primary Manchin reporter, said, “Sometimes I wish I wasn’t bound to this one area.” “However, since it is what everyone is interested in, this is the ideal spot to acquire the news of the day.” The strength and attention have earned the guy from West Virginia a new moniker. 

In a Capitol Hill elevator, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) once addressed Manchin as “Mister President.”

“It seems like we will have President Manchin rather than President Biden,” Faiz Shakir, a close advisor to Sen. 

“Perhaps we should say President Manchin at this point!” laughed then-Fox News host Chris Wallace on the air. The first year of Manchin’s president has been interesting. His Washington residence, a big yacht on the Potomac, has become a floating West Wing, visited by the White House chief of staff (among others), and host loud, nonpartisan parties.

Joe Manchin’s houseboat is Washington’s trendiest club.

The journalists who are waiting are proxies for a Washington elite eager to see how the Biden administration will make its imprint, as well as millions of Americans concerned about a schedule that has the potential to shift the direction of a wobbling democracy and a warming climate. They are waiting for West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin to decide on Cabinet-level choices (sorry, Neera Tanden). They are waiting for him to agree to stimulus funds in the middle of the epidemic, which he has done. They are waiting for him to find enough Republicans to support a voting rights measure while state GOP authorities restrict voting access, which he has not done. People have virtually given up hope that he would nuke the filibuster.

Everyone is waiting for the Democrats’ hallmark piece of legislation, the Build Back Better Act, which “President Manchin” keeps vetoing before it reaches President Biden’s desk.

He’s been in Schumer’s office for 43 minutes, and the Manchin stalkers are starting to get restless.

Someone suggests, “Perhaps they were permitted to sit inside,” alluding to Manchin’s entourage. “Wouldn’t that be nice?”

“Perhaps the conference was going to go so long that they chose not to wait,” a reporter grumbled.

At 11:55 a.m., Manchin emerges from a tangle of reporters’ notebooks and flashbulbs.

He informs the audience that he and Schumer (D-NY) discussed “one subject.” He does not specify which one. Then he travels across the hall for another private meeting, this time in Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) office, and the waiting game starts all over again.

“Other politicians have played this Hamlet role before,” Brian Fallon, a former Schumer spokesman, said in an interview. 

“He’s not a president,” Senator Cory Booker declares (D-N.J.). “The farthest I’ll go is that I perceive this as the ‘Manchin majority.'”

“The reality is, he’s simply a senator,” says Anita Dunn, who was Biden’s senior assistant until recently.

In addition, she says, “he backed the rescue plan, he supported the bipartisan infrastructure plan, he has supported the president and his agenda, and he has worked hard to find a way to support the last major piece of the economic agenda and has negotiated in good faith around it.”

“I don’t believe it’s a coup,” Ben Nelson, former Democratic senator from Nebraska, said of Manchin’s president, unprompted.

Nelson may be particularly sympathetic to the hardship of a Democratic senator standing in the way of substantial legislation. He performed Hamlet in a 2009 staging during President Barack Obama’s and Democrats in Congress’ attempt to enact the Affordable Care Act. Bringing him on board required lengthy talks, a White House pressure campaign, and a lucrative plan to compensate his home state for Medicare expansion (called the “Cornhusker Kickback” by Republicans).

The former senator believes Manchin is doing nothing wrong by casting his vote in this manner. “There’s less strain in your mind when you believe you’re doing the right thing,” Nelson explains.

Some believe Manchin is making the wrong decision. For climate activists, the West Virginia senator’s notoriety has increased in tandem with his influence. He was instrumental in removing environmental measures from the BBB, including a plan to phase out the coal facilities that have earned his family’s firm millions of dollars. Protesters in kayaks have gathered near Manchin’s floating mansion. They once encircled his Maserati as he attempted to leave a garage.

“Some days, there simply aren’t words for how disheartening it is to have this chance to solve climate change and have one guy standing in the way,” says Deirdre Shelly of the Sunrise Movement, a climate action organization. “He’s a bad guy.”

Meanwhile, the Republican Party seemed to adore him. Even Trump’s most ardent supporters are quick to laud him.

“I think it’s terrific that Joe Manchin is standing up against abusive overspending,” says Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Tex.) as he hurries through the Capitol basement brandishing a considerable banner declaring his support with the locked-up Jan. 6 defendants. “I’m not convinced Biden is nearly as self-aware as Senator Manchin, based on some of his statements.”

Joe Manchin

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) recalled conversing with Manchin on the Senate floor and saying, “You know, Joe, one of the two parties genuinely likes you.”

Another advantage of being an artificial president rather than a genuine one is that you have a veto over legislation that affects the whole nation but only has to account to people in a single state. 

“At heart, he’s a governor,” says Jonathan Kott, a longtime Manchin advisor turned lobbyist. Being seen as a senator attempting to operate as an executive, on the other hand, is a sensitive issue.

“I would never suggest, and I believe it would be incorrect to imply, that Joe Manchin views himself as an alternative to what the White House is doing,” says Steve Clemons, a political journalist and Manchin acquaintance.

“But,” Clemons continues, “he’s trying to assist in the manner that an executive would.”

It doesn’t always feel beneficial. Not with the president’s approval rating at an all-time low.

The BBB bill may be able to assist with this. It includes proposals that might improve the lives of millions of people, such as four weeks of paid leave, an extension of the child tax credit, and investments in renewable energy, including tax breaks for electric cars. Some Democrats feel that the longer Manchin hangs out, the more he puts his party in danger. “He will be remembered as a spoiler figure rather than a leader,” says Douglas Brinkley, CNN’s presidential historian. “He has the potential to cost the Democrats the midterm elections.”

In an evenly split Senate, any Democrat may act as a spoiler if they so want. Few other Democrats who seem interested have further added to the “President Manchin” image since the West Virginian is often out on a limb (or should it be a branch?) by himself. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) has sometimes sided with him, refusing to raise taxes on the ultrawealthy or cut prescription medication costs. But Sinema isn’t as open about it as Manchin; she avoids the journalists in the halls and often seems ready to leave town when the spotlight is on. Manchin, on the other hand, seemed to enjoy the scrum.

“He does attract more attention because he constantly tells you what he’s thinking,” Everett of Politico adds.

Manchin’s office, which refused to make him available for an interview, claims he despises the limelight. “He doesn’t enjoy these ‘Joe Manchin is the center of the world’ things,” adds a spokesperson, Sam Runyon.

Those who wait for Joe, on the other hand, are often rewarded – with a minor performance, if not a major revelation. Enough to keep the narrative running till the next day. Everett, the Politico Manchinologist, discusses the “vacuum” left by President Donald Trump’s departure. “In that absence,” he continued, “Manchin has become kind of Washington’s most famous figure.”

At 4:35, a cameraman declares, “Ten minutes out!” before checking the levels on his microphone: onetwothreefourfive.

Evening votes are now coming, which means Manchin will shortly emerge to take his seat on the Senate floor. A grumble breaks out: Several reporters checking their phones at the exact moment have discovered…

“They postponed the voting,” someone yells. “Nooooo!” “Well, that was the most excitement we’ve had in two hours,” a reporter remarks. It’s been 30 minutes after the 10-minute warning, and there’s concern that Manchin may have given them the slip. Just as everyone is ready to go, a side door creaks open, revealing the senator, who wears an amused look as if he had no idea what all the hoopla is about. “I have nothing to say,” he shrugs exaggeratedly.

Manchin and the reporters walk down the corridor together in a trained but clumsy shuffle. “Do you believe they’ll do it this year?” Manu Raju, who follows the Manchin beat for CNN, worries about the measure.

“Anything is conceivable,” Manchin says. He enters an elevator. The doors shut, and the dummy president walks out without a fuss. There is no pressing need to follow him. Everyone expects them to return tomorrow.

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