Back in March, Perry Bacon, then at 538, wrote an astute column about what makes Manchin tick and I think he had it right. It’s a long article worth reading, but the conclusion says it all:
[T]he Democratic Party’s fate is in the hands of a man who doesn’t owe the party anything, can’t support some of its agenda for electoral reasons and probably just disagrees with some of that agenda anyway. Much of the Democratic Party believes that the biggest problem in politics is that the GOP is becoming anti-democratic and that this anti-democratic drift is an emergency for the country. Manchin sees the Republican Party as including people he can work with and seems to think that the biggest problem in politics is that elected officials on both sides aren’t being bipartisan enough. This difference in views between Manchin and much of the rest of the party may be irreconcilable. But if they aren’t reconciled, Manchin’s view will win out, because he has a deciding vote and seems very much willing to use it.
He’s winning. And there’s not a lot the Democrats can do about it. It’s time for Plan B.
What’s Plan B?