Manchin Will Seek Re-Election but Sends Democrats a Stern Warning
Source: New York Times
WASHINGTON — Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia told colleagues on Tuesday that he intended to run for re-election this year after all, ending an anxiety-making flirtation with retirement and easing Democratic fears that the most conservative Democrat in the Senate was about to effectively hand his seat to a Republican.
In an interview, Mr. Manchin said he repeatedly expressed his frustration to Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, and other colleagues, telling them that “this place sucks,” before finally signaling Tuesday morning to Mr. Schumer’s aides that he would file his re-election paperwork before West Virginia’s deadline on Friday.
“I was very vocal,” Mr. Manchin said, adding, “they read between the lines.”
Even as Democrats won a reprieve, Mr. Manchin’s discontent illustrated the divisions in their party between those from states that President Trump easily carried and the more liberal bloc of senators, at least a half-dozen of whom are positioning themselves for possible White House runs. The rift contributed to the government shutdown over the weekend and the Monday decision by a group of moderates to force the government’s reopening.
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/23/us/politics/manchin-reelection-this-place-sucks.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
I guess he's still better than a rep. 
Disgraced Coal Baron Don Blankenship Is Running for Senate in West Virginia: Blankenship was in prison earlier this year for conspiracy to commit mine safety violations. Mother Jones, Tim Murphy, Nov. 29, 2017 *SNIPS*
Don Blankenship is running for Senate. Yes, the Don Blankenship. On Wednesday West Virginia station WCHS reported that the former Massey Energy CEO, fresh off a one-year stint in a federal prison for conspiring to commit mine-safety violations in the run-up to the deadliest mining disaster in decades, has filed paperwork to run in next year’s Republican Senate primary. He’ll join a crowded field, including US Rep. Evan Jenkins and state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, in the race to take on incumbent Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin.
Blankenship was a towering figure in state and national politics until quite recently. He turned Massey into one of the nation’s largest coal producers by busting unions, strong-arming smaller operators, and flouting a raft of federal environmental and safety regulations. As I wrote in a profile in 2015: The irony is that, even at the nadir of Blankenship’s power, his ideology is ascendant. He transformed West Virginia not just physically (entire towns have been wiped out by Massey’s footprint), but politically. Now, by playing off fears of creeping government involvement, the coal industry has strengthened its grip on state politics. Lawmakers friendly to the industry, with financial support from Blankenship, have won sweeping victories at the ballot box and used their mandate to roll back health and safety regulations while trumpeting the survival of-the-fittest capitalism that was Blankenship’s gospel.
Ultimately, Blankenship’s bullying style did him in. In 2010, 29 people died in an explosion at Massey’s Upper Big Branch Mine in southern West Virginia. ...Since getting out of prison in May, Blankenship has gone to great lengths to change the narrative about the events surrounding his conviction. In September, while he was already flirting with a Senate bid, he began running ads statewide in West Virginia, blaming the Upper Big Branch disaster on MSHA itself, and holding Manchin culpable for not properly scrutinizing the agency. Never mind that both state and federal investigations of the disaster faulted Massey. In a post-Trump world, where even the most debilitating allegations can be dismissed or forgiven, you can almost see the gears turning in Blankenship’s head.
Still he’ll face steep odds getting out of the primary, and not just because he’s freshly released from prison and, until recently, had claimed to be a resident of Las Vegas. In the run-up to his trial in 2015, Blankenship’s own attorneys sought to move the trial out of the state of West Virginia entirely for fear that he was so unpopular in his home-state he couldn’t get a fair trial...
A 2016 survey by Public Policy Polling found that just 10 percent of West Virginians had a favorably opinion of Blankenship, and 60 percent believed his prison sentence was too light. A lot has changed in the two years since Blankenship was convicted. But maybe not that much.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/11/disgraced-coal-baron-don-blankenship-is-running-for-senate-in-west-virginia/
There IS a difference between a Democrat and a Republican.
Count your blessings.
We just have to accept the fact that this is the BEST we can hope for from a very red state like West Virginia and be thankful that we have one more Democrat in the Senate that COULD mean the difference between being having Chuck Schumer (D) or Mitch McConnell (R) as the Senate majority leader.
Count your blessings.
Thanks for sharing. I feel a little more positive now.
