Opinion | Is Manchin running for president? First he needs to find ‘the middle.’ - The Washington Post

Opinion | Is Manchin running for president? First he needs to find ‘the middle.’ - The Washington Post

Joe Manchin III is leaving the U.S. Senate to go on a journey. The West Virginia Democrat says he’s looking forward to “traveling the country and speaking out to see if there is an interest in creating a movement to mobilize the middle.”

Some hints: It’s not the midpoint between a center-left Democratic Party and an increasingly right-wing Republican Party. Nor will he find mathematically ideal forms of moderation by splitting the difference between a moderately progressive president dedicated to democracy and a much-indicted extremist given to saying kind things about dictators.

The 76-year-old Manchin’s announcement on Thursday was met with mourning from some Democratic leaders and a lot of good-riddances from progressives still furious over how much of President Biden’s agenda he blocked.

Manchin’s quitting means Democrats will have a harder time in 2024 holding a Senate where they now have a 51-49 majority. Manchin has been running behind the likely Republican nominee for his seat, Gov. Jim Justice, in most polls, which probably influenced his decision — but he’s the only West Virginia Democrat who could have put up a fight.

The angry progressives certainly have a point: Manchin did block a slew of worthy Biden initiatives, starting with voting rights legislation(which he supported but would not override the filibuster to pass) and the immensely useful child tax credit.

But his support was critical to the passage of seven major bipartisan bills, including the huge infrastructure investments and the Chips and Science Act for ambitious tech projects. Also on the list are measures to help veterans, reform U.S. Postal Service financing, enhance gun safety, recognize same-sex marriages and a budget deal that avoided a debt limit crisis in the spring.

And, yes, there is the Inflation Reduction Act, which Manchin helped craft (and was passed with only Democratic votes) that provides billions to promote green investments and put limits on prescription drug prices.

I mention these bills — strongly backed, and signed, by Biden — partly because Manchin’s mobilize-the-middle trip is seen as a potential bid to run as a third-party candidate on No Labels’ bipartisan “unity ticket.” The group says it’s seeking a middle-of-the-road alternative to President Biden and former president Donald Trump.

The question for No Labels and Manchin is why they think there is a need for such a candidate against the president. “Joe Biden is No Labels’ dream candidate,” said Matt Bennett, a vice president of the moderate Democratic think tank Third Way, pointing to what you might call the Biden-Manchin legislative index. Really: It takes no more than five seconds of mental effort to see the absurdity behind the idea that Biden is extreme.

Although there’s a case that Manchin’s brand is now so conservative that he might actually hurt Trump if he ran, the high likelihood is that a moderate third-party candidate would, on net, drain votes from Biden, too. That was the conclusion of a careful Wall Street Journal analysis on Friday and a study by the anti-Trump conservative outlet the Bulwark. No one who believes in moderation should want to take that risk.

My guess is that Manchin will not be the No Labels candidate and that he’ll pass on a third-party run that would hurt the country and his legacy. Surely, he does not want to go down in history as the guy who gave us Trump again.

But this still leaves the question of where the “middle” is. Contrary to much false evenhandedness, Republicans have moved much further right than the Democrats have moved left. The middle has a home among Democrats in a way it doesn’t in the GOP.

Start with which party is more ideologically open. Pew Research Center data for this year provided to me found that among Republicans and independents who lean Republican, 63 percent called themselves conservative, while 32 percent identified as moderate and 3 percent as liberal. For Democrats and those who lean Democratic, the figures were 46 percent liberal, 45 percent moderate and 8 percent conservative.

A separate Pew study of members of Congress found that since the 1970s, Democrats have become “somewhat more liberal,” while Republicans “on average have become much more conservative.” Public Religion Research Institute data for partisans alone showed that while only 21 percent of Republicans picked a label other than conservative, 39 percent of Democrats chose an allegiance other than liberal.

If you still doubt Republicans have become more extreme, just watch how they are handling budget issues in the House and whom they just elected speaker — or consider who is their party’s front-running presidential candidate. Bennett’s message to Manchin: “You can’t find a center between an authoritarian right-wing populism and a normal, small-d democratic party.”

Manchin says Americans cannot “let this divisive hatred further pull us apart.” Three cheers for that. As he tours the nation, he should notice that “divisive hatred” is not what’s coming from the current occupant of the White House.

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