In the Alabama primary. They took issue that Perez wouldn't fundraiser and stump for one Democrat over the six others in the primary. This attack was on Perez earlier this week and just one week out from the primary on the 15th.

Said group has made it clear they want the DNC to pick winners and losers during the primary campaign process. Not long ago just the thought of that made them livid.

In primary. That is my rule.

Can you imagine how Manchin feels that DNC vice chair is on park with challenger and that His colleague in senate endorsed primary challenger?

Horrible result.

The incumbent in the situation I mentioned was the republican.

If he's certain he can win the primary he's probably happy about it.

Do you blame him for Jim Justice too?

I know that blaming Bernie for two decades of Democratic party decline - save for during Barack Obama's decidedly liberal 2008 campaign and the rabid hatred for W in 2006 - but in your spare time, ask yourself how may bills we were unable to pass when we held both houses of Congress and the presidency because Joe Manchin wouldn't support them and ask yourself how many bills had to be watered down to get Joe Manchin's vote.

Ask yourself, if Manchin wasn't in Senate when Obama was first president, would we have passed as much as we did. Period when Dems had both houses and presidency was much shorter than you think due to MN election challenges and MA special election.

I didn't blame Bernie for anything. Made statement that he should not endorse a challenger in Dem primary - particularly to Dem incumbent
Senator. Do you think that is acceptable for Bernie to do?

All those special elections did was give us the votes to cut off filibuster.

If Obama had a Congress which showed courage instead of compromise, he would have changed the world in such a way that it couldn't have been undone by one maniacal despot reversing his executive orders.

We just came within a hair's breadth of losing Obamacare on a 50% +1 vote. Had our ranks not been filled with Senators who did not want to offend the GOP by getting rid of the filibuster during the first two years of Obama's presidency, we could have passed it with the same margin. What's more, we could have passed it with a public option. What's more, we could have passed legislation in areas like the environment, civil rights, gender equality, etc. to do what the greatest president we have ever had was forced to do with executive orders for six years AND which that f'n orangutan is undoing as fast as he can put a pen to paper. Instead, we wasted a year coming up with legislation which would get Joe Manchin's vote.

Now that we see that the GOP can't even muster 51 votes to undo the bill Republicans hate the most, we see the damage playing to the middle has done. If President Obama's executive orders had been passed as legislation during those two years of compromising with members of our own party, they would still be around today.

1. Manchin was not in the Senate from 2008-2010.

2. Most of Obama's executive orders (both numerically and weighted by substance) came after Democrats lost the House, precisely in response to no longer being able to pass legislation.

As a result, the number of executive orders that were prevented from being legislatively enacted due to Manchin is... zero.

Of course, I doubt you would change your mode of thinking on this just because the factual premises underlying your thinking turn out to be wrong. But it is a shame that so much time (not just by you, by many) is spent attempting to marshall evidence for an imaginary world so divorced from reality.

In reality, when every vote matters, senators like Manchin vote with the Democrats. When their vote isn't decisive, they break away, because that is the only way they can win in states where Trump win by 40%. Red state senators are essential for Democrats to ever have hope of passing and maintaining legislation, and even appointing cabinets of Democratic presidents. If Senate elections went the way Presidential elections did, Democrats would be at 40 or fewer seats for a generation.

I stand humbly corrected!

You are right in your assumption that the identity of the centrist politicians who demanded we strip the public option from the ACA, each one of whom we needed - because we were too scared to do to them what they did to us the minute the tables were turned - isn't for me at least determinative of whether we should be lionizing centrists as heroes of the party as was done in the OP.

Your points are well taken, control is everything, but the fact remains that when every vote counts it does not help the Party for that vote to be held by a person who will not stand for basic Democratic principles because, when it is, those principles never get to the floor.

It is not obvious (given that Republicans can't even get 50 votes). But the reason they can't get 50 votes are directly connected to the presence of the filibuster.

There is a class of policies in the ACA that are immune from repeal without a filibuster proof majority. I like to think of them as the "equal treatment" provisions. They include guaranteed issue, community rating, and the auxiliary policies that stem from those (such as essential health benefits, which are required to avoid subtler forms of cherry-picking).

These "equal treatment" provisions make it very hard to deviate backwards from Obamacare without destroying the market. Republicans are principally opposed to having the government pay for sick people's healthcare. But because of the "equal treatment" provisions that they can't touch, any reduction in subsidies negatively affect healthy people. (Lower subsidies causes some healthy people to not buy insurance, leading the premiums for other healthy people go up. A "death spiral." ) As a result, any attempt at being less redistributive in general affects everyone equally badly, which creates a politically untenable situation (tens of millions losing coverage, skyrocketing premiums, etc).

This prevents Republicans from focusing the costs of their bill on people who are sick (a much smaller group numerically). If it weren't from the filibuster shielding the "equal treatment" provisions, Republicans could produce a bill that dramatically lowered premiums for most citizens (i.e., those that are healthier), at the cost of skyrocketing premiums for the sick. They wouldn't have directly repealed community rating for political reasons, but there are many more subtle changes they could make with similar effects (without the political blowback). The average numbers on such a "help the healthy and screw the sick" bill would be much more politically favorable to them, and that might have been enough to get a bill through. It would also have prevented the opposition of many interest groups (many of which were strongly opposed due to the market destabilizing effects, and would not be as opposed to a bill that merely distributed from the sick to the healthy).

Democratic leaders knew all of this at the time they passed the bill. They knew that getting super-majority protection for community rating would maximize the probability of changing our healthcare system not just for one cycle, but permanently. Even with the filibuster in place, they could have still chosen to go the reconciliation route and passed an expansion of Medicare and Medicaid. But such an expansion would be more vulnerable politically (particularly to the extent the beneficiaries would be the poorer and sicker, rather than the elderly). Instead, they chose to lock in the principle that we will no longer shove the financial burden of paying for medical care entirely on the sick.

By the way, I am not saying I am particularly fond of the filibuster on first principles. There is something to be said for a more empowered and more accountable government. But we are very far from that point, given all the other veto points in our political system (two houses plus president plus supreme court at a minimum). Getting rid of the filibuster would not solve that problem. It would, however, greatly empower the party that is most advantaged by the unequal representation of the Senate, which is currently the Republican party (and will likely be the Republican party for a very long time).

In other words, even if the filibuster is a bad idea in theory, it is far from clear that it does not help us at present.

(Side note: I apologize for the snark. I see a lot of posts from others making similar arguments that are blind to political reality or are not arguing in good faith, and I mistakenly jumped to conclusions when reading your post. My apologies.)

If you apologize for snark I'll have to apologize for almost every word I said because this post is flipping terrific.

Convenience and then switched back. Not really a Dem.

Bannon and the Russians understsnd this.

Yea, you got it, Bannon and Putin won't be dancing in the street at all when centrists drive out 40% of the party by incessantly calling them racists, misogynists, and disloyal.

Why do you make it about me? I don't bash Bernie supporters. I do oppose ad hominem ploys.

Was point out that criticism of leftist Democrats was unhelpful JUST LIKE you pointed out that criticism of centrist Democrats was not helpful.

"Ad hominem" . . . hardly . . . It's more like, assuming we are both consistent, we agree.

and unless there is more unity, happiness, and Democratic praise our elected officials will go work for the enemy and thereby cause millions to lose health insurance?

C'mon. Our elected reps aren't babies. We need to give them more credit than this.

And if Manchin jumps to the Trump administration, knowing the man and the consequences, that's on him and him alone.

Do you want "conservatives" or do you want Democrats? Which side are you on?

"Conservative?" Or Democrat?

Zero that I am aware of. Do you have any examples of bills that would have passed were it not for Manchin's vote?

On the other hand, Obamacare and Dodd Frank are only law today because of Senators like Manchin (such as Ben Nelson), and Obamacare only remains law because of Manchin himself.

Thank you for so beautifully making the opposite point of what you appear to want to make (in this post and other posts of yours on this thread).

because bills do not get to the floor if there aren't votes to pass it? Did you not know that?

On the other hand, the ONLY reason that Manchin's vote counted at all on any of those bills was because centrists like Manchin would not vote to jettison the filibuster.

Thank you for so beautifully making the point that you don't understand the legislative process and that you best learn about it before you resort to snark.

For someone who is making claims about OTHER people's understanding of the legislative process, it would be helpful to brush up on some of the basics of said process.

It turns out that in our system of government, you need both houses to approve of every bill, along with the president, for it to become law.

Manchin was elected in 2010, which was the same election that caused Republicans to control the House.

Republicans have controlled the house since 2010.

It is therefore impossible for there to have been a bill that would have come law if it weren't for Manchin, unless a Republican house would also have agreed with this bill.

In fact panels are often comprised of a cross-section of thinkers to make for discussion.

Would need to see the specifics but I would not necessarily make that conclusion

The topic is "RUNNING FROM TRUMP, RUNNING FOR THE PEOPLE"

From the description, it appears to be about populist messaging and localizing politics.

My point is that panels are usually designed with people that have differing opinions. Not supporting each other.

I do not see that as the DNC supporting the Manchin challenger. What was said may have implied otherwise but the mere appearance on the same panel is not an indication of support.

Could he win if he decides to run in 2018?

He would appoint a Rethug to replace Manchin. There's the extra vote for ACA repeal. If Manchin leaves for Energy job, it will be catastrophic in so many ways. And how long until BLOTUS then fires him?
JFC, DON'T do it Joe!

then HE, and only him, is entirely to blame. It would be a completely self-serving move that would endanger health care for millions of Americans. A good man would brush off criticisms from the "Bernie wing" and do what's best for the country. He would not sabotage health care for millions because his feelings got hurt.

Even if "Dancin' Rick Perry" is moved to Homeland Security (Pee Wee Herman apparently unavailable), Manchin is installed at the Energy Dept. and a new GOP Senator is installed, it's unlikely the non-healthcare bill would pass. Last time McCain took the bullet for the lot of them, but I suspect there were many more no votes and someone else would step up to the plate.

You write: