If you are someone who stakes your identity on owning a gas stove, Senators Ted Cruz and Joe Manchin are on their way to save the day. Both have a “bipartisan” bill entitled “The Gas Stove Protection and Freedom Act” which bars the federal government from banning gas stoves. Manchin sees this as a huge winner for the folks in West Virginia, but once again, Manchin is getting no love from WV Republicans. It appears that the popular Republican Governor Jim Justice of WV is thinking about challenging Manchin in 2024.
Manchin’s “friends” are his worst enemies.
Let’s face facts. Manchin has more than an uphill climb to win reelection in 2024. Manchin’s main schtick is that he is a conservative “Democrat” who takes pleasure in sticking it to his fellow Democrats and President Joe Biden. It may have saved his bacon in 2018, but it was a close contest (Manchin only won by 3% points).
Because WV is now Republican and becoming more retrograde, most cut Manchin slack for repeatedly stabbing Democrats in the back on policy agenda items. The refrain is that “This is what Manchin has to do to survive in WV.” Republicans in WV will love Manchin for all his political sabotage. Fair enough.
But I think that Manchin is dead man walking in 2024.
Otherwise, why is Governor Justice thinking about making it official and challenging Manchin in 2024?
Get ready for one of the messiest statewide campaigns in recent West Virginia history — whether or not Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) runs for re-election.
Why it matters: West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice (R) would pose the biggest Republican threat Manchin has faced in his 12-year Senate career.
- Justice, a former Democrat, is inching closer to a Senate campaign against Manchin, according to Republicans familiar with his thinking. The move would give Republicans a strong opportunity to win the red-state seat.
- Justice has a 64% approval rating in the state, 24 percentage points higher than Manchin's, and told CBS News he'll decide this month whether he's running.
Oops!
And another bad sign that WV have embraced the Dark Side of the Force:
If Justice gets in, he faces a primary against Rep. Alex Mooney (R-W.V.), a Freedom Caucus member who plans on going after the governor for supporting wasteful spending.
- Mooney defeated former GOP Rep. David McKinley last year in a race that hinged on whether West Virginia Republicans favored a lawmaker who could bring federal money back home or one who pledged to hold a fiscally conservative line. They chose the latter.
Think about that. WV is a poor state that desperately needs money. The state is losing population. But what do WV voters do? They voted for a guy who wants to have budget cuts. And most of those cuts are for “woke” projects:
Congressman Alex X. Mooney issued the following statement after today’s House vote on H.R. 2617 – FY23 Omnibus Appropriations. Rep. Mooney voted against the massive Democrat spending bill.
“The bloated $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill is another example of Congress’ unwillingness to follow the standard budget process. The Biden Administration and this Congress have set a bad historic precedent for deficit spending and record-breaking inflation. This bill does not address our nation’s border crisis and does nothing to address President Biden’s planned rollback of Title 42, which will result in a human catastrophe at the border. The 4,000+ page bill is loaded with woke pork projects like a federal building to be named after Nancy Pelosi , an LGBTQ+ museum, and billions more added to our national debt. The new Republican Congress is coming. I look forward to a majority that will rein in wasteful government spending and work to secure our border. We must address the many ongoing problems our country is facing and become good stewards of taxpayer dollars.”
No, I do not know what that means to be honest.
Anyway, I expect Republicans to insult their voters. It’s what they live for. And their voters reward the likes of Mooney because those voters are too stupid to realize they are being played. They hear “woke” and their blood pressure goes up.
So who does not want to be outdone on faux outrage and insulting the voters? Here is Joe Manchin saving gas stoves!
WASHINGTON — A new bipartisan duo is diving in to defend gas stoves.
Senate Energy Committee Chairman Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, the new ranking member of the Commerce Committee, are teaming up on legislation Thursday that would bar the Consumer Product Safety Commission from using federal funding to ban new or existing gas stoves, according to a copy of the bill first shared with NBC News.
Specifically, the two-page Gas Stove Protection and Freedom Act would prevent the commission from using federal funds to regulate an existing gas stove as a “banned hazardous product” or to impose or enforce any consumer product safety standard or rule that would result in prohibiting the use or sale of gas stoves or hiking their average price in the U.S.
“The federal government has no business telling American families how to cook their dinner, which is why Senator Cruz and I introduced bipartisan legislation to ensure Americans decide how to cook in their own homes,” Manchin, who has been fighting for a massive gas pipeline project to be built in West Virginia, said in a statement.
“I can tell you the last thing that would ever leave our house is the gas stove we cook on, and I will continue to fight any overreach by the Consumer Product Safety Commission,” he continued.
But Manchin is fine with the government telling a woman she cannot decide for herself about obtaining an abortion. Unfortunately, coming to that conclusion requires critical thinking skills, and I’m reasonably sure that WV voters have abandoned critical thinking. Otherwise, why is the state firmly in the Republican corner?
Manchin knows this, so he has decided to pander to the voters in WV. But I do not think it will be enough to save his skin. No matter how much he shits on Democrats or cozies up to the likes of Ted Cruz, it’s always going to come to down to this question: Who do Republican voters want in the U.S. Senate? A conservative Democrat who voted twice to impeach Donald Trump, or a true red Republican who embraces Trumpism?
Anyway, keep up the silliness Manchin.