Party or Principle

Call it the Joe Manchin Dilemma.  What does senator Manchin do now that the Republicans have captured the senate?  Not only did the Republicans win, but they decimated the Democratic candidate in his home sate of West Virginia.  What does this bode for him?

By all accounts, Manchin is a likable person.  He is well known back home and his constituents have been happy to elect him to office even though they have been drifting away from the Democratic Party.  The question is: will they continue their forbearance?

West Virginia lives and dies by coal.  It is an energy state and destined to remain one for the foreseeable future.  Never a liberal state, it had long been a conservative Democratic bastion.  But now that the Democrats have become intransigently anti-coal this is an increasingly bad fit.

Manchin has survived by proclaiming his loyalty to coal and shrugging off his inability to protect it by blaming Harry Reid.  What will he do with Reid gone?  What will he do when the Republicans pass legislation designed to clip the wings of the Environmental Protection Agency?

My guess is that Manchin will vote with the Republicans on this issue.  He will probably do so on other issues because he knows this will play well with the homefolk.  But what happens when he runs again for the Senate?  Can he argue that the return of a Democratic majority will be in the interests of his state?

Manchin will then be torn between party and principle.  Will he choose loyalty to his longtime allies or cross the aisle?  For that matter, what will Maine’s Independent senator Angus King do?  Will he now decide to caucus with the Republicans?  Having seen which way the wind is blowing will he conclude that conservative policies are best?

What too of those other Democratic senators who have gone along with Obama and Reid?  Many of them are liberal to the bone.  They have safe seats and can afford to vote on ideological grounds.  Yet what of the less committed legislators?  Will they continue to tow the left-liberal line if it becomes a liability?

There is little doubt that control of both houses of congress will enable Republicans to pass legislation that formerly went to the Senate to die.  There can also be little doubt that Barack Obama will veto many of these bills.  What then will career-oriented senators do?

Will incumbents in red or purple states cover their hind ends by voting with the majority?  If they do, will the president back down from some of his more radical positions?  Or if the insecure Democrats vote with Obama, will this expose their extremism to voters.  Reid protected them from controversial votes.  What will they do with him gone?

And what will the American people do?   Two things are certain.  First, the media will continue to incline left.  They will cheerlead for progressives and slant the news in their favor with almost as much fervor as formerly.  Second, the true believers will continue to believe.  Whether elected officials or ordinary citizens, mere facts or political setbacks will never dissuade them.

What must eventually make the difference are the moderates.  If they are concerned with the nation’s welfare, they will support reasonable candidates.   If, however, too many of them remain attached to the Democratic Party, they may not.

I hope that these last six years have been an aberration.  I hope that if sensible legislation emerges from a Republican congress that the American people will recognize it as sensible.  Paradoxically, if Obama stands by himself as a lonely voice in opposition, this might make these measures seem all the more responsible. 

I am a meliorist.  I believe in slow and careful improvements.  I also believe in building on tradition.  The United States has been a shining city on a Hill.  While it makes mistakes, it seeks to correct these.  Let us continue this practice!

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University