Democratic Senator Joe Manchin Says He May Not Vote For Obama

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Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), who won a special election in 2010 to serve the remainder of the late Sen. Robert Byrd's term and is up for reelection this year, says that he is considering voting for the presumptive Republican nominee in November and not President Obama.

RELATED: GOP Senate Candidate In West Virginia Compares Cigarette Ban To The Holocaust

National Journal reported on Thursday that Manchin, a centrist Democrat 'who has done more than any other Democrat up for reelection this year to distance himself from President Obama' is weighing his options.

'The people in West Virginia, they basically look at the candidates'whatever you're running for, whether it be the president itself, or whatever'[they look at] the performance and the result that's been attained,' Manchin said when asked how he will vote. 'Right now in West Virginia, these first three and a half years haven't been that good to West Virginia. So, then you look [at] what the options will be, who will be on the other end.'

West Virginia is one of the ten states that Gallup pegged as being the most unfriendly to President Obama. In 2011, Obama managed only 32.7 percent average job approval in West Virginia ' only six states had lower average job approval rankings for the president.

While the Mountain State has an earned reputation for being deeply pro-Republican on the presidential level and quixotically blue on the local and state level, this condition is relatively recent. In 2000, when the state voted Republican for the first time in decades (West Virginia flipped in the 48 state landslide elections of 1984 and 1972, but was reliably Democratic for much of the state's history), it came as a surprise to George W. Bush's campaign staff.

Bush's political advisor Karl Rove famously quipped to campaign staffer Coddy Johnson, 'If you spend more than 30 seconds thinking about West Virginia, you'll be fired.'

Manchin, who served nearly two full terms as West Virginia's governor before becoming the state's junior senator, is in relatively good shape heading into the election year. He faces businessman and likely GOP nominee John Raese, who Manchin defeated comfortably in 2010. Raese ignited his own controversy this week when he compared a ban on cigarette smoking to the Holocaust.

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• Joe Manchin needs to grow a pair or leave the Democrat Party.  What a coward.

• I disagree, but I think I understand.

• What a dumb statement. Why are you calling yourself a Democrat at all? Sounds cowardly to me. 

• Manchin is as ass. There's no polite way to put it. Imagine a Republican Senator saying the same thing in an interview. No, you can't either, as it just wouldn't happen.

• According to A.L.E.C., the American Legislative Exchange Council, West Virginia ranks dead last in education.  It seems Manchin knows his target group, just appeal to the ignorant folk and you win West Virginia.  Run Joe, run.

• * shrug * WV wasnt going blue anyway. 

• Why would anyone want to leave the 'Party' that started the KKK, developed Jim Crow laws and opposed the 1964 Civil Rights Act?

  'Gotcha Mr. Picatinny!'there was a magic, switch button that was pressed and overnight, all the KKK Democrats became Republicans and all the Republicans became tolerant Democrats.

• Tedderman'.educated in West Virginny!

• This guy wasn't a big enough racist to be a Democrat!
  KKK Exalted Cyclops, Democratic Senator Robert C. Byrd has some mighty big racist shoes to fill'and O'l Joe wasn't up to the task.

  He tried to keep minorities impoverished and beholden to Dems, but he realized that was just a form of political slavery and he had enough of manipulating citizens to maintain their political bondage.

•  he is no democrat'just a coward

• Democrat and coward'.That's redundant!

• As soon as he presses Romney in the voting booth a pair will materialize, in your mouth. Fortunately, he's one of many former hope and changers that will be changing again this year. Romney, 56-46 in november, count on it.

• WV is a funny electoral state to be sure. It is very working class, resource extraction heavy and sparsely populated. 

  My sense is that WV tends to vote more on local issues (i.e., who has standing in the region and who brings home $$ to the state) than national issues. That is probably a by-product of being so small (only 5 electoral votes) as to be largely ignored by national campaigns.

  I'd bet that Manchin is more interested in making the national conversation engage WV (raise it's profile) than in trying to buck his party.

• Stop this at once!
  You're going to give the children nightmares of a world without free candy!

• Profiles in cowardice 

• how dare he criticize the almighty Obama! He should just be a lapdog who agrees with everything the man says and does.

• Robert C. Byrd already has his, or his beloved Erma's name, on each and every state, local and federal building, road, project, resource or development in the state of WV.

• Pickatitty has only a tenuous grasp of reality and views life only through the confines of a scope.

• Translation: I need to stick my finger in the wind and see which way the electoral winds blow in my state, rather than take a principled stand.