Manchin plays both sides of the fence when it benefits him.
Via Free Beacon:
President Donald Trump urged West Virginia to oust Senator Joe Manchin during his final rally blitz before Election Day, and found an approving audience among disaffected Democrats.
Trump supporters who gathered at the Huntington Tri-State Airport were optimistic about Patrick Morrisey’s chances of upsetting the Democratic incumbent on Tuesday. Some stood in line as early as 11:45 a.m. Friday, more than four hours before the rally began.
“I like Joe,” Trump said. “The problem is, I’m just not going to get his vote. He’s a friend of mine. I’m just not going to get his vote.”
Allegiance to the president’s agenda was on the minds of supporters, many of whom are former Democrats. The audience was full of them, some personally convinced to change parties by the president himself, like Gov. Jim Justice and Dorothy McPhee.
“I have been a Democrat sixty some years of my life,” said Dorothy, who grew up in Winfield County. “I switched over a couple years ago to Republican because I no longer can tolerate the Democratic stand on a lot of things.”
Dorothy said the most important issues to her are the economy, taxes, immigration, “draining the swamp,” and the opioid epidemic.
She said Morrisey and Manchin both benefited from pharmaceutical companies, with Morrisey’s prior lobbying work, and Manchin’s big dollar donations from Mylan, the controversial EpiPen maker whose CEO is Manchin’s daughter.
“But at least Morrisey will stand with the president,” Dorothy said. “Joe waffles on everything. And I don’t want that.”
Once thought unlikely to unseat the popular West Virginia Democrat and former governor, the race has tightened in recent days. Morrisey, the state’s attorney general, says he has climbed within the margin of error, a polling boost many Republicans saw after the Brett Kavanaugh hearings.
While Manchin ultimately voted for the Supreme Court nominee, Trump is still using the vote against him. The president recounted Manchin told him he “may” vote for Kavanaugh, but the Democrat waited to publicly support the judge until his confirmation was all but a certainty.
“There’s nobody smoother than Joe,” Trump said. “And he pressed that button, but I think it was about one eighth of one second after we had the final vote [needed] from Susan Collins.”
“I said, ‘Joe that doesn’t count.'”
Trump told the estimated 6,000 in attendance Morrisey would be a key vote for lower taxes, strong borders, and ending the war on “clean beautiful coal.”
For his part, Morrisey said he would be a “strong conservative fighter for President Trump,” versus Manchin, who he repeatedly calls, in Trumpian fashion, a “dishonest Washington liberal.”
“Sen. Manchin has abandoned our West Virginia conservative values,” Morrisey said, appealing to the state Trump won over Hillary Clinton by 42 points. “On the issue of life, he thinks it’s a multiple-choice question.”