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Joe Manchin is leaving the U.S. Senate to go on a journey. The West Virginia Democrat says he's looking forward to "traveling the country and speaking out to see if there is an interest in creating a movement to mobilize the middle."
There's nothing like a good road trip, but fruitful expeditions require a sense of where you're going. Manchin should think hard about where to find "the middle" in our politics right now.
Some hints: It's not the midpoint between a left-leaning Democratic Party and an increasingly right-wing Republican Party. Nor will he find mathematically ideal forms of moderation by splitting the difference between a moderately progressive president dedicated to democracy and a much-indicted extremist given to saying kind things about dictators.
Manchin's announcement was met with mourning from some Democratic leaders and a lot of good-riddances from progressives.
The progressives certainly have a point: Manchin did block a slew of worthy Biden initiatives, starting with voting rights legislation and the immensely useful child tax credit.
But his support was critical to the passage of seven major bipartisan bills, including the huge infrastructure investments and the Chips and Science Act for ambitious tech projects. Also on the list are measures to help veterans, reform U.S. Postal Service financing, enhance gun safety, recognize same-sex marriages and a budget deal that avoided a debt limit crisis in the spring.
And, yes, there is the Inflation Reduction Act, which Manchin helped craft.
I mention these bills partly because Manchin's mobilize-the-middle trip is seen as a potential bid to run as a third-party candidate on No Labels' bipartisan "unity ticket." The group says it's seeking a middle-of-the-road alternative to President Biden and former president Donald Trump.
The question for No Labels and Manchin is why they think there is a need for such a candidate against the president. "Joe Biden is No Labels' dream candidate," claims Matt Bennett, a vice president of the moderate Democratic think tank Third Way.
Although the New Republic's Michael Tomasky makes a plausible case that Manchin's brand is now so conservative that he might actually hurt Trump if he ran, the high likelihood is that a moderate third-party candidate would, on net, drain more votes from Biden. That was the conclusion of a careful Wall Street Journal analysis.
My guess is that Manchin will not be the No Labels candidate and that he'll pass on a third-party run. Surely, he does not want to go down in history as the guy who gave us a second Trump term.
But this still leaves the question of where the "middle" is. The middle has a home among Democrats in a way it doesn't in the GOP.
Start with which party is more ideologically open. Pew Research Center data found that among Republicans and independents who lean Republican, 63% called themselves conservative, while 32% identified as moderate and 3% as liberal. For Democrats and those who lean Democratic, the figures were 46% liberal, 45% moderate and 8% conservative.
Manchin says Americans cannot "let this divisive hatred further pull us apart." Three cheers for that. As he tours the nation, he should notice that "divisive hatred" is not what's coming from the current occupant of the White House.