Manchin Dances Around Criticizing Blankenship In Pair Of Interviews
By Cameron Joseph | May 10, 2018 2:28 pm
For a guy who once said ex-con coal baron Don Blankenship had “blood on his hands,” Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) has been notably restrained while discussing the former GOP Senate candidate since Tuesday’s primary.
In a pair of TV interviews following Blankenship’s primary loss to West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey (R), Manchin refused to directly criticize Blankenship for his racially charged attacks against Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) — while favorably comparing him to Morrisey as the true West Virginian (Morrisey moved there from New Jersey a decade ago).
Manchin also wouldn’t directly attack Blankenship for his role in failing to prevent the explosion at the Upper Big Branch Mine that killed 29 people in 2010. And he refused to directly say whether he thought Blankenship’s ads attacking McConnell’s “China family” were racist, instead dodging the question in an interview with NBC News while offering tepid criticism.
“I’d like to think that wasn’t, the terms he used, and how he used them, I would never take that course. And if Don felt that he was explaining it from his upbringing, the culture that he comes from in West Virginia. And Don’s on that Kentucky-West Virginia border. I don’t know, I can’t say, I haven’t heard that before,” Manchin said in a meandering answer. “There’s Italian-Americans, Chinese-Americans, Japanese-Americans, you know we’re all ethnic of some derivative. But the way it was said, it was taken in a connotation that might not have been flattering to a person who’s a proud American, no matter what their descent is.”
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Outstanding strategy, Joe.
What a cowardly strategy. He obviously knows his constituents better than any of us, and if a racist strategy helps him to win, what does that tell us about WV?