Flippers

Senate Republicans are trying to make up the ground that some are arguing the Tea Party forfeited in Nevada, Colorado, Delaware by seducing in "establishment/Ruling Class" fashion pretty much every "blue dog" left in the upper chamber, starting with The Chin:

Republicans are making some big promises to try to lure West Virginia Senator-elect Joe Manchin to cross the aisle.

Aside from his pick of committee assignments (likely the Energy and Natural Resources Committee), Manchin might get support for one of his pet projects – a plant to convert coal to diesel fuel that has stalled under Democratic leadership in Washington.

It’s one of Manchin’s pet projects and could mean big money for the state’s coal producers.

“Republicans believe in an ‘all of the above’ approach to energy,” one top Senate aide told Power Play. “And coal-to-diesel could certainly be part of that.”

Manchin’s switch could mean Republican support for not just $1 billion in seed money for the project but also a deal, much sought in coal country, to require the armed forces to use converted coal for fuel.

Republicans believe Manchin is particularly susceptible to the overture because he is up for reelection in 2012 and will have to be on the ticket with President Obama, who is direly unpopular in West Virginia. Democrat Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Independent Joe Lieberman are the other two prime targets of Republican advances.

Now please don't misunderstand me right off the bat; if The Chin is flippable, then by all means let's flip him.  But I have to wonder how vulnerable he'll really be next time.  It's not like 2010 was a great year to run for the Senate as a Democrat from the state that detests The One more than any other in the union, and yet for whatever unfathomable reason West Virginas sent their governor anyway, after having trailed Republican rival John Raese for most of the campaign.  And not by a squeaker, either, but a full ten point margin.  Now ensconsed as the incumbent, why would Red Barry actually topping the ticket render him an automatic lame duck?

Besides which, wouldn't switching sides simply make The Chin an instant target for a Tea Party primary challenge?  How much more so Ben "Cornhusker Kickback" Nelson or James Webb or Mark Pryor, who just watched his now ex-Arkansas colleague Blanche Lincoln get destroyed for the same "tough" votes he made?  Indeed, the purity fetish of TPers actively goes out of its way to make picking off jumpers impossible.  If they remain Dems, at least they'll be assured of making it to the general election.  That dynamic makes it far more likely that any party switches will flow in the opposite direction.

And can we please, once and for all, bury the unkillable chimera of poor ol' Joe Lieberman?  I stopped taking that one seriously ten years ago.  He made it clear then - or at least it sounded clear to me - that while he has differences with his party from time to time, he's a loyal, lifelong Democrat and a loyal, lifelong Democrat he will remain.  If ever there was a time when he would have flipped, it would have been in 2007 after his own party rejected him for renomination for another Senate term.  Getting re-elected as an Independent on the strength of GOP support, and into a 110th United States Senate where his crossing the aisle would have restored the upper chamber to Republican control, the table was set and the red carpet was rolled out....and he STILL stayed put.  So Senator Cornyn, can't we just let this one go?  It's not happening.

And how would it be a good thing for the GOP if it did?  The only thing Liebs ever really agreed with us on was the War on Terror, and that's been largely mothballed by the Obama Regime.  Domestically he's a leftist, just not an outright Marxist-Alinskyist.  "He saved us from the Public Option" doesn't sound like much of a selling point.

Which highlights how much worse a decision this'd be for Lieberman.  He was able to win as an independent by essentially splitting Democrats and unifying Republicans behind him as the lesser of two evils.  Becoming a Republican not only reunifies Democrats against him, but splits Republicans by guaranteeing (ah, the irony) a Tea Party primary challenge in his new Party which he also would be unlikely to survive.  What would he do then?  Run AGAIN as an independent with pretty much no base left at all?

It's pipedreaming, even regarding Joe Manchin.  And doesn't it pour cold water on notions I've been reading over the past week of the Senate being "effectively Republican" by citing those very flipper targets as being likely to move dramatically rightward as their 2012 re-election bids loom?  Were it a 50-50 split I could understand it, but from a 53-47 deficit it just looks....bush league.  Loseresque.

Exit quote from General Zod to Lex Luthor: "You cannot bargain with what you do not have."