@McFaul @SenatorCollins @Sen_JoeManchin 1/ Manchin’s vote didn’t matter. Even if he’d voted No, we still needed two Republicans. Murkowski being the only NO would’ve left it in the position for Pence to break the tie – and we all know how that would’ve gone. Manchin is like Donnelly (and I say this as someone who
@McFaul @SenatorCollins @Sen_JoeManchin 2/ lives in Indiana).The state is conservative so sometimes in order to protect having a Democrat in the seat, he votes with Republicans. It sucks but it’s a reality & they never do it when it matters. They never do it when we need Democratic votes – like on ACA repeal. The
@McFaul @SenatorCollins @Sen_JoeManchin 3/ largest reason, at least for me as a survivor and the woman, is that Collins has spent her entire career positioning herself as a, “pro female, pro choice” Republican. She’s raised money from taking that position (a lot of it), she’s got awards for it (from Planned
@McFaul @SenatorCollins @Sen_JoeManchin 4/ Parenthood, no less) and it’s gotten her elected with a cross-section of Democratic and Republican votes. She didn’t just vote Yes...she stood in the well of the Senate and gave that self-aggrandizing, rape apologizing speech. And that speech? It wasn’t written overnight. It
@McFaul @SenatorCollins @Sen_JoeManchin 5/ was a detailed repudiation of the idea that she had ever been on the fence. She’s a Republican senator, so at the end of the day her voting Republican wasn’t that great a shock, it was the way she did it. That wasn’t just a Yes vote, that was a retirement audition speech. Even
@McFaul @SenatorCollins @Sen_JoeManchin 6/ With Maine’s ranked – choice voting, she won’t win in 2020 without both Democratic and Republican votes. Either way she votes costs her one side or the other, so even money is that she retires in 2020 and takes up a lobbying career with her Republican lobbyist husband. Her
@McFaul @SenatorCollins @Sen_JoeManchin 7/ speech was a throwdown of her Republican credentials so that she’ll be welcome in Republican legislative offices. She looked at her options, realized that a Yes vote was in her longer-term best interests, and went all-in on it. She spent 20 years riding that “moderate, pro-
@McFaul @SenatorCollins @Sen_JoeManchin 8/ women” horse and at the last minute, shot the horse in the head. We could all probably get over the actual vote but the way she did it feels like the ultimate betrayal.
