What Drives Joe Manchin – The Atlantic

All politicians like to think of themselves as problem solvers, but Manchin’s confidence in his ability to build consensus and master the process of politics is extraordinary. In his successful 2004 campaign for governor, he ran on solving basic problems for ordinary people. He carried a binder full of his plans around the state. Like a powerful running game in football, the simplicity of his strategy pays off only if it’s executed consistently and relentlessly.

Back in 2005, Democrats held every statewide executive office except one. Democrats controlled the West Virginia Senate 21–13 and the House of Delegates by an astonishing 72–28. Although George W. Bush carried the state twice, down-ballot West Virginia was solidly blue. So the new governor had a wide lane to tackle almost any issue.

Read: What Joe Manchin can teach Democrats

Manchin wanted to be seen as enticing businesses to and keeping them in the state. (That desire sometimes produced very literal results, including when he changed the motto on highway signs from Wild and Wonderful to Open for Business.) One of the first bills that Manchin pushed concerned tort reform and the esoteric subject of “third-party bad faith.” West Virginia law required insurance companies to honor a “duty of good faith and fair dealing” to any person making a valid claim. Manchin’s bill erased that duty for liability insurers. He felt like it put too much burden on the insurance industry, which had labeled West Virginia a “judicial hellhole.” This change would also, he said, lower premiums for everyone with car insurance.

If the issue sounds picayune, it’s because you were not in on discussions with the West Virginia trial lawyers, who felt about this bill somewhat like America felt last summer about the potential of a year with no football. This kind of tort reform constituted treason against some of Manchin’s staunchest supporters and even his own kin, one of whom was a former president of the West Virginia Trial Lawyers Association.

An insult such as this demanded a frontal assault. We asked our friends in the legislature to vote the bill down, defeating Manchin from within his own party. We were certain that we would be victorious.

One trial lawyer, though, the one who knew Manchin best, counseled against confrontation, and suggested that we try to make strategic amendments instead. “Joe Manchin is governor now,” he told us, “and no matter what, there is going to be a bill.”

And he was right. Manchin ran over his erstwhile supporters, getting his bill approved and telling West Virginians that he had saved them money on their insurance bills and made the state attractive to businesses again. Correctly calculating that almost everyone has auto insurance, but that relatively few people are lawyers, or have claims, he picked the concern of the many over that of the few on his first issue, his next issue, and many issues after that, and steamrolled to reelection in 2008, even as West Virginia turned redder.