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NOVEMBER 2, 2021

Meyerson on TAP

Memo to Media: Stop Calling Manchin et al. 'Moderates'

Being more swayed by big-money contributions and an anti-mother bias are
far better descriptors.

"Moderates Hinder Efforts to Negotiate Drug Prices," says a front-page
headline in today's

**Washington Post**. Certain Democrats are indeed blocking those
efforts, but is the media right to characterize them as moderates? How
much of the fight between the overwhelming majority of both the House
and Senate Democratic caucuses and the Manchin-Sinema-Gottheimer-Peters
gang can accurately be described as left-vs.-center or
liberal-vs.-moderate, which are the autopilot descriptions that the
media applies to them?

Consider, for instance, that a number of these battles are being waged
over policies that would win over swing voters and, indeed, are popular
across the political spectrum. In a recent Kaiser Family Foundation
poll, fully 83 percent of Americans, including 76 percent of

**Republicans**, favored allowing the federal government to negotiate
with drug companies to bring down the prescription drug prices for
Medicare recipients and people with private insurance. Which is why, on
Sunday, 15 House Democrats in frontline districts-genuine
moderates-signed a letter to the congressional leaders saying that
bringing down drug prices was key to their survival in next year's
midterm elections (and, by extension, to the Democrats' ability to
hold a majority in the next Congress).

There are similar majorities in support of other initiatives that the
so-called moderates have blocked, like paid sick leave (73 percent in a
recent CBS News poll) and extending Medicare coverage to vision and
dental care (84 percent in the same poll).

So, is "moderate" an accurate characterization of the Manchin Gang? Is
it moderation that dictates their stances?

Even a cursory look at the campaign contributions to those gang members
suggests other factors besides "moderation" are in play. In the House,
two of the three Democrats who blocked the relatively comprehensive drug
price negotiation provision-California's Scott Peters and Oregon's
Kurt Schrader-are among the largest recipients of drug company
campaign contributions. The nay-saying duo of Schrader and Peters have
received a combined $1.5 million in pharma contributions in the course
of their congressional careers. The one Democrat who blocked that
provision in the Senate, Arizona's Kyrsten Sinema, raised a record
$1.1 million from July through September, as her opposition to reducing
drug prices became clear. A good chunk came directly from Big Pharma
executives, even as a paltry 10 percent came from actual Arizonans. With
ratios like that, it would not be a stretch to conclude that Sinema,
who's not up for re-election until 2024, may be more motivated by a
high-paying job in a high-paying industry than she is by winning the
votes of her constituents, moderate and otherwise, should she seek
re-election.

We should note that the other Democratic senator from Arizona-former
astronaut Mark Kelly-met with fellow moderate Amy Klobuchar and
genuine leftists Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren last Thursday to
discuss how to get a drug price reduction into the reconciliation bill.
Does that make Kelly a liberal and Sinema a moderate? I think not.

So, what do we call these non-moderate moderates who for reasons of
their own have broken ranks with their fellow Democrats and President
Biden? How about OMT Democrats-Only Money Talks Democrats?

That works for most of them; I'm not sure it does justice, though, to
Joe Manchin, who increasingly seems a character of Dostoevskian
perversity. With each passing (or blocking) day, Manchin comes across as
a creature of steadily mounting rage against fellow legislators who
don't pay him sufficient obeisance, who fail to recognize that this is
really all about him. On one issue-paid family leave-he has
positioned himself as the sole but sufficient xxxxxx against making
sure that Americans in need, most particularly mothers of newborns and
sick children, must choose between work and parenting.

There's a term for this that is far more accurate than "moderate." The

**mot juste** for Manchin is "motherfucker."

~ HAROLD MEYERSON

Follow Harold Meyerson on Twitter

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