Kansas GOP calls Sen. Joe Manchin their bipartisan hero

he Kansas GOP has a history of being seen as credible brokers of moderate proposals. After all, Sen. Roger Marshall was one of only six senators to refuse to certify President Joe Biden, and their state legislature has just spent months debating anti-transgender legislation and anti-science COVID-19 legislation as high priority.

Kansas Republicans chose Kris Kobach to serve as secretary of state and then as their nominee for governor. Now he may be seeking a position as state attorney general. When you're looking for a party that knows something about bipartisanship, why, the Kansas GOP is a beacon held high, guiding troubled ships to shore.

From the Kansas Reflector:

U.S. Rep. Ron Estes, the Republican 4^th District representative, said the Democratic takeover was accompanied by a couple months of "hatefulness" that has somewhat subsided.

He expressed optimism Republicans would retake the House in 2022 after redrawing of congressional district maps and with Democrats taking the historically inevitable mid-term election hit. In the meantime, he said, U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, a conservative Democrat from West Virginia, was the GOP's backstop in the divided Senate.
"The most powerful person in Washington, D.C., is a man named Joe. And it's Manchin, not Biden," Estes said.

You can spend all the time you want reading about the Democratic senator from West Virginia at Vox, but the short story is simple: He's not going to support big senate reforms, will likely stop a great deal of infrastructure work, and stands against voting rights reforms. That's enough to garner some Republican praise and catch some support for being bipartisan.

There's something great about finding a bipartisan compromise. In a recent argument, a friend and I argued about a house. They wanted to burn it down. I proposed we not burn it down. We were unable to reach a bipartisan compromise as their counterproposal was that we just burn down the garage. While that was certainly a compromise between the two positions, I just couldn't accept it. I recognizing the house would still be rendered permanently damaged and, well, we would be committing arson.

Oh well. Maybe Joe Manchin has a plan that just agrees to disenfranchise only the people Republicans want to disenfranchise and can call it bipartisan.

Or something.