How Democrats Fumbled the Voting Rights Debate

Dan Pfeiffer: “It’s now abundantly clear there was never a plan to do either. In fairness, Manchin was incredibly vague about the reasons for his opposition to the bill for a very long time. His only public comments were meaningless bromides about bipartisanship. Democratic Senators reportedly pressed him for more specifics. Until the other day, he offered nothing. But in the end, he suggested a reasonable, if unsatisfying, compromise that received the support of Stacey Abrams and Barack Obama.”

“Yet, the party was unable to coalesce around it and offer a unified front. The night before the vote, Democratic Senators were still openly debating strategy and discussing breaking the bill up into pieces — something that had been suggested weeks before. With just hours to go, there was still confusion about which version of the bill would be voted on. It is truly impossible to imagine why these problems were not anticipated and addressed long before the vote was scheduled.”