Snipe hunting with Joe Manchin
By 
At this point the question is whether he’s trying to fool other people or just himself:
Senate Republicans are finally coming to the table on elections reform. Sort of.
As Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) pursues a longshot bipartisan agreement, some Senate Republicans are engaging in preliminary discussions with him on the issue. Even though Senate Republicans have ruled out legislation Manchin and a group of Senate Democrats introduced last month, which amounted to an intraparty compromise on elections and ethics reform, that’s not stopping the West Virginia Democrat from frantically looking for GOP partners while a much-anticipated vote on the legislation remains on pause.
“I’ve been talking to him about some things that I could be for,” said Sen. Roy Blunt (Mo.), the top Republican on the Rules Committee. He listed a few areas he could back, including: “some ballot security ideas, an election advisory commission, [developing] standards that states would need to comply with to get federal funding in the future.”
Yet, the odds of Manchin’s engagement resulting in an agreement are slim, given the significant ideological gulf between the two parties on the issue.
Shorter Roy Blunt: “I would pretend to support some measures as long as they don’t actually increase access to the ballot, and then I won’t even support that.”
Shorter Joe Manchin: “Seems promising! The system works!”
It’s instructive that even Politico can’t really keep up the pose for more than a paragraph or two.