Democrat Senator (for now) Joe Manchin (D-WV) has said, in an interview that aired Wednesday, that he would consider a run for President if it would help the country. 

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) says that he would “absolutely” consider a presidential run, just a week after he said he wouldn’t seek reelection to the Senate. 

“Are you considering running for president?” NBC’s “Meet the Press” host Kristen Welker asked Manchin in an interview aired Wednesday.

“I will do anything I can to help my country, and you’re saying, ‘Does that mean you would consider it?’ Absolutely. Every American should consider it if they’re in a position to help save the country,” Manchin said. 

The West Virginia Democrats stressed that he’s “totally, absolutely scared to death” of another White House term for former President Trump, who is the Republican Party’s front-runner by a wide margin. But Manchin also said he’s worried President Biden “has been pushed too far to the left.”

“I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure, to mobilize that moderate, sensible, commonsense middle,” he said.

Senator Manchin reiterated the possible run in an interview with CBS Mornings' Norah O'Donnell.

West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin says he is looking to the future after announcing he will not seek re-election next year.

In response to questions about a possible presidential run, he told @NorahODonnell, “I’m going to work right now to try to win the middle back.” pic.twitter.com/mNZzM2m3M2

— CBS Mornings (@CBSMornings) November 15, 2023

This statement comes only a week after his announcement that he would not seek re-election to the Senate.

Note that Joe Manchin isn't saying that he's the "only one" who can help the country; that would smack of hubris, and we all know that politicians in general all too easily fall into the character flaw of arrogant pride. It's to Manchin's credit that at least he didn't cross that line.

Even so, it's likely that Manchin will, in the end, eschew a run. It's likely instead that Senator Manchin's presidential ambitions will last, perhaps, until he discovers the lucrative speaking circuit. While he has built a career and salvaged a Senate seat in ever-more-red West Virginia up to this point based on his being vocally "centrist," he has not distinguished himself from other Democrats as much as he'd like to think; while he did (credibly) oppose Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY)'s attempt to amend the Senate dress code to accommodate a certain hoodie-wearing figure from Pennsylvania, he is also inexplicably on record as claiming that "Bidenomics" is only unpopular because of messaging, not because people's gasoline, grocery and home heating bills are skyrocketing.

When considering the 2024 POTUS election, what with Cornel West's coming at old Joe Biden from the left on the Green Party ticket and the independent run of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. homing in from... somewhere, a centrist appeal to the voters might have the Biden campaign in the position of the famous mule who starved to death between two bales of hay, being unable to decide which one to take a bite from first.

And that's not even counting what the Republicans will bring to the contest. At this point, it's tempting to throw up one's hands and say, "Why not? The more the merrier!"

What's interesting, of course, is Senator Manchin's claim to be "totally, absolutely scared to death" of a second Trump term. Histrionic much, Senator? Because if the stars swing towards another Trump administration, Donald Trump will once more be merely president, not king, not dictator. He can only act within his legal limits, and frantic hysteria in some quarters notwithstanding, he can only act within the limits of the Constitution.