Editor’s Note: Charlie Dent is a former Republican congressman from Pennsylvania who served as chair of the House Ethics Committee from 2015 until 2017 and chair of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Military Construction, Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies from 2015 until 2018. He is a CNN political commentator. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion on CNN.

CNN  — 

The late Sen. John McCain of Arizona will forever be remembered for his personal and political courage. He was unafraid to deviate from the herd – even as members of his own party were screaming betrayal.

Charlie Dent

Who can forget McCain’s dramatic “thumbs down” moment on the US Senate floor when he put the final nail in the coffin of the Obamacare repeal legislation in 2017? One could argue Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia met his McCain moment Sunday, when he announced during an interview with Fox News host Bret Baier he would not support the Democrats’ bloated Build Back Better (BBB) social spending legislation.

Manchin knows, as McCain did in 2017, that durable, sustainable reforms require bipartisan consensus and compromise. Manchin demonstrated that commitment to bipartisan action as he led efforts to craft the recently enacted bipartisan infrastructure legislation. And Manchin has signaled for months his objections and reservations with the size and scope of the BBB proposal.

Manchin’s critics, like Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, took only minutes to excoriate him after the Baier interview with their own interview on CNN Jake Tapper’s “State of the Union.” Sanders said Manchin didn’t have “guts” and “courage” as he railed against his favorite hobbyhorses, the pharmaceutical and insurance companies. Pressley said Manchin “moved the goalpost” and “never negotiated in good faith.” In an eye-popping statement, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki piled on Manchin, citing “an inexplicable reversal in his position, and a breach of his commitments to the President…”

Well, well. Let me help explain the inexplicable. The truth is progressives, like Sanders and Pressley, have overreached and have completely misread the Biden mandate. Manchin has been forthright and transparent throughout these many months. He even sent a letter over the summer, which Senator Majority Leader Chuck Schumer signed, which outlined his principles, position and redlines.

For months, Manchin has stated he will not move to a number above $1.5 trillion and has raised policy objections on numerous items in BBB. In fact, Manchin highlighted and amplified well-founded complaints about the budgetary gimmicks and sleights of hand that significantly understate the price tag of BBB. Earlier this year, the Penn Wharton Budget Model estimated the actual cost of BBB — with realistic assumptions over the 10-year budget window and without the gimmicks — could cost up to $4.6 trillion if the spending and revenue provisions were to become permanent.

Manchin is the one dealing in reality; many of his critics are not. The far left wants it all and they want it now. Further, Manchin’s critics would like him to commit political suicide in West Virginia for an agenda that almost certainly does not speak to the deeply red voters of his home state.

Like Rep. Abigail Spanberger of Virginia said and Manchin knows, “nobody elected him [Biden] to be FDR; they elected him to be normal and stop the chaos.” Stated another way, Biden was elected as a transitional figure, not a transformational one. If voters wanted a transformational Biden presidency, they would have given him Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson’s congressional majorities, which they most assuredly did not. Manchin himself stated on Sept. 30, after repeated pressure from progressives, “I’ve never been a liberal in any way, shape or [form],” so if progressives want a bigger reconciliation bill, “elect more liberals.”

Manchin has been saying no to BBB for months – progressives just didn’t want to hear it. But they’d better hear this: Congressional Democrats need Manchin far more than he needs them, and they should think twice about recriminations against him if they hope to keep their very fragile Senate majority.

Get our free weekly newsletter

  • Join us on Twitter and Facebook

    Ultimately, BBB failing – at least this go round – is because Democrats went too big. Swing voters rewarded Biden and supported down ballot Republican candidates in 2020 to check, not enable, the excesses of the left wing of the Democratic Party. By telling Americans BBB won’t cost anything, Democrats insulted the sensibilities and intelligence of many of their swing voting constituents. What’s more, moderate House Democrats have been harmed politically by voting for a controversial bill in the House that was unable to pass the Senate. House Republicans made the same fateful mistake on the Obamacare replacement legislation in 2017 before McCain went thumbs down and killed it.

    The extremes on the far left and far right will never learn these hard lessons because they’re inconvenient, as political incentives command them to satisfy the most zealous elements of their party’s bases. Consensus and compromise be damned.

    Like McCain, Manchin is owed a debt of gratitude. Someone should pin a medal on his chest.