Could Texas elect a Joe Manchin type Democrat

[smoltchanov]

I doubt. First - there are very few Democratic officeholders of that type in the whole country, even less - in Texas. Second - yes, "bleeding on the left" is likely, though i fail to understand why: such candidate would be preferrable to, say, Cruz-type (or Trump-type) candidate by miles in 99+% of all possible situations. But "left" would rather lose with "their" candidate, then win with a moderate... Idiots....

[smoltchanov]

If nothing else - such candidates (and their "mirrors" in Republican party) would return intrigue to US elections. Which are now as interesting as ... cactus in Mojave Desert (in fact - even less as there are different varieties of cactuses)  - almost all candidates have utterly predictable positions, and almost all elections are predictable too, as their results closely mirrors last presidenrial numbers. The only exception on high level i know now - Phil Scott, and when he retires - ... (no, even JBE is NOT a "conservative Democrat" in general, though he is a conservative on choice and few other selected issues). I mentioned many times, that i have on my booshelf the first edition of "The Almanac of American politics" (1971-1972). There was a time, when US politics was really interesting: you had not only Phil Byrton and Bella Abzug, but John Dowdy, Thomas Abernethy and Jim Eastland as Democratic candidates (whole political spectrum, and, btw, the Civil Rights issue was generally resolved by that time, so - almost no open racists), and looking on Republicans - not only James Utt, Paul Fannin and Barry Goldwater (who would pass for moderate now) - but Clifford Case, Jacob Javits and Charles Whalen too. You could get almost every pair of possible candidates in general election, including unheard now (like pro-choice Republican against pro-life Democrat). It's in that time i became seriously interested in US poliics. Now - no more: it's simply an old (50+ years) habit, with rare interesting "moments"....