Two Peas in a Pod.

It was reported earlier that Senate Republicans were courting Senator-elect Joe Manchin (D-WV) to switch parties. It was said that Manchin, while dedicated to remaining a Democrat for now, didn’t know what the future would hold if his party refused to change the way things were going in Washington.

But now it seems that those reports were wrong. Senate Republicans are denying that they ever pushed Manchin to switch sides, and in fact they finger Manchin’s people as the source of the rumors. Supposedly Manchin would seem even more conservative and less party-line, a benefit in anti-Obama West Virginia, if it appeared that Republicans were courting him.

Republican strategists said the report serves only Manchin, a conservative Democrat who faces the prospect of running for re-election in 2012 with President Barack Obama at the top of the ticket. Obama’s approval rating in West Virginia is around 30 percent. Manchin last week won a special election to serve the remaining two years of the late Sen. Robert Byrd’s (D) term.

That’s why the first 2012 press release from the NRSC paints Manchin as a typical Democrat, saying his first vote is likely to be for Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to continue as Majority Leader.

If Republicans are courting Manchin, well, they have a funny way of courting people. As Roll Call reports, the NRSC’s first 2012 press release attacked Manchin as just another Democrat who will inevitably vote for the Reid-Pelosi agenda. That would a funny way of convincing him to give them more power.

Republicans aren’t terribly interested in making peace with Manchin. He must run for re-election in just two years, and he’ll have Obama at the top of the Democratic ticket. West Virginians are, well, not happy with the president. And if Manchin ends up voting for the Obama-Pelosi agenda, his “independent” and “conservative” credentials disappear.

Republicans aren’t interested in peace with Manchin because they’re interested in beating him in just two years time. And they believe they can do it.