January 31 ended the last fundraising quarter and if you look around, you can find how our state politicians did. While our local papers focused on McKinley's and Mooney's fundraising efforts, they ignored West Virginia's senior senator, Joe Manchin. From other sources, however, you will find that Senator Joe did very well in fundraising last quarter and last year.

Today's Charleston Gazette-Mail's front-page headlined Manchin's take:

Manchin hit $6.71M in '21

It began:

Being arguably the most powerful person in Washington, D.C., was a lucrative position for Sen. Joe Manchin in the final months of 2021.

Manchin’s campaign committee hauled in a net $1.54 million over the final three months of 2021, a time frame in which Manchin, D-W.Va., drew the national spotlight for withholding support for — and ultimately opposing — a Democrat social safety and climate spending bill requiring Manchin’s backing to pass in the evenly divided Senate.

Manchin for West Virginia, the senior senator’s campaign committee, finished 2021 with $6.71 million on hand, nearly three times the $2.46 million with which it ended 2020, according to a campaign finance report filed Saturday.

And our senator is way ahead of where he was six years ago:

Manchin’s campaign committee has raised $5.29 million this election cycle, more than the $4.63 million it had raised at this point in the 2017-18 election cycle, when Manchin was running for a second full Senate term.

Forbes looked at Manchin's billionaire donors:

Billionaires are lining up to give money to Sen. Joe Manchin, the West Virginia Democrat who has helped curtail much of his party and Joe Biden’s agenda over the last year. Manchin has now collected campaign contributions from at least 25 billionaires, including a half-dozen who gave for the first time in the second half of 2021, according to a Federal Election Commission filing released Saturday.

Notably, at least 10 billionaires who previously supported Donald Trump have given money to Manchin since the former president left office. Among them: Apollo private equity CEO Marc Rowan, real estate tycoon Richard LeFrak and investor Ken Langone.

“I’m going to have one of the biggest fundraisers I’ve ever had for him,” Langone told CNBC in November, one month before making his first contribution to Manchin. “He’s special. He’s precious. He’s a great American.”

(Note -- Langone is the co-founder of Home Depot.)

There's more:

Billionaire Peter Thiel, star Serena Williams and Senator Joe Manchin are assembling in Florida with other tycoons, celebrities and politicians for the event https://t.co/SiuusFu1Fc

— Bloomberg Wealth (@wealth) February 2, 2022

I especially liked this response:

Joe Manchin should be required to wear this chart on a shirt every time he votes on legislation. pic.twitter.com/oy6vLuwy2c

— Institute for Policy Studies (@IPS_DC) January 31, 2022

Yes, he's "special" and he cares about West Virginians. Just ask him.