In an interview with CNN, West Virginia Democrat senate candidate Gov. Joe Manchin worked to establish why he wouldn’t be a “rubber stamp for Obama,” if elected, as Republican candidate John Raese’s campaign has argued.

“I think in Washington there is an expanding entitlement mentality that we don’t adhere to in West Virginia,” Manchin said. He said that he supported a partial repeal of President Obama’s health-care bill and would work with Republicans to “repeal what we don’t like and what we don’t agree on, the far reaching things.” And unlike the president, Manchin wants all of the Bush tax cuts extended.

Manchin is facing an unexpectedly tough race. While Manchin remains popular in West Virginia, Obama continues to be deeply unpopular — and that’s significantly hurting Manchin’s campaign.

But Manchin will be receiving some help from the AFL-CIO this week. Politico’s Morning Score reports that, as part of a three million mailers blitz, the group will send out flyers attacking Raese as “anti-union, anti-middle class, and out of touch,” based on his statement that “‘I made my money the old-fashioned way. I inherited it.’”

The mailer also blasts Raese for “criticizing U.S. steel tariffs,” opposing the stimulus bill, and saying, after the April mine explosion that killed 25 workers, that he wanted to “unshackle” coal mine management.

Meanwhile, conservative PAC group American Crossroads has announced an aggressive plan to get out the vote in West Virginia. Saying that they will target “high, medium and low propensity Republican voters, as well as high propensity independent voters,” the group plans to “use enhanced voter files and data on absentee ballot and early voting patterns to deliver absentee ballot mailers with chase calls, early voting notifications by mail and phone calls, and a 72-hour mail and phone call blitz prior to Election Day.”