RIPLEY, W.Va. — It was just one of hundreds of handshakes, a momentary truce before the battle that will escalate after the July Fourth recess.

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, the Republican nominee for Senate, stood patiently waiting Wednesday for Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin III to finish his conversation with a Gold Star mother.

Then he approached his opponent — the same man he would call a chameleon in an interview moments later — and extended a hand.

Both men were making the rounds at the staging area for the Ripley Fourth of July parade, which bills itself as the country’s “largest small town Independence Day celebration.” The town of 3,000 people is the county seat of Jackson County, where nearly 80 percent of voters backed President Donald Trump in 2016.

Their exchange was brief. The 100-degree heat was a natural icebreaker.