Joe Lieberman has announced he may run as an independent if Ned Lamont beats him in the Connecticut primary. Mainly on account of policy differences over the Iraq war.
I guess that would make a beneficial difference in the ideological coherence of the Democratic Party, but what else does it portend?
What I find truly shocking is that Sen. Chuck Schumer, the head of the DSCC, refuses to pledge his support the winner of the Democratic primary in CT, whomever that may be. He reserves the right to support Joementum should he run as an independent, which I think is almost as disgraceful as Joementum’s vow to run as an independent should he lose the primary.
Hi. 
[ul]
[li]That the Democratic electorat in Connecticut is pretty much fed up with this particular DINO[/li][li]That Lieberman is more interested in keeping himself in the Senate than representing his constituents[/li][li]That Lieberman won’t put his money where his mouth is by simply changing to Republican[/li][/ul]
As to whether it reflects a liberal trend, I dunno.
The most disgusting part of this is that Lieberman could have been Vice-President, and now is willing to abandon his party for his personal purposes. Looks like my vote for Nader in 2000 was even better reasoned than I could have imagined.
Seriously? Can I have a cite, please? I simply cannot believe that. WTF?
Good riddance to bad rubbish, I say. I don’t think it’s smart for political parties to impose ideological purity tests on the membership, but ou have to be somewhere near the partie’s core values. Lieberman isn’t.
Can he legally do that in Connecticut?
Here in Minnesota, if you run in a party primary and lose, you can not then file to run as an independent. (Though you can always try a write-in candidacy.)
Seems obvioust that if you claim to be a Democrat for the primary, and then lose, you should not then be able to claim that you are now ‘independent’.
Lieberman’s wishy-washy “I’ll run as a Democrat unless I lose the primary, then I’m gonna go as an independent” says it all about whose interests he’s really defending – his own. 
I’ve heard it said that Lieberman looks set to lose the primaries, but would have a better chance at beating the Republican challanger than the new guy. Even as an independent he’d be very important, as independents are actually an importnat factor in CT.
Anyone better versed on CT politics than me care to refute or support that?
What I hope happens is that he gets his tush handed to him in the primaries then proceeds to run as an independent with the same result. Then I hope that the lesson learned is that being pro-war is a death sentence both in the primaries and in the general election. I’m getting tired of the corporate media spinning everything Bush’s way and that the Dems are going to get beaten up on terrorism. Bullfeathers! No matter what the media shills say, the only issue in 2006 and 2008 is going to be Iraq and perhaps the CT primary will be the first of many instances where long serving incumbents lose their seat over the war.
According to a Quinnipiac University poll, he’d win a three-way race between Lamont, Schlesinger (the Republican candidate) and Lieberman.
Unfortunately, yes. I agree it doesn’t make sense.
Connecticut’s got a lot of voters who aren’t affiliated with either party, but they’re mostly well to the left of the national GOP. Lotta Lowell Weicker Republicans and stuff. In an alternate universe where Lamont won the primary and Lieberman threw his support to Lamont, the chances of the GOP candidate’s winning would be almost as slim against Lamont as they would be against Lieberman as primary winner.
In a 3-way race, Lieberman’s polling well ahead now, but I think that’ll change a bit if Lamont wins the August 8 primary. If that happens, Lieberman will still be in the lead in late August, but I wouldn’t expect it to be an overwhelming lead anymore.
[QUOTE=Frank]
[li]That Lieberman is more interested in keeping himself in the Senate than representing his constituents[/li][/QUOTE]
I don’t think I follow this. It seems to be that it can be very well argued that Lieberman would be putting his constituents ahead of party labels. Which, regardless of my feelings about Lieberman, seems to be a good thing. Looking at a recent poll, it seems that Lieberman and Chris Dodd have identical approval ratings, though Lieberman’s negatives are a bit higher. And it seems that Lieberman has enjoyed pretty good approval ratings over the last year or so.
Now, I’m a pretty partisan guy, I suppose. Open-minded, I hope, but I squarely come down on the Democratic side a very large amount of the time. But as important as party is to politics, I say that the primary process in America is really broken. As Washington has gotten more partisan, I think that we’re increasingly seeing the exclusion of the middle in our primaries. Far from selecting someone who can do the job, primaries seem increasingly about feeding red meat to a political base. Look back at John McCain’s primary runs for president in 2000 and today: worlds of difference. Does it serve our country? I don’t think so.
It is certainly egotistical to think one’s service to one’s country is so important that one will run for a party nomination, and having not won it, instantly decide that party is no longer important, but that doesn’t change the fact that our primary election system is out of whack somehow.
Finally, on Joe Lieberman, I don’t like him. Iraq, of course, but don’t forget that he bears a substantial part of the responsibility for creating the disasterous Department of Homeland Security, and his push for this mistake cannot be divorced from its failings, such as FEMA’s incompetent response to Katrina. I don’t think I’d vote for Lieberman for these reasons more than his relationship with Bush or whatever other political reasons.
If his constituents want to keep him around, they can darn well vote for him. If his supporters aren’t interested enough in keeping him around to show up on Primary Day, or if a majority of those who care enough to do so think Lamont would better represent them, isn’t there only one realistic interpretation?
Lieberman could be making the case about how much he’s done for CTers and what he’ll do in the next term. Instead, he’s already planning to lose - just like he ran for reelection to the Senate at the same time he was running for VP. As he explained here, he’s more interested in Lamont’s ability to spend money than in actually making a case for himself - as if voters, his own employers, cannot be convinced, only bought. Hell of an implication there, Joe. :rolleyes:
In US electoral etiquette, losers accept the fact and drop out. They don’t stay in and sabotage their party’s candidate’s chances in the election that counts. There have been exceptions, when candidates have put their own interests ahead of the public’s (cf. Teddy Roosevelt 1912) but they’re rare.
If I remember correctly from either Fox News Sunday or Meet the Press, if Lieberman loses the primary, he then has 24 hours to get enough signatures on a petition (and it’s a pretty high number) to get his name printed on the ballot as an independent candidate.
Thank you, RTFirefly. And I read in this morning’s Denver Post that my Senator Salazar intends to support Lieberman even if he loses the primary. I’ll be writing a letter today.
[QUOTE=Frank]
[li]That Lieberman is more interested in keeping himself in the Senate than representing his constituents[/li][/quote]
I’ve got to go with what Ravenman said. Maybe what you meant, though, was that Lieberman is more interested in keeping himself in the Senate than representing his party.
Whether or not the primary system is seen as broken, per Ravenman, the fact is that the parties still have the right to choose their own candidates. However, what the Dem establishment is doing, by suggesting that they’d support Lieberman’s independent run if it comes to that, is saying the will of the party’s voters is merely advisory; the party insiders should make the actual selection of the nominee.
To say the obvious, that’s certainly not small-d democratic. And as someone who’s a Democrat because he’s a democrat, I’m rather unhappy with that. I don’t know if Dems can win better as centrists or liberals, but they damned sure can’t win as elitists - nor should they, IMHO.
Which reminds me, good on Hillary for saying she’d support the primary winner in the general election, period. I’m not much of a Hillary fan (calling her “the bride of triangulation,” which has been my nick for her for some months now, wasn’t intended as flattery), but she did the right thing here.
[And, on preview: bad on Salazar for going the other way. That’s even further than Schumer’s gone - at least Camera Chuck hasn’t committed either way on supporting Lieberman if Lamont wins the primary, which is bad enough; I think Salazar’s the first to say he’ll support Lieberman even if he loses. Thanks, Frank, for the update.]
To be fair, Lieberman’s voting record is on the whole much more Democratic than Republican. The problems with Lieberman are, basically:
I’m not, but if the Pub and Lamont and Lieberman are in the field, that would be a classic “vote-splitting” problem and would the same as handing the victory to the Pub. (Only way to get around that would be instant-runoff voting.)
Cite? (I assume by “he” you mean Lieberman.)
The Quinnipiac poll I mentioned gave Schlesinger only eight percent of the vote, so I very much doubt he will win even if Lieberman and Lamont split the vote.
Try this link. (It uses a link generator that’s designed for use on blogs. I’m curious if it works for those who are not registered on the NYTimes website and if it works after the article is more than a week old.)