U.S. Senate candidate and three term U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., carries a glass of water and a cup of coffee into his Hartford, Conn., hotel suite Wednesday afternoon Aug. 9, 2006 to meet with a group of reporters. Lieberman filed to run for re-election in November as an independent, saying Wednesday it would be 'irresponsible and inconsistent with my principles' to quit. But Democratic leaders in Washington rallied around the man who beat him for the nomination, Ned Lamont. (AP Photo/Bob Child)Okay, I'm going to start off with a couple of Yahoo News stories regarding Ned Lamont's win over Joe Lieberman. The first is titled, Democrats abandon Lieberman, back Lamont:
HARTFORD, Conn.--Top Democrats on Capitol Hill abandoned Sen.
Joe Lieberman one by one Wednesday and threw their support to Ned Lamont, the anti-war challenger who defeated him in the primary. But Lieberman said his conscience demands that he run as an independent in November.
"I think it would be irresponsible and inconsistent with my principles if I were to just walk off the field," Lieberman said in an interview with The Associated Press a day after his loss to the political newcomer in a race that was considered an early referendum on the Iraq war.
Top Senate Democrats, including John Kerry and Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, Harry Reid of Nevada, Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey and Chuck Schumer of New York, said they supported Lamont as the duly elected choice of Connecticut's Democratic voters.
Reid and Schumer--the party's Senate leader, and the head of the Democratic Senate campaign committee--said: "The perception was that (Lieberman) was too close to
George Bush and this was, in many respects, a referendum on the president more than anything else. The results bode well for Democratic victories in November and our efforts to take the country in a new direction."
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton reiterated her pledge to back the winner of the primary. She stopped short of calling on Lieberman to quit the race but urged the senator to "search his conscience and decide what is best for Connecticut and for the Democratic Party."
The final returns from Tuesday's primary showed Lamont defeating Lieberman 52 percent to 48 percent.
Okay, so Ned Lamont had pretty much beat incumbent senator Joe Lieberman to run as the Democratic Party's U.S. senate race in Connecticut. And because Ned Lamont won the primary with a clear majority of Democratic voters, the Democratic Party's top leaders are now backing Lamont--even though they were clearly supporting Lieberman before Lamont's win. But that's politics. The Democratic Party establishment looked at the Connecticut returns, and realized that the Connecticut voters wanted serious change--call it change in the Democratic Party's policy on Iraq, change in economic policy, or even a change in static incumbents who refuse to listen to the American people. Say what you want, the American voters were craving some type of change. And they got the chance to make that change by voting out Joe Lieberman.
And the Democratic Party's leadership may finally be starting to listen.
The problem here is that Joe Lieberman is still not listening. And this comes to our second story, Lieberman files to run as independent:
HARTFORD, Conn.--Sen. Joe Lieberman filed to run for re-election in November as an independent, saying Wednesday it would be "irresponsible and inconsistent with my principles" to quit. But Democratic leaders in Washington rallied around the man who beat him for the nomination, Ned Lamont.
Early Wednesday, the Lieberman campaign delivered two boxes of petitions to the secretary of state's office, and aides said they contained more than enough signatures to qualify the three-term senator for the November ballot.
The move would set up a three-way race this fall among Lamont, Lieberman and Republican Alan Schlesinger, who has trailed far behind both Democrats in recent polls.
"I think it would be irresponsible and inconsistent with my principles if I were to just walk off the field," Lieberman said in an interview with The Associated Press.
Lieberman said he not bothered by losing the support of his Democratic peers, noting he lost Tuesday's primary even with their backing.
"In the end the people make up their own minds, and this is going to be a people's campaign," Lieberman said.
Excuse me Joe? Irresponsible and inconsistent with my principles if I were to just walk off the field? Uh, Joe, you didn't walk off the field--you were booted off the field by the Connecticut voters. They decided they didn't want you as their Democratic senator. You were too busy schmoozing with President Bush and the Republican Party, that you ignored your own Democratic Party's constituents. You were too busy supporting a failed war in Iraq, to even realize that both the Connecticut voters--and the American public--were changing their own opinions from unabashed support for the war, to asking how the U.S. can pull out. While you may represent both Democrats and Republicans in the state of Connecticut, your party affiliation is to the Democrats. So if you want to be re-elected as the Democratic senator, you had to tell the Connecticut voters why they should support you when you've ignored them for five years. Holy Joe--YOU LOST! And now you're crying about it like an immature four-year-old? What a sore loser you are Joe!
Get over it!
What is really ironic is how much support Lieberman is now getting from the Republicans. Consider this from the Yahoo story:
The Republicans called Lieberman's defeat a "shame."
"Joe Lieberman believed in a strong national defense, and for that, he was purged from his party. It is a sobering moment," Republican National chairman Ken Mehlman said.
First, it doesn't surprise me that we see the Republicans supporting Joe Lieberman now. By tacitly supporting Lieberman's running as an independent candidate, the Republicans are certainly hoping to split the Democratic vote between Lieberman and Lamont, thereby allowing Republican Alan Schlesinger to squeak out a win. That is about the only strategy the Republicans have to get Schlesinger into the Senate, but it can be a doozy of a strategy. Don't be too surprised if you start seeing big name Republican donors contributing to Lieberman's campaign, or a Karl Rovian bag of GOP dirty tricks pop up to not only attack Lamont, but to also support Lieberman. The Republicans want their man Schlesinger to win. Failing that, they would rather take a pro-Iraq-war, conservative "independent" Joe Lieberman as senator over that of Democrat Ned Lamont.
Now the real crap is going to hit the fans in Connecticut.
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