Talk Elections

He's raising money for Senator Collins

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/5/14/172838/568

Those of us who supported Lamont are extremely vindicated.

No, vindication would have been if the little nerd had actually won.

I think he means vindication in the form of being proven to be right about Lieberman.

Why is it that its the Dems that are screaming that Republicans should conpromise, but when one of their own actually takes it into practice, they accuse him of helping the uncompromising Republicans?

I don't recall a Democrat saying that Republicans should be raising money for Democrats...

Oh I know, but that wouldn't have been as funny.

Anyway, the way I see it, Lieberman was effectively kicked out of the Democratic Party, and yet is doing them a huuuge favor by actually allowing them to form a majority.  I see no problem if he decides he wants to support one of his friends and colleagues; who also happens to be a fellow moderate.

(Cue jfern with something along the lines of, "Collins is a batsh**t insane hard-right fascist, you f**king moron", or similar.)

lieberman is great.  my favorite senator.  cantwell is right up there too.

I do agree that probably at least some of it has to do with Lieberman getting kicked out, but then again there's always the chicken and the egg thing.  I don't exactly recall Lieberman doing anything whatsoever in an attempt to reconcile differences between himself and the Democratic Party.  Rather, he seemed to revel in the attention he got from those differences.

Well as you say, it's a chicken-and-egg argument.  Whether Lieberman would be raising money for Collins if he had or hadn't been kicked out is something we can only leave to speculation.

Plenty of people lose primaries. They tend to not run in the general election, anyways, let alone start fundraising for the other side. Losing a primary is no excuse. Plenty of people lose primaries, and they don't go crazy. Barack Obama even has the endorsement of the guy he lost a  primary to.

As for Senate incumbents defeated in primaries, I don't recall Bob Smith, Alan Dixon, Jacob Javits, Mike Gravel, or Ralph Yarborough raising money for the other party's candidates. No, Joe Lieberman has a lot of apoligists on this board. They are probabably perfectly happy that Democrats Yarborough and Gravel were defeated, since they were defeated from the right.

A Majority Leader McConnell is certainly better than a Majority Leader Reid.  One cannot blame Lieberman (an Independent who unwisely chose to caucus with the radical libdems) for raising money for a liberal colleague who he shares much in common with. 

Who cares what other people have done in other situations in the past?

Lieberman gave up any pretense of trying to be loyal to the Democratic Party after his primary defeat, and good for him.  I can't remember the number of times I've said that parties are pointless... but that's for another time.  And yet even though he lost any reason to remain loyal to his former party, he is still helping them hold power in the Senate.  That's quite a big gesture towards a group of people who formally shunned him.

But my point is: if he wants to help a friend and colleague in her re-election bid, then so be it.  He doesn't have to care what party she's in, because details like that are only important to the very same people who threw him out of their club in the first place.

OMG AN INVITE I WOULD LIKE!

Lieberman claimed he was an "Independent Democrat" who supported Democrats when he was running in the general election. I see that you support liars. Nice.

Show me a politician who doesn't tell any lies at all in order to get elected, and I'll show you my pet unicorn.  Don't be so naïve.

Believe it or not, I don't particularly like Lieberman, mainly because I firmly disagree with his stance on the war.  My support for him is limited to his independence and his increasing disdain for the Democratic Party.

Lieberman is one of the better Senators in the country.  But, sadly, he has put himself in a position where he only has 5 years 8 months left as a Senator.  There is no way, at least right now, that he will win re-election in 2012 should he decide to run.

I hope he doesn't switch parties, but if he does, more power to him.  He would be good in either party.  I personally like Majority Leader Reid, however.  Of course, I'm speaking as a Democrat.  Majority Leader Frist didn't do anything whatsoever, so I'm not too sure Majority Leader McConnell would do anything either.  Remember, McConnell was Frist's Whip and was part of the "do-nothing" Congress.

Technically, Mitch McConnell should be Majority Leader right now, as there are the count is actually 49-49-2.  The 2 independents are just caucusing with the Democrats, but its actually a tie in the Senate and thus should either have McConnell as Majority Leader or a Co-Majority and no-Minority.  Oh Well.

I don't think President Bush has really lost the Senate, as that is a razor thin majority by the Democrats and Vice President Cheney is still a major factor of the Senate and thus can break any ties.

Being able to set the legislative agenda and wielding majorities in the committees adds a great deal more to what's at stake than just a simple numbers game.

Given that the Senate has gone from supporting everything the president wants pre-2006 to now opposing basically everything the president wants post-2006, I don't think Bush would agree with you.

He'll be 70 (I think) in 2012 plus I think if a moderate GOP is elected in '08, Lieberman probably will get a cabinet position (ie: Defense).

I say we urge him to switch parties after he pick up more Senate seats in 2008. Lieberman might have the biggest ego in Washington, and is surely one of the slimiest politicans.

No way he would get reelected as a Republican.

We need more politicians like Lieberman who are not afraid to stand up to partisan politics. Though I disagree with his positions, I feel that Liebrman is a good guy, and should be rewarded for being willing to stand up to a primary challenge from the left. I wish Lieberman wouldn't caucus with the Democrats, though, and would instead opt out of caucusing with either party. I hope he seeks reelection as an independent, but I doubt he will. :(

Maybe I'm just cynical, but I really doubt that Lieberman actually cares about partisan politics.  I've always kind of felt that he just knows very well that it will get him orders of magnitude more media coverage to be an independent Democrat who reminds everyone at every opportunity that he can stop supporting the Democrats when he feels like it instead of simply being a largely unnoticed Democratic senator.  Same with Hagel, although he's still a Republican in terms of party affiliation.

Lieberman is an attention-starved egomaniac above all else. 

Agreed, I think he will be in the cabinet of whoever wins in 2008.

Connecticut might as well have only one Senator then.  No caucus means no influence.

Lieberman needs to be kicked out for real after we expand our majority in the Senate in 2008. This is just absurd.

Question:  Would he be doing this if he had he won the Democratic Primary a year ago?

Then he'd be grandstanding with McCain in Iraq over the glorious victory and talking about how true Democrats support the war.

Losing a primary didn't make Lieberman a different person, he'd just be undermining the party in slightly more subtle ways. Do you see Mike Gravel or other former Senators who lost a primary undermining their party? No. Only Traitor Joe is.

I think he would

Democrats kicked Lieberman out of their party, and he's supposed to stay loyal to them?

Exactly.

 He had quite a bit of endorsments behind him from his fellow democrats, and they ditched him the moment he lost the primary. 

 Susan Collins endorsed him for re-election, and I'm glad he is endorsing her. The two of them work very well together, so of course he is going to want her to be re-elected. 

 Still, he does more than Dodd, who is busy running a losing campaign.

No one kicked Leibermann out of the party - he left of his own accord.  A traitor, not a deportee. 

You can't compare Joe Lieberman to Mike Gravel. The CT Dem Primary on 8/9/06 was part of a national effort by Democrats to get Lieberman out of the Senate. Lamont narrowly won, and due to disgust for the Democrats that ousted him out of the primary, he decided to run as an independent. It turned out that the Connecticut voters decided, and they chose classic Lieberman over the Democratic Party.

Exactly!

 People can say what they want about Lieberman, but the fact is that the PEOPLE of Connecticut chose to re-elect our U.S. Senator, and not the people of the Democrat party.

The question is though: Why should any Democrat now like Lieberman, or support him in any way whatsoever?

Who's saying they should? I'm just saying that the national Democrats abandoned Lieberman when they supported Lamont, not the other way around when Lieberman ran as an indy.

Yes, the national Democrats opted to support the Democratic nominee, not a third party candidate. What's wrong with that?

What changed about him after losing the primary, other than the fact that he would be an independent who would caucus with the democrats? What happened to make atleast 90% of his elected supporters switch their support to Lamont over him.

1. They were supporting Lamont before the primary
2. Is Lieberman a completely different person before losing the primary and after losing the primary?

Yes, obviously - he is definitely not the nominee of the Democratic Party.  He can still be a Democrat by not running.  By running as an independent he left the Democratic Party.  Its that simple.

So, he's a DICO (Democrat in Caucusing Only), what of it?  That's the way he sees things, and that's fine with me.  Its okay with me if he ever decides to join the Republican party.

Wrong. Almost all of them supported Lieberman during the primary.

We really need to strip him of his committee chairmanship when we gain more seats in 2008. Let him go to the Republicans.

I just really wish someone would propose legislation that would send Lieberman into orbit.

Lieberman's a liberal, he'll never "go with the Republicans."

He may do really annoying things like help Collins get reelected (I expect he'll tone it down if it looks like there's a chance she'll lose), but he'll never caucus with the Republicans.  He's just media whoring himself by implying that he might.

The only good thing about this whole situation is that I doubt Lieberman could win another election in Connecticut again after proving to be such a sleazy political opportunist. 

If he runs for re-election in 6 years, I'm sure he'll be re-elected. Who knows what will happen between now and than.

What I continue to find hilarious is that if Gore/Lieberman had won in 2000, Vice President Lieberman would most likely be the current frontrunner for the nomination next year.

It's funny that has one event occured, the entire timeline would be messed up. The Republicans would still control Congress, Chris Shays would be a Senator, Ned Lamont wouldn't be the liberal martyr that he is today, John Kerry would be a nobody, etc. etc.

At least the last one is the same.

Are you sure Shays would be a Senator?  Even if he replaced Lieberman then he would have had a tough time in 2006 and probably would have been defeated, given that he would represent all of Conecticut rather than his district.