Independents everywhere might want to give more thought to signing on with one of the two major parties. CBS is reporting that Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman is considering running for re-election as an Independent.
“I have not foreclosed the option,” Lieberman said at a news conference at the Capitol. “If I wanted to run as an independent, I would. I’m running as a Democrat. I’ve been a Democrat all my life.”
Well, maybe not quite all his life.
I always wondered what Al Gore was thinking in 2000. It was bad enough to be stuck running against Bush. But to be running with Lieberman? Why?
“I feel very strongly the world is safer without Saddam Hussein in power. We have to complete the job in Iraq,” Lieberman said.
Are they sure Lieberman said that? I know I’ve heard every member of the Bush White House say it too.
Lieberman isn,t going down alone but plans to take the whole party with him. In a year when Democrats finally have a chance at gaining ground in both the Senate and the House, Joe is thinking of himself first, and staying in the race even if “his” party backs someone else.
Ned Lamont, a Democratic activist and anti-war candidate, is challenging Lieberman for the party’s nomination this year. He has been garnering support from some Connecticut Democrats dissatisfied with Lieberman’s stance on Iraq and his perceived closeness with President Bush’s administration…
Paul Streitz, who is seeking the Republican nomination, said he would gain if Lieberman is upended by Lamont and runs as an independent.
“A Republican would win, obviously,” he said. “It would split the Democratic vote.”
I bet Zell Miller is proud. Or jealous.
Most Democrats in Connecticut agree with Lamont not LIEberman. If Lamont wins the primary he wins the general election even if Crazy Joe runs as an independent. If LIEberman does that you simply paint him as a sore loser and a baby. Even those Dems and Indy’s who actually think LIEberman is similar to them (He’s not) would abandon him. Then given the choice between electing a person to oppose Bush and a locksteop republican, the Dem in Connecticut wins 2-1 minimum.
Conclusion — Don’t fall for the nonsense that Lamont can’t win the general. Lieberman and his lying ilk are simply promoting this propaganda to try and win the primary.
I think Trish has it right and I do hope she’s from CT and knows.
I really hope that Big Dave is right.
Hmmm. Maybe I’ll stop using the word “right” as it certainly has to have been co-opted by the wingnuts at some point already. I’ll use correct instead… I think Trish has CORRECTLY surmised the situation and I hope Big Dave has CORRECTLY foretold the appropriate resolution of shedding Joe the gratingly odd and nasally to stop selling out our civil rights and liberties. Just because he was placed in the position of running as a repug lite VP in that flawed DNC strategy of solidifying the substantial ethnic jewish vote with the only Eastern dude. What a waste!
Ya know, there is a certain arogancy in contemporary neocon fascism that is just such a drag on societial transcending the constantly cyclical bloody paradigms. Bet on there being lots more blood shed between wacked islamists and wacked evangelicals, both insisting they have “special” divine rights to tell others how to live their lives. Sheesh.
Religious zealots of any flavor always seem to grow out there and really become disgusting in their control freak mode which will always escalate into an expandingly spiraling sphere of social oppression until a hefty majority finally rise up and say enough is enough.
I think that is what drove the founding fathers to be so adamant about there being a legal line of separation of church and state. They would have been freshly knowledgeable of “The Inquisition,” “The Church of England” and our very own creepy Salem “witch hunts.” Is it any wonder they had the fresh wisdom to demand that line?
Oh Joe, tell me it ain’t true . . .
With Repugs scampering away from the Shrub, Joe gets closer to him than Jeff Gannon on a Saturday nite . . .
Why even consider running as an “Independent”? Joe, you are a common neocon Republican, so declare it and see what the voters say . . .
Lamont can and will stand for Democratic Ideals.
Let him run.
Leiberman will be Loserman.
Ole Joe reminds me of John McCain.
They sold their souls.
maybe Lieberman can run as a “dependent”–at least then he won’t be in denial.
As the lone independent on the Pensito staff (and not because I can’t make up my mind, as some have alleged), I feel it is my duty to defend my non-party. At the Independent National Convention, we will rally, not around Joe Lieberman, but around our independence. Let me assure you quivering Dems out there, he will not be chosen as our candidate for president in our primary.
Wait, we don’t have a primary or a convention, which means Lieberman doesn’t have a party. Unless it’s the Losertarian Party.
I was almost tempted to say I was almost tempted to join the Democratic Party to vote against Joe in the primary, but I ain’t nearly that desperate yet.
And Trish’s politicall insightitude hasn’t scared me that much — yet.
JOE IS APPEARING MORE LIKE ZELL EVERY DAY TRY’S PUNISHING THE PARTY WHEN EXPOSED AS CLOSET REPUG.TIME FOR HIM TO DON HIS ELEPHANT SUIT,IT’S ” A PERFECT FIT.”
I saw Joe at a fall 2000 campaign appearance, and he was a smooth and pleasant speaker who seemed to fire up the Jewish audience. Sometimes you really have to wonder about “the Lord above,” what with the election of that November delivering hundreds of Jewish votes in the retirement communities – people who had lived through the Nazi era, if not the death camps themselves! – to PAT BUCHANAN? a guy who (as many Irish commentators on both left and right do) says that “Hitler wasn’t so bad, the US should have stayed out of the European War. (I’m talking, of course, about Palm Beach County’s infamous “Butterfly Ballot” that year, a ballot that, through a perfect-storm of errors, put George Bush’s name directly opposite his punch-tab, but for some inexplicable reason, put the Gore-Lieberman ticket at a slight offset to the punch-tab, leaving even this construction-working political science college student feeling a little confused and apprehensive at the little polling machine.)
Sad to say, Choosing Joe Lieberman to be VP was just the final nail in the coffin of Al Gore’s candidacy. First of all, Gore choose Lieberman based on the so-called “MORALITY” issue – Lieberman was right out front bashing Clinton’s “morality” (or lack thereof) for having a girl on the side, and Gore, BUYING IN TO THE RIGHT WING talking points (aka “white collar lynch mob”), selected Lieberman as VP. WE SHOULD HAVE KNOWN SOMETHING WAS UP.. Lieberman REFUSED TO STEP ASIDE for his Conn. Senate race, while running for VP in the same election! A VP is SUPPOSED TO BE THE PIT BULL of a presidential candidate’s campaign.. a VP can make the attacks on the opponent’s character or record, and the pres. candidate can remain cheeful and “above the fray.” 2000 saw a reversal of or flipping over of that paradigm; while Cheney muttered sonorous soothing platitudes, Texas Gov. George W. Bush went around the country promising “a new, more bipartisan tone in Washington…. a Uniter, not Divider” WHILE IN THE SAME SPEECHES sneering at “Washington insiders.” Which is, of course, code for “tax and spend Democ-rats and their minority-seducing, budget-busting, morals-trashing agenda.”
All this is of course “old history,” but the fact is that Lieberman COMPOUNDED his ‘wishy-washy, refuse to drop the senate race to risk it all on VP race, REFUSE to CONFRONT the Bush-Cheney agenda’ (well on display in Gov. Bush’s SLASH SOCIAL PROGRAMS/TAX CUTS for Texas Billionaires agenda) campaign of 2000, by REFUSING TO STAND UP FOR FLORIDA VOTERS **DISENFRANCHISED** by the GOP’s deep pool of DIRTY TRICKS.
Oh yeah, and the above exposition doesn’t even mention Lieberman’s role in ROBBING Democrats of their BEST ISSUE in the 2002 mid-term elections: the opportunity to PAINT the Bush-Republicans as THE PARTY OF ENRON CORRUPTION. Enron (and Chairman Ken Lay) were, after all, no more and not less than the NUMBER ONE CAMPAIGN SUPPORTER of George W. Bush through BOTH of his Texas Governor’s races, his 2000 Republican primary, the 2000 general election, the 2000 vote-recount battle in Florida, AND the 2001 inaugueration balls. And George W. Bush had PERSONALLY SELECTED Enron Executive Thomas White.. only 3rd or 4th Enron exec. down the food chain from Lay and Jeff Skilling… TO BE THE SECRETARY OF the ARMY, overseeing “the PRIVATIZATION of Army functions for fun and profit. Can you say “HALLIBURTON PROVIDING UNFILTERED, CONTAMINATED DRINKING WATER to US servicemen and women in Iraq… with NO OVERSIGHT, PENALITIES, or accountability? JOE LIEBERMAN and Senate MAJORITY Leader Tom Daschle made the Republican’s midterm WINS possible, by throwing a WET BLANKET on the ENRON CORRUPTION investigations of 2002. (The Enron hearings came before Lieberman’s Govt. Affairs Committee, of which Lieberman was the Committee Chair, by dint of Vt. Senator Jim Jefford’s “defection” from the Republican Party,
Will the fates that saw concentration camp survivors vote for Pat Buchanan in November 2000… see once again the Democrats run a MUDDLED campaign AFRAID to point out the failures, flaws, distortions, diversions, distractions, commissions, and corruptions of the Republican Party, and selecting as candidates “leaders” who can’t get out of the way of their own shadow?
But how could Lieberman lose — he has JOEMENTUM!!!
Indeed….
I read on http://www.swingstateproject.com that Lieberman really can’t run as an independent if he loses the Democratic primary because he’d need to submit the signatures to get on the ballot the day after the primary.
Lieberman was a horrible Vice Presidential candidate.
I am from CT and I don’t know anyone who can stand LIEberman. We all want to see him go and we don’t care if the door DOES hit him in the ass on the way out. GET OUT of MY party LIEberman you corporatist fascist rich man.
Lieberman should run as an independant- it would split the Republican vote. If Lamont did a decent job if running his campaign (admittedly iffy as Dems seem to go)the Republican might come in third.