Lieberman switching parties

IF Lieberman were to switch to an indepndant and wins(as polls who him handily doing were he to run), what is the likelihood of him still caucusing with the Democrats? If the Democrats alienate him too much, there is the possibility he can switch to a Repug, maintain his seat in Connecticut and make it clost to completely impossible for the Democrats to gain back the Senate in 2006. A lot of people figure he's just just a DINO so we gotta just let him go, but that would definitely give the REpugs the Senate and keep anything good from getting done(Frist and Lott and those loonies-or many like him, bushbots, will still dominate the Senate).

As much as we may not like it, we need to court Lieberman's precense as a Democrat in the Senate or we are going to lose him to the Repugs(who will more than happily take him for assurance in maintaining the Senate) -probably as an independent as the Republicans did with Jeffords shortly after 00. How many of us care about winning the Senate and keeping Lieberman with the Dems?

I say toss him off the court in the primary, and then he can go work for Baker's firm. Let him go to the GOP...his sorry head is so far up Bush's ass already it makes no difference.

Pictures don't lie :)



Educate A Freeper - Flaunt Your Opinions!
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Geesch.

I for one, will not reward his bully tactics of threatening to leave the party. You don't negotiate with bullies. If he caucuses with the Republicans it will be on him and not on us.

The fact that he's even thinking about doing this is disgusting.

What's even more disgusting is that the usual suspects are curiously silent on Lieberman's threat to Nader the Senate race. I guess a conservative has special privileges.

screw the labels

my personal opinion is fuck joe lieberman

if he runs as an Indie in the GE. Lots of Indies understand the electoral process and will side with Lamont. Joe gets some of the R vote, some of the I vote, and some of the D vote. I don't think that overcomes a lot of D and I votes and some R votes for Lamont.

after this kind of talk and silent threats. He has maintained his seat by playing both sides of the fence. However, he forgot one thing. Both sides of the fence don't work in a primary.

I had respect for Lieberman. But when he supported every word that came out of *'s mouth, I lost respect for him.

As far as I am concerned, he can leave the party anytime. Don't let the screen door catch ya on the way out, Joe. He's nothing but a DINO anyway.
Ringo

Without him, we would only have 43 Democrats and we would have to work a whole frigginlot harder(even now) to recapture the Senate. That means no hearings, no grilling the * admin or the oil companies and no possibility whatsoeer at turning the country in the other direction if that happens. IF we have to put up with a few more conservative Democrats to get there, then so be it. We need to court him.

How could you possibly characterize his behaviour as that of a Democrat?

Even if the Democrats were to take the Senate, you can rest assured that Lieberman will never vote to impeach Bush or Cheney, and he will be AWOL on what you described as hearings, no grilling the * admin or the oil companies and no possibility whatsoeer at turning the country in the other direction if that happens.

he obviously is representing their interests, and if not they're just stupid. I do think that if he loses he just might get a chair up from the repubs. If he ran as a repub in the general, there is a good chance of him winning. Sure that creeps me out....but it's the residents of conneticut who will make that determination. Thankfully I live in a true blue area.

if you do, you reward their improper behavior. Do NOT make this threat worth Joe's while.

fat black ass.

:P

Let the voters of Connecticutt decide. If the Dems there don't want him anymore he should accept that fact. Threatening to bail on the Dem party if he doesn't win shows that he is NOT a loyal Dem. So he thinks he is intitled to the seat. Let the voters decide.

would have the support of the state party organization, plus the DNC. Not sure about that, but it seems like what would happen. 'Would love to hear from CT Dems on this.

From some time back Lieberman has realized that a strong challenge is underway. If his internal polling tells him that Ned Lamont has a shot at the August primary, I bet Joe jumps and runs as an Independent.

If he chose to run as a Republican, he'd have to defeat the GOP candidate in their primary, plus still face Lamont in November if he won.

For an incumbent to even be in that position is telling.

Does anybody have an idea who would win a 3-way race between Ind. Lieberman, Dem. Lamont, and the Rethug candidate?

work on his phone bank. I don't know if that question has been polled.

As to your other point, as you know the big city Dem mayors supported Joe with their state delegates at the convention. I can't speak for other cities, but New Haven's mayor, Dem.John DeStefano, who is running for governor, has a very liberal constituency. While DeStefano has heretofore been pro-Joe, I have to believe he will be just fine if Ned wins the Dem primary in August. I saw them both at the annual dinner of Planned Parenthood of CT last month (DeStefano spoke, Ned just worked the room during cocktail hour). DeStefano is a really smart politician (but in my opinion kinda cold). He'll see the value in jumping to Ned. Hartford, Bridgeport, New London and Waterbury are not so liberal. I'd love to hear about what's happening in their cities.

Good for you!

Any information you can offer about this race, we'd be glad to have it.

Very exciting what you're doing, and all good wishes, too.

We'll send good vibes.

CT is such a small state, I often wonder what people in the rest of the country think of us, if they ever do.

Personally, I feel that even if we fail, this is the beginning of the end (or maybe the middle of the end) for Joe. I feel sad when I recall the day that Al Gore named Joe his VP candidate and I felt proud because Joe lived only a few blocks away from me (he's now sold that house and I have no idea where he lives).

But I feel great about Ned. Some of my Planned Parenthood buddies down in Fairfield County are really rooting for Ned (along with Diane Farrell who is challenging Chris Shays). God, how I'd love to see Ned in the Senate and Diane in the House! She'd be great with my congresswoman, Rosa DeLauro.

I'll keep folks posted if anything comes up. I know Larkspur is also working hard on Ned's campaign (I met her at Ned's strategy session a few months ago here in New Haven). We'll get the word out to DU, along with several others here!

so Lieberman would not be in the Republican primary ballot. His only alternative is Independent.

According to the recent Q-poll, Lieberman would win handily over Lamont and the Repuke, but Lamont has a 24% name recognition rate and as that improves so will his numbers among Independents. Lieberman would split the Republican vote.

Lamont at the head of the Dem ticket would do more to help our 3 Congressional candidates than Lieberman, whose war stance hurts their chances of holding accountable the Repuke Congresscritters who voted for it. Republican Rep Chris Shays has already endorsed Lieberman and keeps telling his challenger, Diane Farrell, to talk to Liebeman if she opposes his war stance. But Shays public endorsement of Lieberman was not well received by his fellow Republicans.

Most of the posts in this thread don't respond to the OP's question, which asked whether Lieberman would caucus with the Democrats IF he ran as an independent. Now before any of you start flaming me, I'm not suggesting that Democrats should support Lieberman if he runs as an independent. QUite the contrary. I vote for Democrats and only Democrats. However, if the hypothetical posed by the OP were to come to pass, I'd be willing to bet that Lieberman would caucus with the Democrats, particularly if his vote gave the Democrats a tie or a majority in the Senate. His positions on environmental and women's issues, among others, are far too out of synch with the repubs for him to caucus with them, imo.

:sarcasm:

successfully by Lieberman and his "backers". His unfaithful behavior and disloyal threats have gotten to you. Who says terrorism doesn't work?

This election shows the very reason we, as Democrats, have lost every stinking election that has led to the loss of The White House, The Congress, The Supreme Court, and parts of the Constitution that we have held most dear. I say it's better to go down swinging than continue to live on our knees. It's bad enough we have Republican riding over us rough-shod every stinking day, but now we have a member of our own Party telling us we should elect him OR ELSE, and we are in a corner, cowering, again.

STOP THIS AT ONCE! Get up and fight for this Party oe it is dead in the water. The day we allow a DEMOCRAT to threaten us this way is a sign the end is near.

TC

Go Ned. We simply have to fight. Ned is one courageous guy to take this on. It was, and will be, a tough fight and he may lose. But those of us who signed on to his campaign very early knew that going in. No, I don't like losing causes but this is one place that damnit, I'm not giving an inch. If we lose, we lose, but I'd rather stand and fight than slink off into a corner and sulk.

You want to court the guy that will push REAL Democrats over a cliff? Honestly, that's like marrying the Night Stalker or OJ...:crazy:

As far as courting Lieberman, my soul is not for sale, not even for any so called "victory".

Go Lamont!

is because he knows a Republican doesn't stand a chance of winning a senate seat in Connecticut. If Lamont wins the primary, he will definetly win in November regardless of what Lieberman does.

IMO Lieberman long ago lost his liberal ideals and has became a professional senator; puffed up by his own vanity and sense of self-importance as he positioned himself as a conservative democrat and friend of GWB's and the republicans. In doing so he disregarded his constituents wishes too often and the fact that they have always elected him as a more moderate to liberal candidate and they don't like his support for so much of the conservative agenda.

Lieberman is telling us that he no longer values being a democrat or the democratic party, they are merely a stage for him to get what he wants and that is to stay elected. IMO Lieberman could easily jump to the republicans if he thought they would take him and he had a chance to get elected as such. He has few principles any more and is as repsonsible as anyone in Washington for the mess we find ourselves in now.

There is no evidence whatsoever that Joe Lieberman is planning to leave the party. None. Zero Nada.

Ned Lamont and his followers are perpetrating a smear in order to get votes.

By the way, any sensible person could tell you that the reason why Lieberman's spokesman said that they won't be supporting Lamont is because they don't believe it will ever come down to that.

I took a lot of heat in an earlier thread for my support of Joe Lieberman. I know that is a most unpopular position on these boards, but I stand by it. I believe that Democrats would be well served if Lieberman remains in the Senate. I don't agree with him on every issue, but as showed last week with his vote against FMA, he is a dependable vote on most socially progressive legislation. Yes, Lieberman is a conservative Democrat but he is no Ben Nelson or Zell Miller.

That said, I've paid a lot of attention to the talk of Lieberman running as an independent in the November election. I don't think he should do it. If Lieberman is serious about his fight to bring the Democratic Party closer to the "sensible center", then I think he should slug it out with Ned Lamont in the primary and allow this ideological battle to take place. If Lieberman loses, the people will have made their choice and he will have to accept that.

If Lieberman chooses to forego the primary and take his battle right to November, I will not support him. While I have concerns about Lamont, he hasn't done anything to demonstrate that he wouldn't be an effective Senator, and I would vote for him in a three way race with Lieberman and Schlesinger.

This race is about more than Joe Lieberman's hawkish stance vis a vis Iraq. It is a battle of ideas, and if Joe Lieberman is a serious Democratic politician he should not be afraid to take this battle to his fellow Democrats and let them decide. Especially since Lamont has gone on record as saying he will support Lieberman should he be renominated in August.

And couldn't have said it better myself.

Oh, and by the way- welcome to DU!! :hi:

If Joementum loses the primary, that means the majority of Dems don't want him, not, in fact, a "extremely small group."
Perhaps a course in how elections work might be in order.

June 13, 2006
Lieberman Allies Planning Independent Bid
http://politicalwire.com/archives/2006/06/13/lieberman_allies_planning_independent_bid.html

Political Wire has learned that key allies of Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) are making contingency plans for the three-term senator to run as an independent in this fall's U.S. Senate race in Connecticut. Lieberman faces a challenge in the Democratic primary from businessman Ned Lamont.

In fact, an important Lieberman backer, former Connecticut Democratic chairman John F. Droney Jr., is quoted by the Hartford Courant as a supporter of the plan: "I think to be terrorized through the summer by an extremely small group of the Democratic Party, much less the voting population, is total insanity for a person who is a three-term senator."

Though the Lieberman camp is trying to discourage such speculation, the senator's campaign manager was quoted on the radio today saying they would not back Lamont (D) if he won the Democratic primary.