Several interesting threads running through
this article on the Lieberman situation.
1.) It's becoming clear that the idea of stripping Lieberman of his committee assignments is viable, although in a morphed form. There's been no discussion, to my knowledge, of making such a dramatic move in the run-up to the general election in November. Instead, the discussion is what happens after the general if Lieberman wins. And this is where things get very interesting.
There are a number of prominent Democrats who don't want Lieberman in charge of the Government Affairs Committee, because if they take over the Senate they want to go after the administration with all sorts of investigative probes, many or most of which would be under the auspices of the GAC. Lieberman is far too cozy with the White House on the issues that would be under investigation, and so those within the party who want to go after the Republicans are fretting that any investigations could be short circuited by Lieberman. This begs the question: if Lieberman had won the primary, would there be talk of stripping him of seniority
anyway because of his views? I think there would be...although in that event the Dems would not have had the crutch of Lieberman's Independent run to fall back on as a justification.
2.) Not all Democrats have abandoned Lieberman, but the number is small. Thomas Carper (DE), Ken Salazar (CO), Mark Pryor (AR), Ben Nelson (NE), and Daniel Inouye (HI). Of those, only Carper and Nelson are up for re-election this year, but Nebraska has already held its primary, and Carper is unopposed in Delaware. As a result, there is no way for the "netroots" left, like Daily Kos, to target them for their heresy of supporting Lieberman. In fact, if they tried to target Nelson in Nebraska, it would probably just hand him more support. He's insulated, in other words, for this year. The bigger question is how long the Kossites will remember this, and whether these candidates will face primary challengers in the future because of their refusal to get on the Lamont bandwagon.
3.) Strangely enough, the tactics of both Lieberman and his opponents are essentially the same: portray Lieberman as Republican-lite. For Lieberman, his best chance for getting votes is to take them from Republican Arthur Schlesinger, who is dead in the water, as well as moderates who view national security as a major issue. The recent polling suggests that that is a viable strategy, as he leads Lamont 46%-41%. So, I'm curious as to why Democrats feel it's smart to simply reinforce the message that Lieberman is a Republican? They're doing his dirty work for them. The make it more likely that Republicans in Connecticut abandon Schlesinger, and also boost his cred amongst the national security moderates. Maybe they feel that this election can be won by boosting turnout amongst the left, and that the way to do that is to portray Lieberman as a Republican. If so, I think that strategy is going to fail.
4.) If the masses had a common brain, I would be very suspicious of the early polling. Schlesinger is a horrid candidate that his own party would like to dump. Nevertheless, he was sitting at 15% before the latest poll came out, and then he dropped to 6%. I'm pretty sure that all 9 points went directly to Lieberman. Why is this suspicious? Because I guarantee you that it falls right into the hands of the RNC, who wants to convince the DNC that Lieberman is going to win so that money pours into Connecticut and stays out of Montana, Missouri, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee. So if Ken Mehlmen were able to direct his troops, I think this is exactly what he would want to have happen. That said, the masses don't have a common brain, and so this shift looks legitimate. That's bad news for the Democratic Party.
