Posted on 06/25/2006 7:25:55 PM PDT by LdSentinal
As Joe Lieberman was criss-crossing Connecticut last Friday, picking up endorsements from labor unions and being greeted with applause at diners, it seemed like nothing had changed for a man who has long been one of the state's most popular politicians. Then, in the small town of East Lyme, Joe Barry, a retired Vietnam veteran and local Democrat, literally got in Lieberman's face.
"Senator, that was the plan, to get rid of Saddam," Barry said, sitting with about 12 people in a senior center that Lieberman had stopped at. "We got rid of Saddam, now let's get out of there. What are we looking for, Vietnam, where 50,000 people died?" Lieberman calmly responded, "We have a plan," but Barry shot back, "Who has a plan?" "The United States Military, the United States Government," Lieberman said, naming General George Casey, who leads American forces in Iraq.
Lieberman was standing right in front of Barry, and as the discussion continued another minute, the burly veteran stood up face-to-face with the Senator to emphasize his point. "I'm not going to let it go," Barry said, adding, "I would love to see your plan." Lieberman didn't give any ground either. "I'm not for an open-ended [commitment] but I don't want to leave like that," he said, snapping his fingers. Barry can't even remember the name of Lieberman's opponent, but still he says that Lieberman's strong support for the war has left him unsure if he can vote for him. "I would probably vote for Donald Duck right now," Barry said.
A lot of Lieberman's once loyal constituents might join him. Barry is not the only frustrated Connecticut Democrat who doesn't like what he's hearing from Lieberman on the war. So it is that only six years after Lieberman was picked by the Democrats to be their vice-presidential nominee, he and his party could be headed for a divorce.
Lieberman is facing the toughest challenge he's had since wining his Senate seat in 1988, a Greenwich millionaire cable company executive named Ned Lamont who is tapping into an anger from both local and national Democrats at Lieberman for taking positions at odds with the Democrat orthodoxy. The liberal blogosphere has made defeating Lieberman one of its chief causes of 2006, poring in thousands of dollars to Lamont's campaign and constantly bashing Lieberman, especially for his fervent support of the Iraq War and standing as the strongest Democratic supporter of President Bush’s policies there. Even celebrity Democratic supporters, like George Soros and Barbra Streisand, have donated to Lamont's campaign.
"He's too likely to support the President, particularly on this war," Lamont told TIME. "It takes away from the Democratic voice." Polls show Lieberman's lead over Lamont, once more than 40 points, has shrunk to about 15, and Lamont is gaining more and more support. If he loses the primary, Lieberman is leaving open the possibility of running as an independent, in which case he would be able to rely on the support of moderates in both parties who are still in his camp. But that might alienate Democrats, who are the biggest force in this blue state. Susan Voigt, head of the Democrat committee in Lieberman’s hometown of New Haven, said she would have to reconsider her support of Lieberman if he ran as an independent.
It's extremely difficult to defeat any incumbent, especially an 18-year veteran like Lieberman, but many forces are in place to do just that. Some liberal Democrats in Connecticut have long been frustrated by Lieberman's centrism. When he ran for President in 2004, Lieberman supporters at the time complained that Democrats in his home state wouldn't make the short trip to New Hampshire to work on his behalf. And that opposition began to build early in 2005. Many local Democrats were furious about Lieberman's support of Bush's nominations of Condoleezza Rice and Alberto Gonzales to cabinet posts and his seemingly constant willingness to compromise with the GOP on many issues — such as helping President Bush get some of his conservative judicial nominees confirmed after they had been filibustered by Democrats.
Connecticut party officials were particularly incensed when President Bush kissed Lieberman on the cheek following his 2005 State of the Union address. In meetings with state Dems, Lieberman tried to assuage their concerns, but also kept reminding party officials he had a 70% approval rating. Even so, the attacks on the kiss became so vocal that an exasperated Lieberman told one group of Democrats "I didn't kiss him back," a response that didn't exactly hearten them. (The incident has become so radioactive that Lieberman now denies Bush actually kissed him, telling TIME last week "I don't think he kissed me, he leaned over and gave me a hug and said ‘thank you for being a patriotic American.")
But it's Lieberman's statements on the war that have most infuriated both local and national Democrats. With his public backing of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his statement last December that Democrats should be careful about partisan attacks on Bush because "in matters of war, we undermine presidential credibility at our nation's peril," Lieberman has galvanized the left at a time when it's eager to flex its political muscle by attacking Democrats who don't tow the party line. A site in Connecticut called myleftnutmeg.com, run by a 61-year-old named Kelly Monaghan, who actually attended Yale with Lieberman, has become the Daily Kos of the state, providing video and links to everything the Senator does wrong.
Some Democrats who favor Lieberman even asked Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid to tell the bloggers, who love Reid, to dial down their attacks on Lieberman. Reid, realizing the blogs won’t relent on this race, declined to even try. And the influential Democratic activist group Moveon.org has started encouraging its supporters to back Lamont, ignoring pleas from Senate Democratic leaders in Washington to stay out of the race.
Lieberman, of course, also has powerful backers. Reid, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have all spoken or written letters encouraging Democrats to back him. He said Joe Biden, another Democratic foreign policy hawk and a likely 2008 presidential contender, will come to the state and campaign for him. And Lamont says as recently a few weeks ago, even as he was investing hundreds of thousands of dollars into his campaign, Charles Schumer, the head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, asked him to drop out. Schumer has told colleagues he thinks that if Lieberman lost the primary, it would send a bad signal to moderate voters and might hurt the party's chances of winning Senate seats in places like Montana and Missouri in November.
Along with the bloggers and local Democrats, Lieberman faces another dangerous opponent in Lamont. He's a wealthy upstart in a primary, which tend to draw low turnouts — and the people most motivated to vote may be those angry at Lieberman. To try to counter that and turn out more voters for himself, the moderate Dem is spending a lot of time courting labor unions. Still, "the only people who seem to know when the primary is are the Lamont people," says John Droney, a former state party chair and Lieberman ally.
Most challengers without name recognition are simply drowned out by the huge campaign coffers of incumbents, and Lamont won't have this problem. Worth in excess of $90 million, he has already invested more than $1.5 million of his own money, much of which has paid for radio and TV ads; Lamont says he'll start airing a bio ad this week introducing himself to voters.
Lieberman, as savvy a political pro as there is, hopes to make sure that media saturation doesn't do its job of raising Lamont's profile. In a full day of campaigning last week, he talked about his inexperienced, uninformed "opponent" without ever uttering his actual name.
Lieberman does have one thing going for him: Lamont is not a particularly charismatic or compelling candidate. As he spoke in New Haven at a book signing for the Democratic activist David Sirota last week, he looked the part of a politician, with his carefully cropped hair, blue tie and a light, folksy manner. But he seemed almost reluctant to answer the policy questions people asked him, at one point being so deferential in suggesting Sirota answer a question that a person in the crowd declared he wanted "the candidate" to respond.
Other than his opposition to Lieberman's war support, Lamont doesn't have much of a campaign platform: his stump speech is largely devoid of anything beyond the jobs, health care, and education boilerplate that Democratic candidates always offer. And even on Iraq, his views seem less than defined. Last week, as Lieberman announced he would oppose two different Democratic resolutions in the Senate — one that called for troop withdrawal by July 2007 and another that called for a gradual withdrawal starting this year — Lamont told TIME he would have supported the proposal for troop withdrawal by July, while his campaign manager Tom Swan told the Hartford Courant the same evening that Lamont would have not supported that bill. (The campaign now says Lamont supports a withdrawal by next July)
But this race is not so much Lamont's to win as it is Lieberman's to lose. On the trail, Lieberman is trying to get voters to look beyond the war, touting his liberal voting record on such issues on the environment and health care and his effectiveness as a Senator in bringing pork back to his home state. He's hoping to use a July 6 debate between the two candidates to talk about something other than the war.
That won't be easy, since this year's election is all about the Iraq War — particularly this race, which is why Lieberman says his Democratic colleagues urged him to vote against the withdrawal resolutions so he would at least have a consistent position. "A few of them said to me, I don't agree with you, but you're doing the right thing," Lieberman told TIME. "The last thing you want to do is change your position in the middle of a primary."
That may be true, especially since Democratic activists are always calling on their party's politicians to stand up for what they believe in no matter what the polls say. The question in this particular high-stakes case is whether Democrats like Joe Barry will ultimately reward Lieberman for sticking to his convictions — or hand down a harsh political punishment.
Bump!
Hannity likes Lieberman and he supports the war. Of course Repubs want him to win over a lefty dem. I will not forget that the was an integral part of the dem conspiracy to steal the 2000 election.
Lieberman ping.
Joe Lieberman is fighting for his Political Life because the left is unpatriotic and anti-American at best. There is no other explanation for going beyond dissent into treason as the some lefty Journalist have done all to a big round of applause from Democrats all over.
As good as Lieberman is on the war - and on Israel - he's a doctrinaire liberal Democrat on everything else. I'd almost like to see Ned Lamont (whom I know and am not impressed by) beat Lieberman, so the rest of the country can see how looney the Dems really are. If Lieberman ran as an independent, I think he'd win the general election since the Republican candidate is a nonentity.
Heh, heh. You lie down with dogs, you wake up with fleas. Something like that.
Like most U.S. Senators, Lieberman is an abject nothing. He forever established himself as a flaming @sshole when he became a vocal apologist for Bill Clinton during the impeachment episode of 1998-99.
(Denny Crane: "Every one should carry a gun strapped to their waist. We need more - not less guns.")
He's voted ONCE on the side of republicans. I could give a lick what happens to him.
I have to laugh when I hear Lamont ads saying lieberman is a lapdog for the Bush-Cheney administration. If it weren't so stupid it would be funny. but the Sheehan-Murtha-RFK Jr consipracy nut anti war wing of the party believes it.
Couldn't care less what happens to lieberman. Too little, too late, Joe!
Compared to most libs, Lieberman is great. The best scenario would be for to run as an independent in November. This would severely split the democrat's vote, possibly allowing the republican to win.
It sure does explain why he's in such a tough re-election battle. The left wing of the Democrat Party doesn't like him, and most conservatives aren't going to go out on a limb for him, either.
A Lieberman loss in the primaries would be great, since the event would symbolize how radical the Democrats have become.
I'm so sick of these Democrats comparing this war to the one their party got us into in Vietnam.
Oh that is sweet after Lieberman, after giving Hollywood a tough time, ran there for donations the minute Algore picked him up for VP.
I always found it odd that somebody who claims to be "devout" could support partial birth abortion or any form of abortion for that matter. It proves that the Democratic party is the party of NARAL. On that, they have been consistent: and they will never, ever, ever change their pro abortion party plank. They have totally gone off the deep end. And, on the whole, they can't stand the military. Remember Bill Clinton's famous line, "I have always loathed the military"? Not the party of my parents, not the cold war party that they used to be. Vietnam and the hippies did them in and they never recovered from it. Lieberman pales in comparison to a Hubert Humphrey. However, he is about the best the Demos have and that says a lot about them.
(Denny Crane: "Every one should carry a gun strapped to their waist. We need more - not less guns.")
Connecticut is such an odd state. It has the trashy hoipaloi from Greenwich (as in the Martha Moxley/Skakel murder) and towns like Bridgeport and New Haven. They also keep reelecting the atrocious Chris Dodd, who used to pin waitresses on tables with Ted "Orca the Whale" Kennedy.
Bump
In many respects, Joe Lieberman is as good a Demonrat as we are ever likely to see, and in the absence of a decent Republican candidate, I could even be persuaded to support him (may the good Lord never place me in such a position!).
That being said, the thing that kills me about this article and many others like it is the way that the MSM use this race to continue to flog voters with the "anything resembling support for the Iraq war" template is BAD BAD BAD. I am so sick and tired of hearing this mantra. It's like watching the movie Groundhog Day.
Ann Coulter has also been stirring this pot, endorsing Lieberman this week. This naturally was seen by the Kos kids as if President Bush had tongue-kissed Lieberman instead of the peck on the cheek.
People think this race is close because it has not come to election yet. Come Primary Day, the nutroots support will vaporize, just like it always does. Kos is 0 for 22. There is no reason to think his losing streak is going to end here.
Is there a feasible republican in this race?
We know where Lieberman stands in terms of politics. The lefts even despise where Lieberman stands!!! You got to know where the political left are... They're just way off the planet :)
No matter how much we think the pubbies conservative are, the DEMs are definitely not a serious party during the WOT.
It is revelatory of this guy's total lack of conscience that he brags about his record on "women's rights" and that he rated a 95 percent pro-abortion voting record, when calculated Lieberman got into the Senate on the backs of the unborn.
Here's a few more reminders about the self-styled "Conscience of the Senate"
EXHIBIT ONE: LIEberman's biggest scam was getting into the Senate on the backs of the unborn. This craven individual, Lieberman, ruthlessly used the unborn to get into office. As a 1988 Senate candidate, Lieberman made many, many pro-life pledges to Connecticut Catholic leaders as Atty General running for pro-abort Sen Weicker's seat. Based on a Lieberman poll indicating pro-life votes were there for the taking, Lieberman courted Catholics, and made pro-life promises that he had no intention of keeping. Lieberman got into the Senate----with pro-life votes. Once in office, Lieberman turned tail and became an unwavering abortion rights supporter, voting consistently pro-abortion, and even voting to uphold partial-birth abortion on six separate occasions. The Ntl Right to Life Committee has meeting notes of candidate Lieberman's calculated, phony pro-life pledges.
EXHIBIT TWO: Lieberman and ex-Reagan Edu Secy Bill Bennett would give out "Silver Sewer Awards" to express opposition to Hollywood's salacious, sexually explicit and violent music, TV and movie output. Then when Lieberman became Gore's running mate, he went to Hollywood on bended knee, in obeisance to the moguls, promising to strengthen Hollywood's ultra-liberal control over America, in exchange for votes and campaign financing.
EXHIBIT THREE: Lieberman's a dedicated gun-grabber - as his voting record clearly shows.
EXHIBIT FOUR: Lieberman famously went on and on during impeachment hearings about Bill Clinton's sexual conduct, but refused to cast his vote against Clinton when it counted.
EXHIBIT FIVE: Lawmakers With Relatives on Payroll By The Associated Press Wednesday, April 13, 2005 ----Connecticut Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman: Son Matthew received about $34,000 and daughter Rebecca about $36,000 for working on the senator's 2004 presidential campaign.
EXHIBIT SIX: LIEberman was so "supportive" of the US military that he was willing to become vice-president by NOT counting Florida's military vote. The man is not fit to have anything to do with the US military.
40 posted on 05/27/2006 9:55:19 AM EDT by Liz (The US Constitution is intended to protect the people from the government.)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1639277/posts?page=40#40
"...If he loses the primary, Lieberman is leaving open the possibility of running as an independent,..."
This scenario is excellent. Split the rat vote.
Me too, then, if the Republican doesn't win, Joe to win as an independent.
I remember my dad agonizing over the 1968 election and finally voting for Nixon. He said it was his first ever Republican vote. I'm pretty sure that had he lived to see Carter, Clinton, Gore and Kerry he would have become a Republican!
Does everything have to be profane with Lefties?
-PJ
I suspect Lieberman would win as an independent. For him, it would be perfect. He could then caucus with Republicans (he'd be no worse than Chafee and even though he's liberal, he is at least smarter than shoe leather -- not true of Chafee) so he could get a chairmanship, even if only of a subcommittee.
That must be a crime in demoncratland
Surely you didn't expect him to just say that they lost and bow out right away.. (Who knows maybe the fact that he was potential Veep had something to do with it)
"Does everything have to be profane with Lefties?"
When your psychological growth stunts in fourth grade, then yes.
The anti-Semitic and anti-American moonbats really have it in for poor Joe.
Hopefully, the "Kos kids" will be in full meltdown soon as it becomes apparent that the site is just part of the Democrat's Culture of Corruption. (PJ-Comix has been doing a great job of covering this story on FR.)
FEC LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS TO:
FRIENDS OF JOE LIEBERMAN PO BOX 231294
STATE HOUSE SQUARE, Connecticut 06123
http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:l_98fBVuEXYJ:herndon1.sdrdc.com/cgi-bin/com_ind/C00235515/U-Z/
Politically speaking, a Lieberman loss would definitively be a point of positivity for the GOP, and a definite setback for the Clintons who are staking out the centre for their run in 08.
But for the general good of the country, Sen. Lieberman should win. For all of his defects and leftist ideology, at least Joe is rooting for the nation to win the WOT.
That's big of him.
We're going to get another RINO out of this one. The Dems are moving left so fast that they are taking the Republican Party with them "big tent" style.
I don't know how big of him it is, but at least it demonstrates a modicum of sanity, which i think is useful for those in political life and is desperately in short supply among the dems.
Lieberman is a liberal, but he isn't unpatriotic and un-Amercian, and THAT is the reason Democrats hate him.
what is funny is i saw a poll where he is beating his opponent by a large margin (i think it was like 17 points).
Um, how is this fighting for your political life?
I think its hype from the left in the msm to make sure that the dems are nothing but a hard core left group.
yeah, remember when the N Vietnamese blew up the Empire State Building....apples and oranges...I used to be a Dem, now I despise them.
Joe Libermann is one the last of the last old fashioned Democrats who actually put the country ahead of partisan politics. The radical libs running the DNC will see him excommunicated from his own party.
Joe Lieberman is fighting for his life because he is a principled member of a political party whose leadership belongs in a banana republic.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.