okie wrote:nimh wrote:Or, let me put this another way Okie and just ask you straight up: who do you know of in the leadership of the Democratic Party that is supporting Ned Lamont?
The real question should be who is supporting Lieberman very enthusiastically?
You're dissembling. You clearly equated the Democratic leadership with the Progressives who are supporting Ned Lamont. In fact, noone in the leadership supports Lamont, so you were wildly off there. But instead, you now retreat to the position that they may be supporting Lieberman, but just not "very enthusiastically".
That is wholly subjective of course, and I'm sure you're seeing what you expect to see. But the fact is that many prominent Democrats have clearly expressed their support for Lieberman in the primary - notably, for example, Harry Reid, the Dems' Senate leader (not unimportant when citing the Democratic "leadership").
Quote:US Senator Harry Reid (D-NV), Minority Leader of the United States Senate.
"Let me be clear: as the leader of the Democratic Party in the United States Senate, I need Joe to be re-elected.
I can always count on Joe when our Party needs to stand up to the Republican Party. ...The United States needs his continued presence in the Senate, so we can work together for a better America."
That's from
the Lieberman campaign website's "Supporters" page.
In fact, Reid
asked Lamont not to run (says
Wiki).
Also on Lieberman's site, his fellow CT Senator Christopher Dodd simply states: "Democrats stand with Joe Lieberman!" And there's Hillary:
Quote:US Senator Hillary Clinton
"He has repeatedly led the fight against big oil companies that want to drill in the Artic, he has championed innovative alternative energy solutions and his bill to combat global warming is the most comprehensive that's been proposed."
That's fairly non-committal praise, but they could have cited from her recent letter:
Quote:"I've known Joe Lieberman for more than 30 years. I have been pleased to support him in his campaign for re-election, and hope that he is our party's nominee"
It be noted that Lamont's campaign website does not have an equivalent page.
The WaPo
wrote just this week:
Quote:Embattled Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman is getting a little help from his Senate friends as he tries to fend off an anti-Iraq war challenger in an intraparty fight.
Sens. Joe Biden of Delaware, Barbara Boxer of California and Ken Salazar of Colorado plan to campaign in Connecticut for Lieberman between now and the Aug. 8 primary. [..]
The rush of support from his Senate colleagues comes two days after Lieberman [..] surprised Democrats by announcing that he would start collecting signatures for an independent campaign if he loses the primary. [..]
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, have pledged support for Lieberman in the primary
They
would, of course - how would it be in the benefit of the national Democratic Party to have an "alternative" Dem candidate losing out against a newly independent Lieberman in November, right when they're making an all-out effort to wrest back control over the Senate?
The article also noted how the Lamont campaign actually presents itself as something of an insurrection
against the Democratic leadership as well:
Quote:"I'm not sure, in a year where people are fed up with Washington, having a bunch of Washington politicians travel the state for Joe Lieberman will help at all," said Lamont campaign manager Tom Swan. "It would only reinforce the idea that Joe is more about Washington than Connecticut."
Now, if Lieberman loses the primary and runs as an independent, then everything will be different of course. In that case the Democratic Party leaders will have little choice but to back the official Democratic candidate even if his name is Lamont, as Hillary has already promised to do. Hence the clear efforts of many of them to prevent this from happening in the first place...
Now, I acknowledge that both Gore and Kerry have declined to endorse Lieberman in the primary. But then, unlike Reid, neither actually represents the national leadership at the moment. More relevantly, neither supports Lamont either. Basically, your effort to portray "the leadership" of the Democrats as an embodiment of a Lamont kind of politics appears to be based on very little but personal prejudice.
It certainly flies in the face of how both the Lamont and Lieberman campaigns are presenting it, and of the mainstream take on things, in which - as the conservative London
Times put it - Lamont "may be an unlikely and unprepossessing figurehead of the new American left, but he is nonetheless giving the Democratic Party establishment palpitations this summer."
