Sierra song wrote:
Lieberman's opposition seems to be from the radical left-wing Dems. The proof of this will be if he runs and wins as an independent.
END OF QUOTE
Exactly-
Soon we shall see. Since there are so many Independents in Connecticut, it is clear that in a three way race, Lieberman will win and the Democrats will then be licking their wounds.
Lieberman reports that if he is forced to run as an Independent and he does win, he WILL STILL CAUCUS WITH THE DEMOCRATS.
I love to have Democrats or even Independents like Lieberman in the Congress!
Finn d'Abuzz wrote:So the party is bigger than the candidates?
I haven't the vaguest idea what you mean. Without the Democratic Party and it's primaries, Lieberman would have never been elected to any office at all.
Are you saying. Keltic Wizard, that it would have been IMPOSSIBLE in the past for Senator Lieberman run as an Independent Candidate in a state where 49% of the voters list themselves as Independent?
When Lieberman wins the three way race as an Independent candidate in November, you will be shown to be very much mistaken!!!!
Finn d'Abuzz wrote:At least he announced he would do so in advance of the primary so that voters could make an informed decision. It certainly seems, based on the Democratic reaction on this thread, that by being upfront about his intentions, he lost himself quite a few primary votes.
That "analysis" is nonsense. Lieberman announced he would go independent if he loses the primary as a way to try to force Democrats to vote for him who otherwise would vote for Lamont. A Democrat who votes for Lamont now has to worry that if Lamont wins, he and Lieberman would split the Democratic vote and the Republican could sneak in.
The party supported him loyally all these years when the primaries worked in Lieberman's favor. Now that it looks like the primary might go against him, Lieberman is pulling stunts against the very party which made his political career possible.
I am very much afraid that Mr. Keltic Wizard is far far off the mark on his analysis of the Leiberman race in Conn.
Here is the take of someone who knows far more about the situation than the Koltic Wizard;
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July 26, 2006
Connecticut Quandary
By William F. Buckley
Every day there is a headline or feature on the Lieberman-Lamont primary contest in Connecticut, today's being that Lamont is in a dead heat with the incumbent, and that Bill Clinton has come to town to declare for Lieberman.
Here are thoughts for independent voters to consider, even if they don't speak these thoughts out loud.
(l) Conservative voters don't have very much to applaud in Lieberman. Yes, he has been faithful to his word in supporting the Iraq war. But his conservative impulses live very short lives. For a photogenic moment, he turned on Bill Clinton after the Lewinsky episode, registering dismay over what Clinton had been up to. The most decisive means for a Democratic senator to register that dismay was to vote to affirm the impeachment of Clinton. But Lieberman didn't do that. When the big moment came, he voted against conviction. Bill Clinton has now affirmed his own support for Lieberman by traveling to Connecticut to back him in the primary fight.
Lieberman intuitively questioned the implications of affirmative action. But when the vote came, he voted against the principles he had adumbrated. Lieberman sensed the strong case for school choice. But -- yes: When the time came, he opposed choice (although he has since supported school vouchers in Washington, D.C.). He opposes a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, opposes the ban on partial-birth abortions, voted against Samuel Alito for the Supreme Court, voted against drilling in the Arctic preserve -- and so on, earning a zero from the American Conservative Union.
(2) Conservatives can't, under the circumstances, make ideological headway by voting for Joe. But what will happen on Aug. 8 is enormously important nationwide for the future of the Democratic Party. The backing for Ned Lamont is by people, explicitly and implicitly, who wish to send the Democratic Party into a hard left turn. They are the equivalent of the Henry Wallaceites in 1948.
Wallace, having been rejected for renomination as vice president by FDR, turned against Harry Truman, his replacement, and bade for command of the Democratic Party. The Nedheads (as they are being designated) want to try that in 2006. For Wallace, the cardinal question was how to deal with the Soviet Union. For the Nedheads, it is how most deeply to reject the memory of George W. Bush and his works.
(3) The turnout in Connecticut primaries is pretty small, traditionally about 20 percent. This year the Democratic turnout will be larger, that primary being the focus of national interest and the harbinger of the future ideological cast of the Democratic Party.
Now here is a furtive thought. Everybody is concerned with what happens in Connecticut on Aug. 8, but only voters registered as Democrats can have a say in the matter.
Forty-nine percent of Connecticut's voters are unaffiliated-unregistered in the national parties. However, I (a Connecticut unaffiliated voter) could sign up as a Democrat as late as Aug. 7 and vote in the primary the next day. Christians trained in the Catholic discipline would think of such a sinful act as a lapsed moment, rather than as a defection -- on the order of a night out, as distinguished from a divorce. If a Connecticut conservative were spotted in flagrante emerging from the Democratic primary booth, he could plead that he was heeding calls to protect his country's future. He could even say, after catching his breath, "Hey. What is this? Iraq?"
If Mr. Lieberman is defeated in the primary, he will proceed to run as a "petitioning Democrat." Only a single name can be listed under the simple designation "Democrat." What we would then see, in November, is how Connecticut voters at large feel on the question of Lieberman, a three-term Democratic senator, over against Lieberman as Democratic reject, but alive as a "petitioning Democrat."
It is required, at this point, to note that the Republicans do have a candidate. His name is Alan Schlesinger. And if the New Democrats and the Revival Democrats have a bloody and internecine contest, the result could be ... a Republican senator from Connecticut! That was the chance Connecticut voters missed 26 years ago when they rejected the Republican candidate, who had for six years in the 1970s been acknowledged as the Sainted Junior Senator from New York, James L. Buckley.
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Mr. Buckley rightly notes that what happens on Aug. 8th is very important nation wide for the Democratic Party since people backing Lamont want to send the party into a hard left turn.
I am predicting that Lieberman will win in a three way race.
The fact that all the conservative posters are protecting Liberman ought to tell us something about how they feel about him. Ill vote for any republican who votes to increase minimum wage, social security, medicare and an end to all the wars.
I understand your position, Rabel 22, but I am afraid that you do not understand what you are asking:
l. raise the Minimum Wage--This certainly sounds attractive but economic studies have shown clearly that when the Minimum Wage is raised( incidentally--only a very small percentage of people labor at this BEGINNING WAGE) people lose their jobs and more inflation sets in thereby taking away any wage gain for a few people are raising costs for the rest.
2. Social Security-If you mean protecting it, of course, but there is no way it can be "raised" since we may run out of funds soon.
3. Medicare- same as above
4. End to all the wars- Do you include African internecine wars? If so, you are in for a disappintment.
kelticwizard wrote: Now that it looks like the primary might go against him, Lieberman is pulling stunts against the very party which made his political career possible.
Only because the Democratic party is one half of the duopoly that has appropriated the political process in America. Because of this duopoly, independent-minded people rarely stand a chance of getting elected to Congress as Independents. To get that chance, they are forced to join one of the two duopoly parties.
For analogy, consider some 1925 Chicago borrough where one mafia gang controls the East side and another controls the West side. If a peaceful citizen sets up a grocery shop on the West side, and the West-side-gang allows it in exchange for some protection money, the West side gang "has made his carreer as a grocer possible" in a sense. But nobody would say they have any moral claim to the grocer's loyalty. For the same reason, I deny that the Democratic party has any moral claim on Lieberman not running if he loses the primary. If he runs as an Independent and popular senator, and if Connecticut voters reelect him, his conscience shouldn't make him lose any sleep over it.
Your analogy is faulty, Thomas. The West side grocer first sets up his shop with his own funds, and then pays protection money to the mob in exchange for their promise not to destroy it. They have nothing to do with his setting up the shop in the first place. If the mob never existed at all, the grocery would be better off.
Lieberman did not start out as a popular figure who was going to be elected anyway and only joined the Democrats to prevent them from wrecking him. He was a nobody who joined the Democratic Party and worked his way up the ranks, meeting Democratic supporters and heads of groups who might support his Democratic candidacy through his position in the Democratic party, until he was ready to run for the nomination.
The Democratic Party made Lieberman's political career possible. People he has beaten in the primaries congratulated him on his victory, wished him well and worked for his victory. Now that the primary looks like it might go against Lieberman, he decides he'd rather split the Democratic vote int he general election and possibly let a Republican win instead of doing the right thing and supporting his party's candidate, just as people who fell before Lieberman in the primaries supported him.
kelticwizard wrote:Your analogy is faulty, Thomas. The West side grocer first sets up his shop with his own funds, and then pays protection money to the mob in exchange for their promise not to destroy it. They have nothing to do with his setting up the shop in the first place. If the mob never existed at all, the grocery would be better off.
Lieberman did not start out as a popular figure who was going to be elected anyway and only joined the Democrats to prevent them from wrecking him. He was a nobody who joined the Democratic Party and worked his way up the ranks, meeting Democratic supporters and heads of groups who might support his Democratic candidacy through his position in the Democratic party, until he was ready to run for the nomination.
The Democratic Party made Lieberman's political career possible. People he has beaten in the primaries congratulated him on his victory, wished him well and worked for his victory. Now that the primary looks like it might go against Lieberman, he decides he'd rather split the Democratic vote int he general election and possibly let a Republican win instead of doing the right thing and supporting his party's candidate, just as people who fell before Lieberman in the primaries supported him.
I agree with this completely.
SierraSong wrote:Lieberman's opposition seems to be from the radical left-wing Dems.
You hear that, folks? If you are for a planned withdrawal of troops over the next couple of years and want the Iraqis to sort this out for themselves, you are a radical left winger.
Sierra Song's version of a centrist is one who will let Bush drag this thing out forever with no end in sight.
Don't think so, Sierra. I think those who want to blindly follow Bush's nonplan to end this war are the ones who are the radicals. Bush no longer represents the center, if he ever did.
kelticwizard wrote:Lieberman did not start out as a popular figure who was going to be elected anyway and only joined the Democrats to prevent them from wrecking him. He was a nobody who joined the Democratic Party and worked his way up the ranks, meeting Democratic supporters and heads of groups who might support his Democratic candidacy through his position in the Democratic party, until he was ready to run for the nomination.
What makes you think that in a world without political parties, he couldn't have climbed up the ranks of the political system anyway? Say, from member of the city council to member of the school board to state senator to federal senator ...?
kelticwizard wrote:Now that the primary looks like it might go against Lieberman, he decides he'd rather split the Democratic vote int he general election and possibly let a Republican win instead of doing the right thing and supporting his party's candidate, just as people who fell before Lieberman in the primaries supported him.
If it's fair for the Democratic party to stop supporting Lieberman, why wouldn't it be fair for Lieberman to stop supporting the Democratic party? (Which, incidentally, is a more drastic measure than he actually intends to take.)
kelticwizard wrote:SierraSong wrote:Lieberman's opposition seems to be from the radical left-wing Dems.
You hear that, folks? If you are for a planned withdrawal of troops over the next couple of years and want the Iraqis to sort this out for themselves, you are a radical left winger.
Sierra Song's version of a centrist is one who will let Bush drag this thing out forever with no end in sight.
Don't think so, Sierra. I think those who want to blindly follow Bush's nonplan to end this war are the ones who are the radicals. Bush no longer represents the center, if he ever did.
And you're welcome to that opinion. Mr. Buckley was agreeing with me when he said:
Quote:The backing for Ned Lamont is by people, explicitly and implicitly, who wish to send the Democratic Party into a hard left turn.
The 'backing' he's referring to is no doubt groups like moveon.org and dailykos. They slam Dems like Lieberman, Obama (who endorsed Joe) and Hillary on a regular basis. Their track record is rather dismal, though, and it wouldn't surprise me if Lieberman wins in either the primary or as an independent.
In a system more accessible by independants, Lieberman may well have made it as an independant. The fact is, he didn't, so we are left only to guess who could or couldn't have succeeded in a make believe scenario.
edgarblythe wrote:In a system more accessible by independants, Lieberman may well have made it as an independant. The fact is, he didn't, so we are left only to guess who could or couldn't have succeeded in a make believe scenario.
I agree -- but kelticwizard's claim was that Lieberman was a nobody when he started and that the Democratic party made him what he is now. You said you agreed completely. Now you're down to "we are left to guess", which is rather feeble evidence for yours and kelticwizard's contention.
PS: Kelticwizard also said:"If the mob never existed at all, the grocery would be better off." He seems to think the role of parties in politics is different from the mob's role in the grocery business. I don't.
It's your scenario at which we are guessing. The fact is, without Democrats, Lieberman might well be in some other line of work. Why shouldn't the party hold him accountable?
edgarblythe wrote:It's your scenario at which we are guessing.
Claim: The Democratic party made Lieberman what he is now.
Counterclaim: We don't know that. In a world without the Democratic party, Lieberman may well have been able to become a senator still.
Logically, the fact that we're guessing is enough to invalidate kelticwizard's original claim, about which he was certain.
edgarblythe wrote:The fact is, without Democrats, Lieberman might well be in some other line of work. Why shouldn't the party hold him accountable?
I have no problem with the Democrats voting for Lamont as their candidate. I have a problem with the opinion of some (not you) that it would somehow be inappropriate if Lieberman ran as an independent in this case.
SierraSong wrote:
And you're welcome to that opinion. Mr. Buckley was agreeing with me when he said....
Wm. F. Buckley wrote: ]The backing for Ned Lamont is by people, explicitly and implicitly, who wish to send the Democratic Party into a hard left turn.
oh, please. William F. Buckley is the founder of the National Review. His idea of "taking a hard left turn" is publicly supporting the New Deal.
Once again, you seem to think the centrist position is to support letting this war drag on and on, to acquiesce in Bush's deficit and national debt positiions, etc. If you and Buckley feel that way, fine. I think you just might have a surprise coming your way in November. We'll see.
Thomas wrote:What makes you think that in a world without political parties, he couldn't have climbed up the ranks of the political system anyway? Say, from member of the city council to member of the school board to state senator to federal senator ...?
What makes me think he probably wouldn't have worked his way up without the party system? Well, let's take a look at the kind of people who did well outside the two party system. And when I say "outside the two party system", I mean truly coming up outside it-not just being a renegade member of a party who builds up support within a major party and then seeks to carry the support over when he breaks away.
Either they are charismatic types with a fresh appeal, such as Jesse Ventura, former wrestler and talk show host. Or they have vast personal fortunes, such as Ross Perot. Or they are candidates who became famous fighting for a cause, and entered the political system that way.
Lieberman is none of these. He wasn't rich, he didn't have any great causes he personified, his appeal has always been the slow, thoughtful legislator and nobody ever accused him of being charismatic.
Without the Democratic Party backing him, you would never have heard of Joe Lieberman.
