I don’t intend to obsess over the results of yesterday’s primary indefinitely, but it is the political story on everyone’s mind, isn’t it? Following up on the earlier post, here are some additional tidbits to consider:
* [tag]Republicans[/tag], who have no use for GOP candidate Alan [tag]Schlessinger[/tag], are thinking long and hard about backing [tag]Lieberman[/tag].
A senior Republican official in Washington confirms that the party might encourage Republicans and others to support Sen. Lieberman if he runs as an independent. There’s no sense, just yet, about what those signs and signals might look like. Says the GOP official: “I just think there will be folks who want to support – regardless of what we think. And, we don’t think that’s a bad thing.” And Kevin F. Rennie reports that some GOPers in CT are thinking about ways to financially support Lieberman’s independent bid….
If this helps turn the race into a Democrat vs. Republican dynamic, it will only help [tag]Lamont[/tag].
* Fresh off his very odd editorial in the Wall Street Journal, TNR’s Martin Peretz blamed Bill Clinton for Lieberman’s loss.
When Clinton came into the state, Lieberman and Lamont were running dead even in the polls, more or less. Clinton’s appearance began Lieberman’s decline. Within two or three days, Lieberman was down by ten points. (In the last few days of the campaign, Lieberman recovered considerably … but not enough.) I know there’s some nostalgia in the Democratic Party for Clinton and for Hillary, too. But for many, in the party and out, the Clintons are a nightmare.
Yeah, I didn’t understand it either.
* Michael Froomkin raises a good question about Lieberman’s Senate work for the rest of the year.
When a candidate loses a party primary then announces that he will run against the party’s nominee, will the Senate Democrats let him keep their seats on committees, or will they replace him with a real Democrat?
I’d be surprised if the Dem caucus sought to punish Lieberman so directly, but if he’s abandoning the party, Dems have every reason to reconsider his committee assignments.
* The NYT had an excellent editorial today explaining the voter backlash that led to Lieberman’s defeat. As the Times put it, this wasn’t about the angry left; it’s about the “irate moderates.”
The rebellion against Mr. Lieberman was actually an uprising by that rare phenomenon, irate moderates. They are the voters who have been unnerved over the last few years as the country has seemed to be galloping in a deeply unmoderate direction. A war that began at the president’s choosing has degenerated into a desperate, bloody mess that has turned much of the world against the United States. The administration’s contempt for international agreements, Congressional prerogatives and the authority of the courts has undermined the rule of law abroad and at home.
Yet while all this has been happening, the political discussion in Washington has become a captive of the Bush agenda. Traditional beliefs like every person’s right to a day in court, or the conviction that America should not start wars it does not know how to win, wind up being portrayed as extreme. The middle becomes a place where senators struggle to get the president to volunteer to obey the law when the mood strikes him. Attempting to regain the real center becomes a radical alternative.
When Mr. Lieberman told The Washington Post, “I haven’t changed. Events around me have changed,” he actually put his finger on his political problem.
* And as for yesterday’s nuttiness surrounding Lieberman’s website crashing, the FBI is reportedly looking into the incident, but I think the overwhelming evidence at this point suggests the Lieberman campaign was just terribly, embarrassingly negligent in taking care of their hosting needs. This apparently wasn’t an attack; it was a screw-up.
And speaking of Lieberman, I may have a scoop in a couple of hours about his staff shake-up. I’m nailing down the details; stay tuned.