Joe Lieberman’s presidential campaign, if you can call it that, is getting increasingly less coherent as time goes on.
Yesterday, ABC News’ The Note noticed that Lieberman’s team has a new pitch to convince voters that he’s the man to challenge Bush in November.
“After telling voters about their Clear Choices and the Third and Better Way he represents, an energized Lieberman unveiled a stump speech Monday that the campaign is sure will resonate with New Hampshire voters who may be having second thoughts about others in the race,” The Note explained. “It’s simple idea: ‘I can beat George Bush.’ Karl Rove, Lieberman now says, has a strategy to defeat all the other Democratic candidates but has no playbook on him.”
Let me see if I get this straight: Karl Rove, according to Lieberman, has been worrying about the four real Dem candidates (Clark, Dean, Kerry, Edwards) and ignoring Lieberman’s quiet rise from obscurity to…more embarrassing obscurity. As a result, Rove hasn’t created a “playbook” to stop Lieberman, which, for some reason, is supposed to be a reason to support him.
That’s it? That’s the new Lieberman strategy? Vote for me and I’ll catch Karl Rove off-guard?
This is completely nonsensical. First, it’s reinforcing the notion that Lieberman is not a serious presidential candidate, because if he were, the White House would care about him. Second, by Lieberman’s logic, Kucinich and Sharpton are just as viable as he is because the White House is apparently ignoring them too. And lastly, if by some disaster Lieberman did get the nomination, Rove still has time to create a playbook against him and explain to the nation that Lieberman really is Bush-lite.
The latest ARG poll out of New Hampshire has Lieberman running a distant fifth, behind candidates who’ve been ignoring the state while campaigning in Iowa, while he’s been literally living there trying to generate some support. If Lieberman finishes fifth and stays in the race, maybe we should take up a petition or something to convince him to go away.