{"id":7688,"date":"2006-06-15T09:10:48","date_gmt":"2006-06-15T13:10:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=7688"},"modified":"2006-06-15T09:10:48","modified_gmt":"2006-06-15T13:10:48","slug":"if-you-want-the-partys-support-dont-leave-the-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/if-you-want-the-partys-support-dont-leave-the-party\/","title":{"rendered":"If you want the party’s support, don’t leave the party"},"content":{"rendered":"

When it comes the [tag]Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee[\/tag] ([tag]DSCC[\/tag]), I don’t necessarily mind when it endorses candidates, even before a [tag]primary[\/tag]. If party officials have a candidate they think has the best shot at winning, voters can take into consideration which Dem is the “[tag]establishment[\/tag]” candidate. Of course, there’s an inherent understanding behind this: the DSCC can express a preference, but whomever Dem voters pick as the nominee deserves the party’s full support.<\/p>\n

It’s what makes this<\/a> completely unacceptable.<\/p>\n

[DSCC Chairman Chuck] [tag]Schumer[\/tag] said that the DSCC “fully supports” Sen. Joe [tag]Lieberman[\/tag] in his primary bid, and he refused to rule out continuing that support if Lieberman were to run as an independent.<\/p>\n

There were degrees of independence, Schumer said. “You can run as an independent, you can run as an independent Democrat who pledges to vote for Harry Reid as Majority Leader.”<\/p>\n

Schumer said he had neither sought nor received assurances from Lieberman that an independent bid would not ensue if [tag]Ned Lamont[\/tag] tightened the noose.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Wrong. If Schumer and the DSCC want to endorse Lieberman in the primary, I think that’s fine. Lieberman is the incumbent. But Schumer suggested yesterday that Lieberman could get rejected by actual Democratic voters, abandon the party altogether, and the establishment would still<\/i> support him.<\/p>\n

As Digby put it<\/a>, “You don’t get to leave the party to avoid losing in a Democratic primary and then expect Democratic Party financial support to run against the Democratic candidate. That’s just nuts. And it’s so disrespectful to the Democratic voters of Connecticut I can’t honestly believe he has thought this through.”
\n
\nSome have noted that the DSCC supports [tag]Bernie Sanders[\/tag]’ Senate campaign in Vermont, even though Sanders is running as an independent. That’s true, but it’s not a fair comparison — Sanders doesn’t have a Democratic opponent. For that matter, Sanders has never<\/i> been a Dem, so it’s not like he abandoned the party after Democratic voters backed someone else.<\/p>\n

Schumer’s remarks came at a press conference, so it’s possible that he was just speaking off the cuff. Maybe he didn’t mean to convey that message, or perhaps, upon further reflection, he realized that it doesn’t make any sense for the DSCC to reject a Dem nominee who wins a Dem primary thanks to the support of Dem voters.<\/p>\n

I can only hope Schumer “clarifies” his comments today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When it comes the [tag]Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee[\/tag] ([tag]DSCC[\/tag]), I don’t necessarily mind when it endorses candidates, even before a [tag]primary[\/tag]. If party officials have a candidate they think has the best shot at winning, voters can take into consideration which Dem is the “[tag]establishment[\/tag]” candidate. Of course, there’s an inherent understanding behind this: the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7688"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7688\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}