What democratic primary? (4.00 / 4)

Lieberman is a member of the Connecticut for Lieberman party... we should do a primary challenge to him there...  that would be funny to get him primaried out of his own party! LOL!

REID: Voting against us was never part of our arrangement!
SPECTER: I am altering the deal! Pray I don't alter it any further!
REID: This deal keeps getting worse all the time!

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by: lord_mike @ Wed Dec 17, 2008 at 14:02:40 PM CST

I really hope this means (4.00 / 2)

he will jump when Obama says jump. If so, the move to keep him was genius. If not, it was pure idiocy.

But I just read a Democratic Senator from LA came out against the Employee Free Choice Act. We need Lieberman's vote and maybe even some Republicans.

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by: Lolis X @ Wed Dec 17, 2008 at 14:07:10 PM CST

Landrieu (0.00 / 0)

She's beyond worthless... even Nelson votes with us more often than she does...

REID: Voting against us was never part of our arrangement!
SPECTER: I am altering the deal! Pray I don't alter it any further!
REID: This deal keeps getting worse all the time!

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by: lord_mike @ Wed Dec 17, 2008 at 14:20:07 PM CST

[ Parent ]

err (0.00 / 0)

She's in Louisiana. For the life of me I can't understand why bloggers expect Democrats to ignore their conservative states and vote the way bloggers want.

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by: bigassbrando2 @ Wed Dec 17, 2008 at 15:49:39 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Funny... (4.00 / 2)

...republicans in liberal states always vote with the right wing when it matters... strange that I'd ask Democrats to do the same...

But, apparently the original commenter was mistaken.  Surprisingly, Landrieu is a cosponsor to EFCA.  It's Lincoln in AR that's the problem.

REID: Voting against us was never part of our arrangement!
SPECTER: I am altering the deal! Pray I don't alter it any further!
REID: This deal keeps getting worse all the time!

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by: lord_mike @ Wed Dec 17, 2008 at 17:34:32 PM CST

[ Parent ]

like (4.00 / 2)

Rick Santorum and Gordon Smith?

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by: bigassbrando2 @ Wed Dec 17, 2008 at 18:40:26 PM CST

[ Parent ]

my reading is quite different. (0.00 / 0)

I think it will be Obama jumping when Holy Joe says jump. I think Joe will exert pressure and I expect Obama will squelch any Democratic opposition to Lieberman. And I think he probably will have the power to pull it off; he certainly will have the connections with the levers of power in the Connecticut Democratic Party.

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by: VLaszlo @ Wed Dec 17, 2008 at 15:46:38 PM CST

[ Parent ]

ROFL! (0.00 / 0)

this was funny

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by: bigassbrando2 @ Wed Dec 17, 2008 at 15:51:29 PM CST

[ Parent ]

I would like oversight to remain unencumbered by favors (0.00 / 0)

I really hope this means he will jump when Obama says jump. If so, the move to keep him was genius.

I have seen this opinion a lot, but, since Lieberman is on an oversight committee, it just sounds like a license for bad government, to me.
Homeland Security has real influence over the rights of common citizens, doesn't it?  I don't think Lieberman can be trusted with them.  It doesn't reassure me to think that he is "under the thumb" of the someone he is supposed to have oversight of.  
Between this and quoting mob bosses (keep you friends close, but your enemies closer)...  I find the reasoning disturbing.  Like it's genius to pay off the cops.

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by: triangunation @ Wed Dec 17, 2008 at 17:30:08 PM CST

[ Parent ]

So this is different from Blanche Lincoln? .. (0.00 / 0)

Are you sure you didn't mix them up?

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by: Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle @ Wed Dec 17, 2008 at 18:21:48 PM CST

[ Parent ]

The West Coast Is Cultutally Liberal (0.00 / 0)

Fun fact #1:

Lifestyle =/= politics.

Lifestyle liberalism can open up spaces for change, but it guarantee anyhthing in and of itself.  Stonewall, for examle, happened in NYC. And until AIDs hit, a lot of the San Francisco gay scene was made up of financial sector types (SF has been a financial center since the Gold Rush) who tended to vote Republican.  That didn't change overnight, btw.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

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by: Paul Rosenberg @ Wed Dec 17, 2008 at 14:08:26 PM CST

Ayuh (0.00 / 0)

As a Vermonter, I'd tend to agree.  I think a lot of it goes back to the old Yankee ethos ("Good fences make good neighbors") where people don't care what you're doing as long as you're not bothering anyone else.

There's generally very little tolerance for people trying to tell everyone else what to do, and (successful) Vermont Republicans tend to have very little in common with Republicans from the rest of the country.  Richard Tarrant ran a pretty conventional Republican campaign against Bernie Sanders ("Bernie supports the rights of child molesters!") and got destroyed in the election, with Bernie taking 65% of the vote.  At the same time, Jim Douglas runs as a fairly classical kind of Yankee Republican and has won re-election quite easily, helped by admittedly weak opposition.

That said, most Vermonters do tend to have fairly conservative personal lives (small-community based, a bit clannish, fairly homogeneous) even if their politics are extremely liberal, just as you say.

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by: L Boom @ Wed Dec 17, 2008 at 14:34:41 PM CST

[ Parent ]

yeah, but the little-known cafeteria riots happened in the bay area before Stonewall... (4.00 / 1)

and there was Harvey Milk...  Its pretty hard to make the case that NYC is more progressive than the bay area, in my view.  Despite all his shortcomings, Gavin Newsom is no Michael Bloomberg or Rudy G.  But that doesn't mean that the west coast as a region is more progressive than the northeast as a region....

on the cafeteria riots:
http://www.comptonscafeteriari...

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by: seabrook @ Wed Dec 17, 2008 at 14:37:18 PM CST

[ Parent ]

And Yet (4.00 / 1)

30 years later, the No On 8 campaign ran just the sort of campaign that Milk rejected.

This shows the inconsistency that comes when lifestyle predominates.  

After all, Rudy dressed in drag, right?

Lifestyle.  So what?

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

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by: Paul Rosenberg @ Wed Dec 17, 2008 at 14:59:28 PM CST

[ Parent ]

i don't really know what the stakes of this argument are, or why i'm invested in it... (0.00 / 0)

but, here goes:

yes, lifestyle =/= politics.  no one is contesting that.  there are lots of conservative gay men.  someone can dress in drag and nevertheless institute policies that are severely damaging towards homeless trans youth.  of course lifestyle doesn't determine politics.  

my point is actually a rather modest one -- namely, that the bay area, by itself, is quite progressive, probably more so than NYC.  the west coast in general, however, is not more progressive than the east coast (as you point out, we just lost the battle against prop 8 -- though again, it was overwhelmingly opposed in the bay area).  i'm not saying that the bay area is progressive because there are a lot of queer people in SF, or something like that... instead, it's progressive because.... well, i don't know.... because it's progressive.  the political culture in the bay area is just oriented much further to the left than most anywhere else in the country.  there are probably ways of explaining this, but i don't know what they are.    

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by: seabrook @ Wed Dec 17, 2008 at 15:52:26 PM CST

[ Parent ]

ah, i misread your initial comment about the no on 8 campaign... (0.00 / 0)

sorry about that.  yes, you are absolutely right.  the high-payed consultants who ran the campaign clearly weren't wearing WWHMD bracelets.  sad to say.  

but here is the thing: despite the ineptitude of the campaign leaders, activists on the ground in the bay area forged coalitions around a number of propositions (including the parental notification one, and the regressive criminal justice one), and pooled their efforts.  and prop 8 was roundly defeated in the bay area.    

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by: seabrook @ Wed Dec 17, 2008 at 15:56:39 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Regarding same sex marriage polls (0.00 / 0)

The polls against Prop. 8 were looking quite good in CA in August, but such numbers have a way of shifting big time once an actual campaign takes place. CA was buried in Yes on 8 ads telling people that gay marriage will be taught in schools, churches will be sued, and parents will lose rights. The ads also claimed that gay people already have marriage rights through our civil union laws.

None of these claims were adequately beaten back by the inept No on 8 campaign.

The numbers shifted 20 points once the Mormons started running those hate filled ads. Also, CT has seen the anti-8 protests after the election and have probably shifted further to the left on the issue, as have CA voters since the election.

Overall, be wary of polls taken in the absence of a heavy political campaign.

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by: existenz @ Wed Dec 17, 2008 at 14:51:01 PM CST

Would they now. (4.00 / 1)

Among those who say they voted for Sen. Lieberman in 2006, 30 percent now say they would vote for someone else if they could.

What would these sorryass 30 percenters be thinking changed about Lieberman in 2 years? He's exactly the same as he's ever been. I have more respect for the ones who voted for him and would do it again. They're wrong, but not grossly idiotic.

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by: DaveW @ Wed Dec 17, 2008 at 15:16:41 PM CST

I mostly agree. (0.00 / 0)

   But I thought I heard Congressman Chris Murphy making noises about challenging Lieberman.

John McCain lets lobbyists shape his economic policy

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by: cilerder86 @ Wed Dec 17, 2008 at 17:38:24 PM CST

Murphy can count on a lot of Netroots support .. (0.00 / 0)

if he runs against Holy Joe .. that is for sure .. and remember .. 2012 is a Presidential year .. so Holy Joe will be trying to get re-elected .. the same time Obama is

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by: Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle @ Wed Dec 17, 2008 at 18:24:54 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Lieberman Is to Democratic Politics (0.00 / 0)

as Bernie Madof is to hedge funds.

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by: bob h @ Wed Dec 17, 2008 at 19:18:17 PM CST

I understand you're angry, but .... (0.00 / 0)

This is a stupid remark:

It is kind of funny, but also not surprising, that Lieberman's constituents are far more aware of his partisan inclinations than his fellow Senators, or even President-elect Obama.

Do you really think Lieberman's fellow Senators don't know his "partisan inclinations"? I think you mean that, knowing his partisan inclinations, they made an agreement with Lieberman that you (and most of the rest of us) oppose.

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by: Mithras Invicti @ Wed Dec 17, 2008 at 19:36:49 PM CST