Whoever runs against Lieberman in 2012 has months of video and print goodness to use: the ridiculous hints that Senator Obama had secret ties to Hamas; the repeated, purposeful failures to say clearly, once and for all, "Barack Obama is not a Muslim, for chrissakes, are you an asshole or just an idiot for continuing to ask"; his founding and leading Citizens for McCain in an attempt to woo Hillary Clinton supporters and undecided Democrats to the GOP ticket; and, finally, of course, his appearing at the RNC and endorsing the guy who is not the current President-elect. (And all that after Obama had happily campaigned for him in 2006.) In short, Lieberman threw his full support and political capital behind the candidates who lost the election 53% to 46%, in a speech where he told the voters "don't be fooled" and that "being a Democrat or a Republican is important[, b]ut it is not more important than being an American." It's campaign gold for the taking by whoever wants to run against him. And it's fodder for 4 years of quietly but steadily discrediting him during the wait.
A friend of mine said last May, regarding the presidential race:
the democrats could run a salad crouton again mccain and win in november.Same thing with Lieberman in 2012. Maybe they could even run a Muslim.
President-elect Obama is taking the high road and refusing to ask or advocate that Lieberman be kicked out of the caucus or removed from his committee chair positions. This kind of decision should only have been expected, because it comes from the same temperament and judgment that's informed his actions from the day he decided to run for President. It's a great decision. It looks, and is, classy. It gives Lieberman an incentive not to block any initiatives that Obama wants the Senator's committees to work on. And, in the Machiavellian sense, it gives Obama plausible deniability for any nasty shenanigans that others in the party decide to engage in.
Put another way, what would Obama -- or the party, for that matter -- gain from antagonizing Lieberman? They'd risk losing his votes and cooperation on key issues in the committees he chairs. Maybe he'd even switch his party affiliation, you know, kind of like when a couple who have been living together for a while decide to get married, so that the one can get on the other's health insurance.
I would suggest that Obama get Lieberman out of the Senate completely by putting him in some harmless Cabinet post, like HUD, except that the current governor of Connecticut is a Republican. Lieberman is a religious extremist conservative like the rest of the Republican base, but he obviously shouldn't be replaced with a guaranteed Republican vote.
So 4 years from now, when Lieberman asks for contributions, endorsements, and other help from Senate Democrats and the President? All they have to do is look at their watches, pretend to press a few buttons in their BlackBerrys, and say, "Aw, shucks, Joe, looks like I'm busy. I'll have my secretary get back to your secretary. But, hey, listen, why don't ya go ask a few Republicans for some help until I can get back to you?" And in the meantime, they can cold-shoulder him here, leave him off an invitation list there, be perfectly courteous and respectful to him on the Senate floor -- and find a real Democrat in Connecticut to run against him in 2012.
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Maybe I'm being naive, but wasn't the guy who won the primary, who Lieberman then beat handily running as an independent in the general election, a real Democrat? Are you sure that the Massachusetts voters will be that ready to be rid of him in four years?
Yeah . . . but that was 2 years ago, during a race where Lieberman campaigned dirty against Ned Lamont, on policy positions that are largely opposite to what the President-elect just won on.
I think it'll be a matter of the candidate (Lamont is a zillionaire, heir to J.P. Morgan money, if I'm not mistaken) and whatever organizational resources the DNC can throw at it.
Speaking of which, there's an interesting question of what can legally be done with mybarackobama.com and the data it used, which is an asset of the campaign.
Anyway, I think, in short, that the DNC and the Senate Democrats only have to be wise about how they manage Lieberman for the next 4 years. At this point, it seems to me that his seat is a Democrat's to lose, and they only have to let him dig himself in deeper and maintain the status quo that he's created for himself.
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