Will Lieberman Run As An Independent?That's the question facing the
senator from Connecticut. Fueling the speculation is the news that while Ned Lamont is gaining on Lieberman in the Democratic primary, Joe would cruise to victory in the general as an independent facing Lamont and a Republican.
According to a recent Quinnipiac University Poll, 57 percent of registered Democrats in Connecticut said they would vote for Lieberman, compared with 32 percent for Lamont. One month ago, Lieberman drew 65 percent to Lamont's 19 percent.
The poll found that if Lieberman runs as an independent, he would win with 56 percent of the vote, compared with 18 percent for Lamont and 8 percent for Republican Alan Schlesinger. Lieberman enjoys higher ratings among Republicans and unaffiliated voters than Democrats, the poll determined. Unaffiliated voters are the state's largest block of voters, followed by Democrats and then Republicans.And actually that poll of Democrats gets worse for Lieberman; if you limit it to likely voters, he wins by "only" 15 percentage points. Now granted, that's still a win, but the trendline looks pretty dangerous.
The National Journal reports that
Chuck Schumer refuses to rule out the possibility of supporting Lieberman even if he runs as an independent. Predictably, the liberal blogs are up in arms over this, apparently believing that the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (which Schumer heads) should throw its money behind the guy who's going to get crushed in the general election.
Jane Hamsher:
So Chuck Schumer, head of the Democratic Incumbent Senatorial Campaign Committee sees no problem in supporting a Holy Joe "Cut-and-Run 2006" independent candidacy over dedicated Democrat Ned Lamont.That's funny, I thought the problem with Lieberman from Hamsher's standpoint was his failure to cut and run.
Digby:
You don't have to look any further than Joe Lieberman to understand why the entire world thinks Democrats are a bunch of chickensh*t losers. We're tired of being associated with someone who can't even stand a fair fight in the Connecticut Democratic party without whining like snivelling schoolkid and threatening to take his ball and go home. Why should anyone trust such a gutless tool with the reins of government? I know I don't. The party is on notice that this just won't be tolerated anymore by leading Blue State Democrats.The good news for the Republicans is that this probably means that at least until the Lieberman situation resolves itself, liberal bloggers will not be flogging their readers to contribute to Schumer's committee.
I suspect strongly that if Lieberman does run an independent candidacy, Schumer will back down a bit. He probably will not directly give money to Lieberman, but he may steer money to him by suggesting donors give directly to the candidate.
The irony here of course is that the liberal bloggers would normally applaud the Democratic leaders for telling the people, "We know better than you do," if the subject were, say, CAFE standards or global warming or tax cuts.
