Blue and White

Thursday, August 17, 2006

Is The Leadership Of The Democratic Party Afraid of Joe Lieberman? Or Whats Their Problem?

As posted here in daily kos, the new quinnipiac university poll shows Lieberman leading Lamont 53 to 41 percent in the Connecticut race, with Schessinger (republican) having only 4 percent of support among the voters of Connecticut.

Although Lamont's numbers are slowly improving and he has been closing the gap, it is concerning that Lieberman still leads the race. So, why does Lieberman still have the lead? He apparently leads 75 - 13 - 10 % among Republican voters, a reflection of the indirect endorsement of his candidacy by George Bush, Dick Cheney and Karl Rove. Importantly, he still has the support of 35% of the democratic voters (Lamont leads 63-35 % among democrats).
If Lieberman loses the 35% of the democrats that still support him, the game will be over, Lamont will be the next senator from Connecticut.

But how can this happen? It is very simple. The leadership of the democratic party has to aggressively denounce the "independent" candidacy of Lieberman and openly ask him to withdraw from the race. If he does not withdraw, they should immediately strip him of his seniority and his senate committee assignments. If Lieberman does not respect the democratic party, why should the democratic party respect him?

Also, the democratic senators (Carper, Salazar, Pryor, Landrieu, and Ben Nelson) that have endorsed Lieberman, should be asked by Harry Reid to withdraw such endorsements. They can not support the "de facto" republican candidate against the democratic candidate in any state. If Mark Pryor refuses to do so, he should be asked immediately to resign from his position as Vice-Chair of DSCC. What kind of vice chair of DSCC is he if he campaigns against the democratic nominees?

The situation is so simple and straight forward. In my opinion it is incomprehensible that Harry Reid has not openly asked Lieberman to withdraw his candidacy and dissolve the "Connecticut for Lieberman" party. I dont buy the excuse that "Lieberman will run anyway, why allienate him". That sort of thinking is a defeatist one and similar thinking in the past has led to loss of national presidential elections. Harry Reid and the rest of the senior leaders need to act now. Enough is enough.