And By the Way, Joe Lieberman Lost Last Night- Page 4

[bwaysinger]

Posted: 8/10/06 at 7:48am

I love a ditto-head.

One thing I wanted to bring up and I wish I weren't too lazy to cite my source, but people are also mentioning their fear that Lieberman could skew or ruin the chances of a Democratic Senate majority, which isn't true.
Schlesinger (is that his name?), the Republican candidate for the position is polling so poorly, he was literally fielded simply so the official Republican party had a candidate.
Given what Tony Snow said about Lieberman/Lamont and the story that Rove is offering to help Lieberman, it's safe to say Bush is perfectly fine with Lieberman remaining in the Senate.
But, even though Lieberman will be in the official election as an independent, he has already given his verbal word to remain in the Democrat Party should he be re-elected.
While I would like to see him gone and replaced with someone who will actively fight AGAINST the destructive policies of the Bush Administration, the Senate race in CT, either way, will keep one seat in the Democrat column.
I'd also like to point out that wacko McKinney, she of the conspiracy theories, lost her primary to another Democrat in a district that always skews Democrat in the House elections, so it's highly unlikely those who voted for McKinney would throw their support behind a Republican candidate there.

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 8/10/06 at 8:52am

i think that it's a bit presumptuous to ascribe national trends to a state that went 54-44 for kerry in 2004 and has a recent history of voting democrat. politics are local and this was a primary election about the direction of the democratic party in ct in particular, but deeper as some have said it was a referendum on the war. the thing to keep in mind is that even though lamont won this primary, it was a a decision reached by only 14% of registered voters statewide. of the 1.95 million registered voters in ct there are only 696,823 democrats. the greater majority of connecticut voters are registered as unaffiliated. how will the rest of connecticut go in the general election?

if the general election manages to draw 45% of registered voters, the number who voted in the primary would be roughly 32% of the voters. that leaves a large number of people out there who haven't spoken with their votes. lamont will get a post victory bounce of probably 5-10% in the opinion polls, but it will come down to campaigning because joltin' joe's not dropping out. expect to see lamont's victory speech, with him flanked by jesse jackson and al sharpton to get heavy play. expect to see darksyde's photoshoped photo of joe in blackface to get heavy play with pics of lamont and jane hamsher at the victory celebration. expect to see more pics of joe and dubya's kiss. expect to see karl rove's message over and over again. joe will be portrayed as george bush's jewish alter ego and ned will be portrayed as the demon spawn of george mcgovern and howard dean's threesome with hanoi jane. it's gonna be ugly and constant from both sides.

the net result, if any, on natinal elections will be one of perception. while the war polls about as well as gw, the gop will portray lamont's victory as a victory of the far left. even though the country's grown less conservative over the last few years, are the majority of voters nationwide ready to embrace the idea of spaker of the house pelosi? does the idea of john conyers holding impeachment proceedings and investigations upon investigations appeal to them?

contrl of the house and senate comes down to about 20 or so races nationwide. will this have any effect on them? maybe maybe not. like was said all politics are local and what happens in connecticut may be of little or no interest to voters in montana. but it might. i also disagree with the idea that 3 incumbents being turned out is a bellweather of the desire for change. mckinney was batsh*t crazy and was coming off slugging a cop. lamont had the support of the vast majority of big pockets far left donors who have one issue: the war. joe shwarz got run out by the club for growth (the gop eqivalent of those far left donors). aside from mckinney, we saw the focused efforts of large pissed off donors with strong grass roots support on a single race. it's not somthing that can easily be replicated in multiple races across the country. so while the mtv mentality might see this as a sea change of global proportions, i'm not ready to call it as such just yet.

one thing's for sure: it's gonna be a darn interesting 3 months.

Updated On: 8/10/06 at 08:52 AM

[PalJoey]

Posted: 8/10/06 at 10:24am

ABC’s George Stephanopoulos reports, “According to a close Lieberman adviser, the President’s political guru, Karl Rove, has reached out to the Lieberman camp with a message straight from the Oval Office: ‘The boss wants to help. Whatever we can do, we will do.’

[PalJoey]

Posted: 8/10/06 at 10:25am

"...spaker of the house pelosi?..."

"Spaker"? What's a "spaker"?

[smartpenguin78]

Posted: 8/10/06 at 10:27am

papa misspelled it, he meant "spanker"

(I must say I agree with what he wrote though.)

Updated On: 8/10/06 at 10:27 AM

[PalJoey]

Posted: 8/10/06 at 10:29am

He who dishes it out must take it.

[pab]

Posted: 8/10/06 at 10:35am

Exit Poll

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 8/10/06 at 10:46am

'guin is right as usual.

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 8/10/06 at 11:02am

"But, even though Lieberman will be in the official election as an independent, he has already given his verbal word to remain in the Democrat Party should he be re-elected. "

I forgot that they can switch parties after the election--which one would think isn't fair to the voters.

So, that's possibly good--Conn will still end up with a Dem. Unless the GOP dude actually pulls off a win...

[Calvin]

Posted: 8/10/06 at 11:08am

I think the GOP dude is polling in the single digits right now, so that's not going to happen. The fact that we're calling him "the GOP dude" and don't even know his name says a lot.

When I lived in New Haven, the Greens had more power than the GOP did.

[bwaysinger]

Posted: 8/10/06 at 11:13am

Schlesinger. That's his name.

Jerby, the thing about "Switching parties" is that he keeps saying he's running as an "independent Democrat." I don't know if he's just saying that as a by-line or if it's possible to run as a party candidate without the official party's nomination.
Also, we have independents in the House. Sometimes, they've joined a party. If there were a tie between the Dems and Republicans, I imagine an independent would be asked to affiliate. Didn't this happen before?

[Calvin]

Posted: 8/10/06 at 11:15am

He's not the guy who took the nude photos of Dr. Laura, is he?

[bwaysinger]

Posted: 8/10/06 at 11:18am

One hopes against hope, Calvin.

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 8/10/06 at 11:25am

we've got an independent in the senate too, jim jeffords who left the gop.

looking at that exit poll, one section sticks out to me:

lamont lieberman
liberal 62% 38%
moderate 39% 59%
conservative 35% 63%

if lamont is down by 20% in the moderate category, that does not bode well at all. not in a state that has a majority of non-affiliated voters. i can't find a recent poll of ct voters or a good recent national one, but the harris poll i found from the start of '06 has americans 34-42-20 in the categories of conservative-moderate-liberal.

also, the trend of many lieberman voters to have decided in the last 3 days to vote for joementum would suggest not such rosy prospects for ned. of course, polls can say anything ya want and we saw how reliable exit polls were in '04. so does it mean anything? who knows. that's up to the voters in ct.

but yeah, unless the gop decides to go wild and swap out their guy for a name guy (which would probably induce joe to drop out) this is a battle in the democratic party and the gop is pretty much on the sidelines cheering (thank god dubya's got experience in that).

Updated On: 8/10/06 at 11:25 AM

[bwaysinger]

Posted: 8/10/06 at 11:29am

Oh, Papa, I'd point to my blaaaahhhhg but I don't want to be a shill.

Pretty much, I expect a Lieberman win. The sad part is that it's going to come on the wings of Republican voters. I could be surprised but I think thats' what's going to happen. I think Lamont was, unfortunately, a bump in the road to an incumbent's re-election rate.
As has been pointed out, Lieberman has a fairly Democratic leaning vote in terms of policy. I do think he kowtows like the rest of our Republican congressmen/women, though, and he therefore needs to go. I just don't see it happening.
But, all that said, I think this bodes absolutely NOTHING for the Democratic party and its chances this fall. The national polls have trended for Democratcs in general even while the polls for Lamont climbed and then leveled off.

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 8/10/06 at 11:42am

"and we saw how reliable exit polls were in '04"

ohhhhhh I'm gonna shut my mouth to avoid a massive threadjack and just pull this lovely new Prada tin foil hat snugly on my lovely lil head.

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 8/10/06 at 11:43am

you wore out the d&g one?

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 8/10/06 at 11:48am

no, honey, I never wear Last Season!!!!

[bwaysinger]

Posted: 8/10/06 at 11:49am

Fashionista.
Jerby, is that avatar directed at me and Papa? How dare you, sir!

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 8/10/06 at 11:50am

he's just mean, bway. pure-d, mean.

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 8/10/06 at 11:50am

Oh. You have blogs?

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 8/10/06 at 11:52am

You should put that on a t-shirt and wear it in front of Chanticleer's house. Address freely available on the blog he keeps linking to BWW in the hopes of getting a few hits.

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 8/10/06 at 11:53am

Yeah--I ****ing hate people who put links to their blogs and websites and crap in their signature line.

WHO CARES?!?!

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 8/10/06 at 11:55am

Yeah, they're creepy and they suck.

Have you visited my bthread?
Namo's web thread, or "bthread"

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 8/10/06 at 11:57am

Darling. I can't stand reading blogs. What makes you think I want to read a thread about blogs?

Though I do fancy the porn blogs...

But to answer the question, my avatar IS in honor of someone and MAYBE Namo's thread is a clue. lol