DINO Lieberman voted FOR confirmation of Michael Hayden to lead the CIA.

Dodd, to his credit, voted AGAINST.

Just passing on more reasons Joementum should be defeated.
 

Had an interesting, albeit troubling, conversation with a Democratic friend this morning. She didn't know much about Ned, despite being pretty politically aware, so we got on to talking about him, but she had a strong reaction when I brought up Joe's threat to run as an independent should he lose in the primary. She voiced the concern that, if Lamont does win the Dem. primary, and Joe runs as an independent, it may result in a Nader-esque result of CT winding up with a Republican senator. I got the impression that she came away from the conversation pretty convinced to vote for Lieberman in order to make sure that doesn't happen.

My response to her was two-fold: first, that we basically have a Republican in office now so it's worth it to take a flyer to try and unseat him and, second, that it's ridiculous to permit Joe to hold us all hostage by using this strategy. I argued that we shouldn't permit Joe to game the system this way... but am not too sure I was convincing.

Any other suggestions for what can be said regarding this analysis?

Jane in CT
 

Jane- If Joe is still running as a Democrat on August 8th, there is no way he can run as an independent if he loses the primary. He would need to file petition signatures the next day, August 9th.

Which means, he'd either have to collect those signatures to run as an (I) while running in a Democratic primary, or he'd have to drop out of the primary well before August 8th.

So if the primary comes around and Joe's still in it, there is no reason for anyone to fear this scenario. It will be impossible at that point for Joe to run as an (I).
 

Thirdparty, thank you so much for clarifying this. I think we really need to make this clear to potential primary voters, that if they vote for Lamont in the primary, and he wins, Joe is out of the picture for sure and cannot enter the race as an independent spoiler. Because the Ghost of Ralph Nader haunts many Dems these days, it seems (I'm one of them).

Jane in CT
 

Hi Jane...

You Nader voters really need to let go of that guilt trip. The 2000 election was stolen in Florida both by hacking the vote and by purging massive numbers of Democratic voters off of the rolls. It's easy to say that Gore would have won if he had had Nader's votes, but that was such a small percentage of the total, that it's equally easy to say that Bush's henchmen would just have had to work a little harder at hacking the machines.

I feel that the best question you can ask your friend to help her see the light is this: "Do you want 6 more years of the Bush agenda?" Based on his behavior the last 5 years, including the short period when Dems shared control of the Senate, voting FOR Lieberman would virtually assure that. I'm at the point where if the choice is between Joe and a Republican, I could care less. There's no difference when you look at the outcome. And a Democratic controlled Senate with a Joe Lieberman as the swing vote buys us nothing.

Your friend has to decide if she has the courage to force change on our party. The ONLY way to accomplish that is electing people like Ned Lamont, who will put the "opposition" back into the opposition party.

I suspect there will be many more like your friend. Hoping we can help most of them see the light before August 8th.

-Steve