Disclosure: I worked for the Lamont campaign doing web design and production and some writing for the official blog (from 9/5/06 to 11/07/06).
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
What Does The "D" In DSCC Stand For?
Chuck Schumer seems to have trouble remembering, according to Pachacutec at Firedoglake who was on a blogger conference call with the chair of the DSCC today.
In reality, this is the strongest signal yet from the DSCC that they would support Ned (D) in a potential three-way race vs Joe (I). But it really shouldn't be that hard to come out and say: "The DSCC supports Democrats. The DSCC will support the Democratic candidate for Senate in Connecticut in November."
One commenter on the above post does make a convincing case in defense of Schumer:
On a related note, many thanks are due to Jane Hamsher, who has been amazingly supportive of Ned Lamont's candidacy from the very beginning and has blogged profusely about Ned (Check out all of FDL's Lieberman posts here). You can contribute to the campaign through Firedoglake's ActBlue page, which has already raised over $27,000.
Question: I’m curious: Is the DSCC taking a position where it will unconditionally support the eventual nominee of the Connecticut Democratic Party?
Schumer: We haven’t taken a position on that yet. . . (interrupted by crosstalk with staff over timing for a vote). What we do is. . . we are an organization of incumbents, and while we certainly find challengers who go up against incumbents, we support incumbents, so I know I didn’t answer your question, but we are supporting Lieberman at this point. Our general rule, and I don’t think there’s been an exception, is that we support the Democrat against the Republicans. We expect Lieberman will win, but if he doesn’t and Ned wins, my guess is we will support him. We haven’t taken a position on that but we’ve almost never deviated. I do not know of a time that the Democrats have deviated and not supported the Democrat.
In reality, this is the strongest signal yet from the DSCC that they would support Ned (D) in a potential three-way race vs Joe (I). But it really shouldn't be that hard to come out and say: "The DSCC supports Democrats. The DSCC will support the Democratic candidate for Senate in Connecticut in November."
One commenter on the above post does make a convincing case in defense of Schumer:
I understand why Schumer wants to protect Lieberman. After all, the democrats wouldn’t want to go pissing Lieberman off. Who knows what he might do - Start stabbing fellow democrats in the back left and right? Defend bush in the war in Iraq? Take republican positions on family planning? Vote to prevent filibustering of extremist supreme court nominees? Give Bush standing ovations every time he mentions ‘terra’?
On a related note, many thanks are due to Jane Hamsher, who has been amazingly supportive of Ned Lamont's candidacy from the very beginning and has blogged profusely about Ned (Check out all of FDL's Lieberman posts here). You can contribute to the campaign through Firedoglake's ActBlue page, which has already raised over $27,000.
posted by tparty at 7:31 PM 
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Question: Would [supporting the Democrat in the race] hold if Senator Lieberman decided to run as an Independent?
Schumer: I think we’ll have to, you know, cross that bridge when we come to it, because it hasn’t happened. Will Senator Lieberman be pledging to vote for Harry Reid for Leader? Will he be running as a Democrat but on a different line?
Look at the scenarios that Schumer gives, particularly "running as a Democrat on a different line". That clearly says to me that Schumer at least isn't going to let a Joe no-show or loss at the Dem primary stop DSCC from endorsing Joe as an Independent (that is, on the so-called "different line" where he can run as a Democrat. Uh huh).
Chuck is going to bend over backwards to throw support behind Indy Joe. After all, in any other case caucusing with your own party would be considered a requirement, and having to get a pledge to do so a real sign of trouble. And if they're treading lightly to stop Joe from switching to the Republican caucus, they might as well ditch him know, because he'll never truly relinquish the threat to keep leverage.
Sorry, but this is sadly another case where the groundwork is being set up to make a Joe indy run acceptable.
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Schumer: I think we’ll have to, you know, cross that bridge when we come to it, because it hasn’t happened. Will Senator Lieberman be pledging to vote for Harry Reid for Leader? Will he be running as a Democrat but on a different line?
Look at the scenarios that Schumer gives, particularly "running as a Democrat on a different line". That clearly says to me that Schumer at least isn't going to let a Joe no-show or loss at the Dem primary stop DSCC from endorsing Joe as an Independent (that is, on the so-called "different line" where he can run as a Democrat. Uh huh).
Chuck is going to bend over backwards to throw support behind Indy Joe. After all, in any other case caucusing with your own party would be considered a requirement, and having to get a pledge to do so a real sign of trouble. And if they're treading lightly to stop Joe from switching to the Republican caucus, they might as well ditch him know, because he'll never truly relinquish the threat to keep leverage.
Sorry, but this is sadly another case where the groundwork is being set up to make a Joe indy run acceptable.
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