Tom Schaller at Tapped has a take on the Clinton visit that asks some very good questions:

Clinton has said he will support Ned Lamont if he wins. The real question I’d like Broder or somebody else to ask Clinton before August 8 is this: Did you, as a condition of agreeing to back Joe before the primary, tell him that you would ask him to respectfully abandon his independent candidacy if he lost the primary?

There have been many recent reports of both local and national party figures privately fuming at Joe's incompetent campaign and selfish decision to bolt the party. This week's excellent New York Magazine article even revealed a Lieberman inner circle that was split about that decision:

Lieberman fretted for weeks about the decision to go independent. One adviser tried to talk Lieberman out of it, worried that the ploy might alienate rank-and-file Democrats who would perceive him as dissing his party. But his son and confidant Matt... urged him to go for it....

As Lieberman headed off to make his announcement on July 3 in front of the State House in Hartford, an aide told him, “I don’t know if this will kill us or help us.” Lieberman just smiled in reply....

Both Clintons, Boxer, Schumer, Reid, Dodd - all know that a three-way race with Joe in November would be incredibly destructive to them individually as well as their party. They have a lot to lose with a Lieberman Party run. And they see, as Tim notes at the official blog, both how Joe is trying to hold the party hostage, and how uniting the party behind a Ned Lamont (D) candidacy could have extraordinarily positive consequences:

By contrast if we win, and Senator Lieberman respects the wishes of the people who have supported him for the last 18 years plus, we’ll turn our machine towards helping elect a Democratic nominees for congress, governor and statehouse. That’s an online army of statewide netizens, an email list many campaigns would kill for, and real support from within the grassroots of Connecticut. None of which Senator Lieberman has without the absence of a pay-stub.

Whether or not Bill "struck a deal" with Joe, it's obvious that Lieberman is under increasing pressure from all quarters to abadnon his plans for an independent run - pressure that will just continue to grow until August 9th, the Lieberman Party's deadline for filing petitions.

Schaller is asking the right questions here. It would be great to see them posed to Joe's inner circle and his national party backers alike.

Have any of them been privately urging Joe to reconsider his Independent run?