Bill Clinton Will Campaign For Joe Lieberman
Some people seem to think this is surprising:
U.S. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman is rolling out the big gun in his increasingly close primary battle with Greenwich Democrat Ned Lamont.Former President Bill Clinton is slated to campaign on behalf of the three-term incumbent Monday in Waterbury, Lieberman’s campaign spokeswoman said today.
“We are thrilled to have President Clinton come to the state to campaign for Senator Lieberman,” the spokeswoman, Marion Steinfels, said. “It is not only a big day for our campaign, but it is a big day for Waterbury and Connecticut.”
Actually, I’m from Connecticut and ANY DAY is a big day for Waterbury. MORE:
Steinfels said Clinton was expected to speak in the late afternoon, but added that plans for the event are still being made.Clinton and Lieberman have known each other since Clinton worked on Lieberman’s first campaign for state Senate in 1970, when Clinton atended Yale University in New Haven, she said.
She also noted that Lieberman was the first senator from outside of the South to endorse Clinton in his 1992 presidential campaign.
The bottom line is that when Clinton ran for President he and Lieberman most definitely belonged to the same faction of the party — the faction that was trying to make the Democrats more marketable to the general electorate and more in line with national political changes that put the country’s center a bit more to the right than in past years. AND:
Lieberman famously broke with Clinton in 1998 when he took the Senate floor to condemn the president’s marital infidelity as “immoral” and denounce his “premeditated” deception. The speech was widely interpreted as Lieberman’s stepping-stone to the Democrats’ vice presidential nomination two years later.Clinton, in a recent speech at the Aspen Institute conference, defended Lieberman and his staunch support for the war in Iraq. He questioned why antiwar Democrats are seeking to oust a fellow Democrat, saying that instead of seeking to retire Republicans they were pursuing “the nuttiest strategy I ever heard in my life.”
So why is Clinton not getting even by avoiding Lieberman’s campaign (and jumping into the fray for Lieberman as polls show JL’s numbers in the primary are shrinking)?
The two share a political space plus a key political viewpoint: it’s the idea that in order for a political party to win it needs to be a tent that increasingly expands in size to allow more in. This runs counter to the view in segments of both the Republican and Democratic parties that some people need to be stopped at the door from getting in because they’re not pure enough for entry (the idea being that you’ll get more in your tent if people see like-minded people in it instead of some who won’t go along with political peer pressure). It’s a matter of fundamental political approach, as well as philosophy. And time (2006 and certainly 2008) will tell which approach was the wiser one.
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Oh this must have cost Lieberman a bundle.
Sigh.
I’m really tired of people suggesting that the opposition to Lieberman is out of some desire to purify the party of its centrist elements. I happen to be a centrist. Hell, I might even be more conservative than Lieberman. But I have donated happily to the Lamont campaign because he seems like a good guy for the job AND Joe Lieberman has done everything he could to enable the right-wing takeover of this country.
It is Joe Lieberman who doesn’t believe in the Big Tent because he so consistently tries to paint anyone who disagrees with him on fundamental issues (such as the war) with the broadest, anti-American strokes.
Democrats need to invite BOTH the left and the center into the tent. But as long as Joe Lieberman is there that will not happen.
It is Joe Lieberman who doesn’t believe in the Big Tent because he so consistently tries to paint anyone who disagrees with him on fundamental issues (such as the war) with the broadest, anti-American strokes.
Thank you. This is so true. This overwhelming need to try to pander to elements who will most likely just sneer at you for pandering to them.
Most people say in polls, that they do not like the road we are on. Well Joe Lieberman is one of the prime reasons we are on the road we are on. So quit talking about it, and lets get busy going down a different road. Has anything Joe has said and done given anybody any idea that he is interested in all that?
And that takes us back to an anolgy I have used before.
Girl: Sigh, why can’t I find a good guy for a boyfriend?
Guy: I don’t know, but get your fat-ass in the truck be-yatch.
Girl: (giggle) Ohh, youre so forcefull! (bats eyes)
After awhile you tend to tune out these girls out as whining drama queens.
Marshall Wittmann becomes unhinged
Josh weighs in-
Who knew that a primary election was the coming of the apocylpse.
Look get this straight. This purge, if you want to call it that, is a purge of the party apperatchick that specializes in the art of losing. Strangley enough, those people don’t seem to be rushing in to help poor old persecuted Joe. Probably the smell the stink of defeat about him. Lord only knows the should know what that smells like, as they have been personally involved in losing for about as long as anybody can remember.
Not once, but time after time. The people screeching the loudest, seem to be the ones most tied into the status quo. I will be the first one to admit that Joe is a liberal. He is more liberal than me. So this is not about purging the party of the center. Anybody who says it is, is either a liar, or to misinformed to be offering up opinions.
This is about the people of CT deciding wether or not Joe represents their intrest. If they dont support the war, and Joe does, then why is it a high crime and misdomener to let him know by giving him his duly earned pink slip?
You would think this whole democracy thing is some kind of underhanded plot or something.
Sheesh
celebrated nutroots That must be some of that big tent civility the Middle-wayers are offering up.
Seems to me, activly dispariging your base isn’t really a great strategy either. Doesn’t make me all warm and fuzzy.
Like I said, Give me your money, Walk the streets, Man the Barricades, and when this election is over, go sit back in your corner and shut up
I will give the Rs some credit. At least they don’t treat their base this way.
You moderates feel like your intrests are not adressed? You should be over here where I’m at.
Which begs the question, just whos intrests are being adressed?
Hey Shark, right on with the quote from Josh.
And all due respect Joe, but you’ve fallen into the media trap of framing the anti-Lieberman campaign as having to do with ideological purity when it has much more to do with Joe’s preference for DC cocktail party popularity over the wishes of Connecticut Democrats (whose interests, last I checked, are those which are hypothetically most important in a PRIMARY campaign).
And (opening a whole ‘nuther can of worms), what does it mean to be moderate? Does it mean “having a moderate outlook”? Or does it mean taking several far left stances to appeal to certain interest groups, while also taking a few far right stances to appeal to certain other interest groups?
My definition would be the former, while I increasingly get the feeling that some, especially Lieberman supporters and triangulating Clintons, might believe it to be the latter.
The opposition to LieberBushman from many in the Demecratic party is all really pretty simple. He is nothing more, nothing less than Uncle Tom in the Democrat’s cabin.
I’m not at all surprised that Clinton is coming out for Lieberman, since they have very similar viewpoints. Lieberman is about as close as you can get to being Clinton in the party these days. The problem with ostracizing Clinton-minded Democrats from the party is that being Clinton-minded is a proven way to win the presidency. The other methods which have been tried lately haven’t been very successful.
This Connecticut race is certainly full of drama. And it’s apparently getting even more dramatic.
The Hartford Courant is reporting that the Republican Senate nominee is being sued by two casinos over debts.
While this looks bad for Republicans, it also means they have an opportunity to replace him with a more substantial candidate.
At this point, the Democrats seem likely to pick up Senate seats in Rhode Island and Pennsylvania. They have reasonably good chances in Ohio and Montana, where various corruption charges aginst Republicans are taking some toll. And perhaps there are at least two more reasonably competative races out there?
But what if they lose Connecticut because Lamont and Lieberman split the Democratic vote, allowing a new and improved Republican to win that race? And as a result of that, lost control of the Senate?
Irony!!
Of course Clinton is rushing in to help. The DLC corporate calvalry to the rescue.
I am really tired of the driving the “moderates” – “centrists” out of the tent meme. Joe Lieberman is a neocon, Marshall Wittmann is a neocon. There is nothing moderate or centrist about neocons. It’s an ideology that is as radical as you can get.
I am really tired of the driving the “moderates” – “centrists” out of the tent meme.
I’m with you on this, Ron. Sad to see Big Dog himself going along with it.
It took a perfect storm for Bill Clinton to get elected. A combination of his own prodigious political skills (which the DLC happily took credit for), right wing disaffection with GHWB, the campaign of Ross Perot, and a downturn in the economy.
GHWB-types are mostly purged from the GOP. Bipartisanship is stone cold dead as far as the GOP is concerned.
John McCain, you say? Went out and stumped for GWB, as unipartisan as it gets, in ’04. Maybe he’s for bipartisanchip, all other things being equal, but in case you didn’t notice, they aren’t. I’m pretty sure McCain has already noticed.
I had to stop reading Bull Moose, he basically repeats himself over and over. He wants the military to be “right” instead of “Left”. I would think someone as intelligent as he would be able to surmise, from the last 5 years that moving the military to the “right” hasn’t been very successful now has it.
The part of SnarkSharks comments I liked the most:
He got it right, this has nothing to do w/ the rest of America, its the people of Connecticut that should make this decision, not Bull Moose.
I honestly see Joe Lieberman as closer to the conservatives than to the centrists, while Bill Clinton is center-left.
Anyway, it doesn’t matter which part of the political spectrum you govern from, the country is now so polarized that Mother Teresa would be unpopular with 1/2 to 2/3 of Americans!
My main beef with Lieberman is his support for the Iraq War, and his support for Bush.
I don’t think Clinton would agree with the way Bush has capitalized on fear to tighten his grip on executive power, and whittle away at our civil liberties. He’s also criticized Bush’s conduct of the war. Clinton is a true centrist and to this day enjoys 70% popularity. I don’t believe that a leftist can win in a time when national security is key, so the choice , in my opinion would be a centrist Democrat along the lines of Bill Clinton.
Mark Warner would do nicely eh Kim?
I don’t believe that a leftist can win in a time when national security is key, so the choice , in my opinion would be a centrist Democrat along the lines of Bill Clinton
Screw that, in a time of global warming and $4.00 gas, give me the other half of the last winning team (as VP, and in 2000) Al Gore. The man is on fire, and if the neo-cons get a Viet-nam do over, then the country deserves a 2000 do over.
Without the damn Diebold machines. Which Ned Lamont can help deliver. Which gets us back to the original post.
Pyst- I am keeping an open mind about Warner—not sure about his foreign policy credentials-also he doesn’t seem to have Bill Clinton’s charisma- he seems like a calm, moderate administrator. I like and trust Joe Biden, though, despite the Dunkin Donuts debacle!
Snark- I voted for Gore in 2000-and like him on domestic issues-but not sure if he can win if the Repugs keep scaring the Bejesus out of us about WWIII starting. If they concentrate on the politics of fear can they hold onto power? Also, I would hate to see what another close loss would do to Gore personally. I DO agree with those who claim Jeb Bush, Katherine Harris, and the Supremes gave GW the state of Florida, and therefore the past 6 years of hell on earth.
Fact is, what’s being said about the “anti-Lieberman” camp is true.. they are nutjobs, just as extremist as the far right wing. The radical left are either trying to remake the democratic party in their image, or their still trying to punish us by helping to elect more republicans.
I wouldn’t vote for anyone proposed by the far left.. they’re interested in showing they can take down Lieberman, a man they were attacking in 2000 because he spoke about his spiritual faith.. not about forcing it down anyone’s throat, purely as personal issue and it was killing them.. they hated him. The leftist extremes haven’t picked a candidate who would be a good senator, frankly they don’t really seem to care too much about even the issues they claim to care about.
For example Lamont has been talking about jobs for American workers and how he would be better than Lieberman on the subject… I guess that’s why Lamont won’t make full financial disclosure for the past five years, because interestingly enough, Lamont started gutting his workforce starting in 2001, and it’s been cut by more than 50%. I guess he wouldn’t seem too sincere on the subject of jobs when he could have cared less about his own workers.. and he might look less than a man of the people if the voters saw how much his income increased by firing all those workers.
Looks like Holy Joe wouldn’t let the bloggers in.
PING:
TITLE: Bill Clinton just doesn’t get it.
BLOG NAME: Middle Earth Journal
And of course he’s not alone, the press doesn’t get it, Joe Gandelman doesn’t get it.