It sounds like Joe Lieberman’s independent campaign for re-election to his Senate seat is heading into rocky political waters: top Democrats are beginning to become concerned about his message, according to The Hill:
A group of Senate Democrats is growing increasingly angry about Sen. Joe Lieberman’s (D-Conn.) campaign tactics since he lost the Democratic primary last week.
If he continues to alienate his colleagues, Lieberman could be stripped of his seniority within the Democratic caucus should he defeat Democrat Ned Lamont in the general election this November, according to some senior Democratic aides.
In recent days, Lieberman has rankled Democrats in the upper chamber by suggesting that those who support bringing U.S. troops home from Iraq by a certain date would bolster terrorists’ planning attacks against the U.S. and its allies. He also sparked resentment by saying last week on NBC’s Today show that the Democratic Party was out of the political mainstream.
Democrats are worried that Lieberman may be giving Republicans a golden opportunity to undermine their message.
“I think there’s a lot of concern,� said a senior Democratic aide who has discussed the subject with colleagues. “I think the first step is if the Lieberman thing turns into a side show and hurts our message and ability to take back the Senate, and the White House and the [National Republican Senatorial Committee] manipulate him, there are going to be a lot of unhappy people in our caucus.�
Michael Lewan, Lieberman’s former chief of staff, has worked to quell Democratic discontent with Lieberman and to steer them away from campaigning against his former boss, said Democratic aides familiar with Lewan’s activities.
And aside from the message, there’s another bigger reason why Democrats are beginning to raise their eyebrows over Lieberman’s theme about the Democratic party, the war, terrorism and the Bush administration these days:
The issue of Lieberman’s seniority would arise most dramatically if Lieberman wins re-election and Democrats recapture control of the chamber. That would slot Lieberman to take over as chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, the panel primarily responsible for investigating the executive branch.
The whole point of the Democrat’s argument to its voters and independent voters (and some disgruntled Republican voters) will be that with one party effectively controlling all branches of government there is no oversight. The GOP has used the specter of Democrats taking control and running wild doing investigations and perhaps opting for impeachment (something top Congressional leaders downplay or pooh-pooh) to raise funds.
Democrats think their chances of taking back the Senate are growing more and more likely. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) last week said he was more confident that Democrats would pick up at least five Senate seats.
Allowing Lieberman to retain his seniority could put the senator now running as an independent in charge of the Senate’s chief investigative committee. If Democrats took control of either chamber they would likely launch investigations of the White House’s handling of the war in Iraq and homeland security.
The Hill quotes a “Democratic senior aide” as saying it wouldn’t sense to keep Lieberman in a position where he might take over the Governmental Affairs Committee.
One of Lieberman’s biggest obstacles is the fact that the country’s top GOP party officials and the White House press spokesman have made it clear the people with the national power levers in the GOP aren’t going to the GOP candidate in Connecticut — and are all but openly rooting for Lieberman’s election. You can’t turn on Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity without them praising him.
This means his candidacy, in the way it is being presented now, has shifted in perception in the media from being a centrist running against an anti-war Democrat to being a Democrat who is sharply criticizing his own party and being openly supported by Republican political and media bigwigs who generally demonize Democrats.
If the administration or GOP as a party had cultivated, nurtured (and even used to its own political advantage, as Bush adeptly did when he was Governor of Texas) TRUE bipartisanship, Lieberman would not have become such an unlikely symbol. But some of those Democrats who held out an olive branch had it broken over the heads. And Lieberman’s recent statements solidified his standing among many Democrats as someone who urges bipartisanship with those who are mega-partisan.
The net result is that it likely means even fewer Democrats will vote for Lieberman than before. And that is even more likely to happen if some top Democrats campaign against Lieberman or answer attacks he may make on the Democratic party itself.
Another big problem for Lieberman: if voters want to cast a protest vote against the Bush administration, who will they vote for?
You’ll have one Republican (not supported by the Republican national elite), one independent Democrat (supported by the Republican national elite) and one Democrat who has sharply criticized the administration on the war and other issues.
This post is cross posted on the Unity08 website.
UPDATE: A New York Times‘ report sees the situation as quite the opposite of both The Hill and our analysis above.
The senator appears so emboldened that in spite of the Democratic unity around Mr. Lamont, some Washington Democrats are now acknowledging that a Lieberman victory in November is a distinct possibility. According to guests at a fund-raiser for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Hamptons on Saturday, Mrs. Clinton — who is supporting Mr. Lamont — said that Mr. Lieberman had more than a 50-50 chance of winning re-election. (Clinton aides said they could not confirm or deny the remark; one of the aides said that if Mrs. Clinton had discussed the race, she might have been referring to a new poll that had Mr. Lieberman slightly ahead.)
To help Mr. Lamont, national Democrats are providing ideas to his campaign on policy issues and staffing, as well as a steady flow of donations, Lamont aides said.
In a state where Republican and independent voters make up a majority of the electorate, Mr. Lieberman is still developing a message about bipartisanship, but his aides say it will involve adopting positions from both parties and being willing to criticize Democrats as well as Republicans.
And then there’s this:
Lamont advisers said that they had hoped Democratic pressure on Mr. Lieberman to quit would have been unbearable. Howard Dean, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, has called on Mr. Lieberman to drop out, but other Democratic leaders have questioned whether it makes sense to take on the senator — and perhaps anger him — when he appears determined to run and relatively formidable right now.
The bottom line: no matter what, the political saga swirling around Joe Lieberman is bound to step on the Democratic party’s overall message in terms of media coverage and imagery — which is bad news for the Democrats.’
UPDATE II: Several readers in comments point to this new Quinnipiac poll that shows Lieberman solidly ahead. It sounds like Lamont has a lot of work to do:
Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman, running as an independent, gets 53 percent of likely voters, with 41 percent for Democratic primary winner Ned Lamont and 4 percent for Republican Alan Schlesinger, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.
Among registered voters, Sen. Lieberman gets 49 percent, followed by Lamont with 38 percent and Schlesinger with 4 percent. This compares to a 51 – 27 percent Lieberman lead over Lamont, with 9 percent for Schlesinger in a July 20 poll by the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University.
In this latest survey, Lieberman leads 75 – 13 – 10 percent among likely Republican voters, and 58 – 36 – 3 percent among likely independent voters, while likely Democratic voters back Lamont 63 – 35 percent. Two percent are undecided, but 28 percent of those who name a candidate might change their mind before Election Day.
“Sen. Lieberman’s support among Republicans is nothing short of amazing. It more than offsets what he has lost among Democrats. As long as Lieberman maintains this kind of support among Republicans, while holding onto a significant number of Democratic votes, the veteran Senator will be hard to beat,� said Quinnipiac University Poll Director Douglas Schwartz, Ph.D.
“Ned Lamont’s Democratic primary win was based on a very small percentage of voters statewide. He must expand beyond this base if he is going to beat Lieberman.�
The name of the electoral game seems to be “coalitions.” Lieberman, at this early stage of the game, has a better coalition than Lamont. On the national scene, the GOP is in trouble because the kinds of coalitions that emerged on voting day and swept them into power in the White House and Congress have fractured. Can Lamont win over more Democrats and independents? In 2008, whichever party can do this trick better will also capture the White House.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.