Holy Joe Lieberman Was Resurrected After Three Days
I don't get it. Why is it so hard for the Democrats to kick Holy Joe Lieberman to the curb that he has so dearly earned? There are some reasons at the link (they're not afraid of him using his committee chairmanship to attack Obama, the president-elect wanetd them to forgive and forget), but are they the last people on earth who realize that Lieberman is one of the true scrubs of American politics, an unliked and unlikeable scold who can only elicit applause at John Hagee's church and the occasional PMRC reunion tours?
Let's turn the clock back a little. When Lieberman endorsed John McCain, it was supposed to help McCain court a few sought-after groups of voters. First, Jewish voters who might have a problem with a candidate who wanted to meet with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and, oh yeah, was named "Barack Hussein Obama." Second, independents. Third, voters in Lieberman's own state of Connecticut, a swing state as recently as 1992, and New Hampshire, a swing state every year since then.
How'd it go?
Jewish voters: John Kerry won them, 74-25 percent. Obama won them by more, 78-21.
Independents: Kerry won them, 49-48 percent. Obama won them by more, 52-44.
Connecticut and New Hampshire: Kerry won them, 55-44 and 50-49. Obama won them by more, 61-38 and 54-45. Obama's victories in both states were the biggest for any Democrat since LBJ, and I believe he's the first Democrat to every sweep every county in New Hampshire.
Senators protecting their own, nothing new. Senators protecting such an obvious loser… that's more unusual, isn't it?
UPDATE: There's some murmuring in the comments about why any reasonoid should care about this. Well, two years ago, when it looked like the video game-banner and drug warrior from Connecticut had lost his Senate seat, we fired off 21 guns. A Lieberman-free Senate would be a better Senate, insofar as such a thing might exist. It's been amusing/irritating to see Lieberman heralded, in his post-Democratic career, as a force for bipartisanship and independence. He's not: He's a full-scale nanny stater who gets squeamish when people behave in ways he doesn't like. Watching his McCain endorsement backfire or fall flat should have killed Lieberman's image once and for all, but apparently that image has George Romero and Lucio Fulci qualities.