Lieberman stays.
He did lose his chairmanship of an irrelevant subcommittee though. Whoopdy do.
I suppose there is some good news here for President Obama. If Senate Dems won't stand up to a traitor in their midst, they sure as hell aren't going to stand up to the President. He now has a rubber stamp legislature.
When Howard Dean was elected chairman of the DNC after his largely media-driven primary defeat in 2004, he shocked the political world with novel concept:
The Democrats should compete in all 50 states.
Ridiculous! Nonsense! If the 2004 election taught us anything its that Karl Rove was a mastermind that had succeeded in relegating the Democrats to permanent minority status. Many, including far too many Democrats, took this as gospel and denounced Dean as a pie in the sky dreamer. The Democrats, it seemed, would never win another Presidential election without Florida and couldn't break through the Republican congressional majorities. They were, as the insane Zell Miller said, "a national party no more."
Then something magical happened. The strategy started paying off. In 2005, Dean's DNC raised an off-year record $51 million and prepared to spend it in 2006. Now, to be fair, the Bush administration's gross mismanagement of everything from the war in Iraq to evacuating New Orleans certainly helped, but the 2006 Democrats were competitive in states they would not have considered with another chairman.
As you know, the Democrats swept into power in both houses of congress that year. It was as President Bush so eloquently put it, "a thumpin." The long derided "San Francisco liberal" Nancy Pelosi was now the first female speaker of the house in US history and with the Democrats held a narrow majority in the Senate thanks to pick ups in states like Montana and Virginia. Yes, the 50-state strategy strikes again. After 2006, the 2008 congressional election results were never really in dispute. Even Republicans, who were defending more seats, conceded it wouldn't go well. The only question was how close to the filibuster proof 60 Senate seats the Democrats would come. The election was even more favorable to Democrats than we had hoped, and gains in Virginia (again), Oregon, New Mexico, and Colorado among others have the Democrats sitting at 57. Three states still remain to be decided. It looks more and more like Alaska will go to a Democrat and Minnesota candidate Al Frankken trails by only 206 votes in a race headed to a recount. In the unlikely event they could pick up Georgia, a 60 seat Senate majority is still possible.
The big story in 2008 was, naturally, the election of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States. The 50-state strategy was a cornerstone of Obama's campaign even in the primaries. He focused on gaining delegates in all corners of the country, competing in states like Alaska and North Dakota that Hillary Clinton never bothered to visit. Once nominated, the large sums of money Obama raised allowed him to again compete in every corner of the nation. Before all was said and done, Obama had run adds in states as red as Montana (Bush won by 20 pts in 2004) and North Dakota (Bush won by 27 pts in 2004). While ultimately Obama did not win these states, he kept both close, losing Montana by only 3% and North Dakota by 8%. He did successfully pick off other extremely red states like Indiana (Bush in 2004 won by 21%) and North Carolina where Bush won by 12%. In all, Obama flipped 9 states from red to blue on his way to 365 electoral votes. He most recently won 1 EV from Nebraska, who splits its electoral vote by congressional district.
So Howard Dean is looking pretty good right now. His "crazy" 50-state strategy has resulted in huge Democratic congressional majorities and a President with a governing mandate. Congrats Governor.
There are three Senate seats that remain undecided (Alaska, Georgia, and Minnesota) and while the Democratic pickups mean they are comfortably over 51 seats, it appears that they will fall short of the filibuster proof 60 they were shooting for. It is, of course, possible that the Democrats could still reach that number, but I just don't see Georgia going into their column. Since no one received over 50% of the vote, that race will go to a runoff and without Barack Obama on the ballot, Democratic challenger Jim Martin is unlikely to do as well as he has a 2nd time.
So with the majority locked in and 60 apparently out of reach, the question is now what to do with Joe Lieberman?
Lieberman very publicly continued his slow break with the Democratic Party in this year's election, backing his friend John McCain, going so far as to speak at the Republican National Convention and attack Barack Obama as a possible Marxist and not committed to America. Nasty stuff even for a turncoat.
The Connecticut Senator has been a thorn in the Democrats side for a long time. He supported censure for Bill Clinton following the Lewinsky affair and has spent his career as an advocate for censorship in the entertainment industry. Al Gore's selection of Lieberman for VP likely cost Gore enough votes from the left to lose the presidency (kind of) to George W. Bush. His vocal and adamant support for the Iraq War led to a primary challenge from Ned Lamont in 2006. Lieberman lost the race and immediately filed to run for his seat as an independent. Joe opted to caucus with the Democrats after winning the three way race, but his continued support for the war and serving as a McCain/Palin attack dog have Democrats seeing red.
So here we are. It seems the Democrats have three options:
1. Do nothing.
Totally unacceptable. I'm all for bi-partisan cooperation, but you don't get to call the President-elect a Marxist and be welcomed back with open arms. Sorry Joe (not really).
2. Boot him from the Democratic caucus and his committee chairmanship.
While this would be the most satisfying to Democrats nationwide, nothing would please the smug and sanctimonious Lieberman happier than being made into a martyr by nasty partisan Democrats. I can already hear him whining about how he put principal over party. Gag me.
Strategically, the Democrats would create an enemy in a legislative chamber where any one member can basically stymie legislation for days on end through a filibuster. The Republicans would welcome Joe to their ranks and portray him as a hero. Its unlikely they would ever fully trust him, such is the lonely life of a turncoat, but he would be a useful PR tool for a party desperately in need of one.
No. The dangers of turning him into a martyr and poster boy for the Republicans outweigh the emotional satisfaction of publicly humiliating him.
3. Strip him of his chairmanship, do not force him from the caucus.
This would seem to be the best of both worlds. Lieberman pays the price for his disloyalty by losing his beloved chairmanship of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee, but cannot say the mean old Democrats drove him from the party. The chairmanship change can be spun as a simple difference of ideology.
Also, if Senate Democrats do this, Lieberman will probably leave the caucus of his own free will. We'll be rid of him, but without creating a hero for Republicans.
Its a long way off, but hopefully Connecticut voters will make this a moot point by voting him out of office in 2012.
Over the next couple weeks, we at Skynet will be bringing you our suggestions regarding the 12 ballot measures that qualified for the November 4th election.
Prop 12 - VETERANS’ BOND ACT OF 2008.
Vote: NO
I have opted for a NO vote on Prop 12, but could have easily gone the other way. Our veterans certainly need assistance, but is this really the way to do it?
- Veterans Affairs are clearly a responsibility of the federal government. When the state is deep in the red, can we afford to pick up the tab simply because the feds will do nothing? Our state's senior Senator is one of the more powerful members of the US Senate. She should be fighting for federal dollars for California's veterans.
- The program this measure funds discriminates against most veterans. In order to qualify for a loan, a veteran must have served in a time of war. The timing of when you enlisted should not affect your benefits as a veteran.
Over the next couple weeks, we at Skynet will be bringing you our suggestions regarding the 12 ballot measures that qualified for the November 4th election.
Prop 11 - REDISTRICTING.
Vote: NO
Prop 11 is nothing short of a mess and can only make things in this state worse. Redistricting worked just fine for years until the Republican Party became so desperate to stop the bleeding of seats that they conspired with their Democratic colleagues to gerrymander the state into completely unswingable districts. As it currently stands, neither party has any realistic shot at gaining or losing seats in the State Legislature.
The roots of this go back to Pete Wilson. His brilliant idea to demonize latinos effectively wiped out the Republican Party in California. The only things that could save them from total oblivion were rigged districts and an Austrian weightlifter. The Democrats were all too happy to bury the Republicans in a permanent minority for the next decade.
A weak and nearly dead Republican Party is the problem here. They are incapable of launching any effective opposition to the Democrats and instead opt to paralyze state government. Prop 11, and every other redistricting measure they have tried to pass recently, is nothing more than the Republicans asking you to help them out of a hole they dug themselves.
Just say no.
Over the next couple weeks, we at Skynet will be bringing you our suggestions regarding the 12 ballot measures that qualified for the November 4th election.
Prop 10 - ALTERNATIVE FUEL VEHICLES AND RENEWABLE ENERGY.
Vote: YES
Its not easy to support Prop 10 because of its backer. Oil billionaire, swift boater, and world class asshole T. Boone Pickens is behind the measure. It is part of the "Pickens Plan" you've been seeing commercials about.
Pickens aside, I've decided to back the measure.
Oil is going to run out and we as a society need to take steps to ween ourselves from it. The pain everyone felt when gas prices passed $4 this summer is only a preview of things to come. Prop 10 starts to move us away from oil.
The measure would spend $1.25 billion to fund research and development of green energy, primarily solar. Additionally, it would provide $3.425 billion "to help consumers and others purchase certain high fuel economy or alternative fuel vehicles, including natural gas vehicles, and to fund research into alternative fuel technology." The natural gas is, of course, Pickens' scheme. Lumping natural gas into an "alternative energy" measure is disingenuous, but its certainly not a deal breaker for me.
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