Online Journal of Politics and Foreign Affairs
Jeffrey Jones looks at Gallup polls over the last two years and finds that “among the major religious groups in the United States, Jewish Americans are the most strongly opposed to the Iraq war. Catholics and Protestants are more or less divided in their views on the war, while Mormons are the most likely to [...]
Joe Lieberman has told The Politico‘s Carrie Budoff that he may switch to the Republican Party if the Democrats continue on their present course. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut told the Politico on Thursday that he has no immediate plans to switch parties but suggested that Democratic opposition to funding the war in Iraq [...]
Democratic Representative Ellen Tauscher has apparently replaced Joe Lieberman as Netroots Enemy #1, according to a front page story in today’s WaPo by Juliet Eilperin and Michael Grunwald. The Democratic majority was only three weeks old, but by Jan. 26, the grass-roots and Net-roots activists of the party’s left wing had already settled on their [...]
Roll Call‘s Emily Pierce reports: Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) has relinquished his position as co-chairman of the Senate Centrist Coalition, halting talks with co-chairwoman Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) over the future of the organization in favor of creating his own bipartisan group with Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.). Interesting, although I’m not sure what to make [...]
Jonathan Singer argues that Senate Democrats should fight off any attempts by Republicans to rely on the Daschle-Lott precedent of 2000 agreeing to a change in leadership should the other side gain a majority during the next two years. His argument is that, in 2000, there was a Democratic vice president (Al Gore) at the [...]
Anonymous Liberal advises us not to take the polls showing John McCain and Giuliani battling it out for the GOP nomination and Barack Obama closing in on Hillary Clinton on the Democratic side too seriously, correctly terming them “all but meaningless.” He cites a Fox News poll from January 2003 on the Democratic nominees: Joe [...]
Atop an otherwise uninteresting TIME recap of the election returns are photos of Joe Lieberman, Karl Rove, and Rush Limbaugh. I’ve never noticed the striking similarity between the looks of the latter two before: There’s a joke about Bush’s Brain and having half of one’s brain tied behind one’s back in there somewhere, I think.
Betsy Newmark believes Tuesday’s results “contradicted several points of conventional wisdom about what takes place in elections.” 1. Incumbents have an almost insurmountable advantage and their defeat is a rare, special event. This is still manifestly true. The stars were spectacularly aligned for a whuppin’ of the Republicans. Having majorities in both Houses of Congress [...]
Jason Smith asks, “[W]ouldn’t it be ironic, if the man Democrats threw to the wolves, Joe Lieberman, decided the best payback to his disloyal colleagues was to pull a Jeffords?” Yes. Yes it would. It would also be, as it was in Jeffords’ case, quite despicable. Like his political twin, John McCain, Lieberman is an [...]
Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld has tendered his resignation: Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, architect of an unpopular war in Iraq, intends to resign after six stormy years at the Pentagon, Republican officials said Wednesday. Officials said Robert Gates, former head of the CIA, would replace Rumsfeld. The development occurred one day after midterm elections that [...]
I’ve finally managed to get set up at the CNN election party on a borrowed laptop (long story). Lots of televisions and other bloggers, although the cacophony of sound from the latter is drowning out the audio from the former. No closed captioning as of yet for the suddenly hearing impaired. I’ll be posting updates [...]
The NYT gives prominent attention to news that Democrats run relatively conservative candidates in key House seats they are trying to keep or snatch from the Republicans. In their push to win back control of the House, Democrats have turned to conservative and moderate candidates who fit the profiles of their districts more closely than [...]
Joe Lieberman is once again running away with the Connecticut Senate race. Senator Joseph Lieberman (I) has increased his margin over Democrat Ned Lamont by eight points. He now leads the antiwar candidate 50% to 40% (see crosstabs [$]). Thirty-nine percent (39%) are certain of their Lieberman vote, while 30% definitely expect to pull the [...]
The Senate Democrats are hedging their bets, apparently promising Joe Lieberman he will retain his seniority if he’s re-elected as an Independent and joins their caucus. Sen. Joe Lieberman, the longtime Democratic senator from Connecticut running for re-election as an independent, says the party leadership has assured him he would keep his seniority if he [...]
David Adesnik of OxBlog finds Nancy Pelosi running away from the term “liberal” in the run-up to the November elections. The president’s approval rating hasn’t seen the brighter side of 50% in years. Confident liberals installed Howard Dean as chairman of the Democratic party and threw their weight behind a successful anti-Lieberman insurgency. So, has [...]
Ned Lamont touts himself as a teacher of inner city kids. The Lieberman camp says that’s stretching the truth. On the campaign stump, Democratic Senate candidate Ned Lamont often tells audiences that he teaches at Harding High School in Bridgeport. On his Web page, Lamont states, “I teach in a 50-year-old inner-city public school,” referring [...]
Writing for USA Today, Bruce Kluger uses some rather strained logic to argue that the power of the blogosphere is largely mythological. His evidence? Bloggers failed to kill of Joe Lieberman’s independent campaign for the Senate and “Snakes on a Plane” had only modest success at the box office. On Aug. 8, Connecticut businessman Ned [...]
An article in today’s NYT discusses the concerns of Democratic leaders that Joe Lieberman’s “independent” senate campaign will bring more Republicans to the polls, hurting the Democrats’ chances of winning a couple of key House races. As Senator Joseph I. Lieberman begins to mount a vigorous and well-financed re-election campaign as an independent, many Connecticut [...]
Joe Lieberman willnot endorse Conneticut’s Democratic candidates for Congress, he announced yesterday. Declaring himself a “non-combatant,” U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman, in remarks at a New Haven press event Friday, raised anew the question of whether his “independent” candidacy will help Republicans hold onto three Congressional seats in Connecticut — and control of the U.S. House [...]
Democrat/Connecticut for Lieberman/Republican backed Joe Lieberman called for Donald Rumsfeld’s resignation on yesterday’s “Face the Nation.” Sen. Joe Lieberman, attacked by fellow Democrats as being too close to the White House on the Iraq War, on Sunday called on Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to resign but said the United States cannot “walk away” from the [...]
Joe Lieberman’s transformation into the quasi-Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate is nearly complete, now that he’s hired the top Republican polling firm. Sen. Joe Lieberman continued retooling his campaign staff Friday, hiring a nationally known pollster and media consultant to assist in his independent re-election bid. Lieberman hired Democratic consultant Josh Isay, who has [...]
Jason Horowitz reports that, a source at the National Republican Senatorial Committee confirmed in a phone interview that the party will not help Schlesinger or any other potential Republican candidate in Connecticut, and it now favors a Lieberman victory in November. “We did a poll and there is no way any Republican we put out [...]
Political Wire’s Quote of the Day: “Even if Joe Lieberman leaves the race, it will still be a three-way race, me, Schlesinger and Gold. So it’s going to be crowded.” — Connecticut U.S. Senate candidate Ned Lamont (D), on Hardball, referring to GOP rival Alan Schlesinger’s (R) gambling name, “Alan Gold.” Great line. There’s something [...]
“Independent” Joe Lieberman holds a twelve point lead over Democrat Ned Lamont in the latest Quinnipiac poll, Taegan Goddard reports, thanks to support of 3/4 of Republicans. In Connecticut’s U.S. Senate race, a new Quinnipiac poll finds Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I) leading Ned Lamont (D) among likely voters, 53% to 41%, with Alan Schlesinger (R) [...]
Key Democratic Party leaders are angry at Joe Lieberman for running against their nominee and there is now talk of stripping his seniority within the caucus. 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 [...]
For someone that is typically derided as, er, not that worldly, Sen. George Allen is sure being given the benefit of the doubt when it comes to his knowledge of really obscure ethnic slurs. At a recent campaign event, Allen referred to a Webb campaign operative named S.R. Sidarth that was sent to videotape the [...]
Republican pollster Rob Autry* contends that Joe Lieberman remains the odds-on favorite to retain his Senate seat despite being beaten in his own party primary and holding a narrow lead in the latest three-way polls. The key to winning Connecticut is not winning Democrats…it’s winning moderates. After all, Republicans do hold three of the five [...]
Although the Republican Party is running a candidate to vy for the Connecticut U.S. Senate seat currently held by Democrat Joe Lieberman, the GOP establishment is refusing to endorse him. Taegan Goddard reports, “White House Press Secretary Tony Snow said this morning that President Bush will not endorse Connecticut U.S. Senate candidate Alan Schlesinger (R) [...]
In today’s Hartford Courant, Sen. Ted Kennedy authored an op-ed responding to comments made by Vice President Dick Cheney about Ned Lamont’s victory in last week’s Democratic primary in Connecticut. Here’s the bulk of what Kennedy had to say: The comments he made on the result of the Connecticut Democratic primary – that it might [...]
Rudy Giuliani was on H&C tonight to weigh in on the news of today’s foiled terror plot and the war on terrorism in general. And one thing is for sure, unlike lots of politicians, Giuliani isn’t running away from President Bush or the war in Iraq; he calls the President’s decision to go on the [...]
Interesting how The New York Times decided to frame Lieberman’s comments today as him “seizing” on today’s news to “attack” Ned Lamont: Senator Joseph I. Lieberman seized on the terror arrests in Britain today to attack his Democratic rival, Ned Lamont, saying that Mr. Lamont’s goals for ending the war in Iraq would constitute a [...]
Taegan Goddard has an early look at Rasmussen’s numbers on the Connecticut general election poll, believed to be the first survey since Tuesday’s primary. Rasmussen Reports began polling the Ned Lamont-Joe Lieberman general election match-up last night. After 375 interviews, preliminary numbers show Lieberman ahead of Lamont by 3 percentage points. Republican candidate Alan Schlesinger [...]
Ned Lamont flanked by fellow irate moderates Al Sharption and Jesse Jackson Martin Peretz has written a scathing post at The Plank on Ned Lamont’s buddies on the dais: So Ned Lamont did defeat Joe Lieberman. But Lamont won by just under four percentage points, a far cry from the huge margins he’d captured in [...]
He’s doesn’t seem to be doing all that bad considering. Lieberman makes it known that he’s in it until November and argues that he’s going to be the candidate that will fight against the partisanship which helped move his opponent to victory and unify Connecticut voters of all political stripes. Lieberman also argues that Lamont’s [...]
Advocate the immediate end of the war in Iraq or the netroots coming after you too: Friends, Let the resounding defeat of Senator Joe Lieberman send a cold shiver down the spine of every Democrat who supported the invasion of Iraq and who continues to support, in any way, this senseless, immoral, unwinnable war. Make [...]
Taegan Goddard has obtained the CBS/NYT exit poll results from the Lamont-Lieberman race. The results are somewhat surprising. Overall, 78% disapproved of the decision to go to war in Iraq and, of those, 60% went for Lamont. Going in, I’d have guessed both numbers would be higher, especially the second. That Lamont only got 60% [...]
WaPo’s Jonathan Weisman sees a trend: In the shadow of the Democratic Senate primary in Connecticut, angry voters in three states showed their discontent last night by unseating two incumbents and choosing a candidate who campaigned against his primary opponent’s bipartisan past. The defeat of Georgia’s outspoken Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D) and Michigan moderate Rep. [...]
Markos Moulitsas Zuniga rightfully gloats over last night’s victory by Ned Lamont over Joe Lieberman. While it has seemed inevitable for a few weeks now, it wasn’t long ago that it seemed unthinkable. Indeed, many of us were chuckling over Kos’ appearance in a Lamont television ad and making fun of the netroots for whooping [...]
7:45: The polls are set to close in about 15 minutes here in CT but the general consensus is that it’s going to be a while until the results are known. In the meantime, I’ll be updating this post with all the info I can throw your way and probably some video highlights (or lowlights) [...]
Sen. Lieberman’s campaign manager Sean Smith was just on FOX News to talk about the website troubles that have plagued the Lieberman campaign since yesterday morning and, according to Smith, the Lieberman campaign is taking this very seriously: the campaign has asked for an investigation by the Connecticut Attorney General and the United States Attorney’s [...]
Via The Hotline: According to Lieberman’s campaign communications director, Marion Steinfels, “Yep, we’ve been hacked.” “There’s a coordinated effort to overloaded our bandwith and that has brought down our website and our e-mail,” she said. The attack began around mid-morning, she said. Steinfels said the company that hosts the campaign website is investigating. It’s the [...]
Over at The Corner today, Byron York wonders if a Lamont victory tomorrow will “truly be the Triumph of the Blogs” and provides some interesting numbers concerning the netroots and Lamont’s campaign war chest: A new poll of the Lamont-Lieberman race has Ned Lamont ahead in Connecticut, 51-45. A look at the lefty blogs shows [...]
A Greenwich Time headline proclaims “Lieberman shows signs cutting into Lamont lead, poll shows.” The story, however, does not necessarily support that attention-grabbing title. U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman, fighting for his political survival, appears to be cutting into challenger Ned Lamont’s lead the day before Connecticut’s Democratic primary election, according to a Quinnipiac University poll [...]
Dan Balz has a front page piece in today’s WaPo on the implications of a now seemingly inevitable loss by Joe Lieberman in Tuesday’s Democratic primary on the 2008 presidential race. An upset by Lamont would affect the political calculations of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), who like Lieberman supported giving Bush authority to wage [...]
Gallup analyst Lydia Saad looks at a poll taken last week that shows Joe Lieberman is more popular with Republicans than Democrats, not only in Connecticut but nationally. U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman has faced mounting difficulties among fellow Democrats in his home state of Connecticut over his pro-Iraq war stance, possibly culminating in his defeat [...]
Stuart Rothenberg challenges the conventional wisdom that Joe Lieberman is a shoe-in for re-election if, as now looks likely, he loses to Ned Lamont in Tuesday’s primary. A resounding Lamont victory would make it very difficult for Democratic elected officials (and for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee) to stick with Lieberman in a three-way general [...]
A rather innocuous HuffPo post by Jane Hamsher yesterday, entitled “On the Ground with Lamont/Lieberman,” was illustrated with a PhotoShopped image of Joe Lieberman and Bill Clinton depicted at right. Michelle Malkin and a slew of conservative bloggers jumped on it yesterday and the image was quickly and quietly removed. Oddly, the bottom of the [...]
Crikey, boys and girls! We’ve got us some live ones! Watch ‘em pounce on Barbara Boxer during her stop today in Connecticut to campaign for Joe “Beelzebub” Lieberman. BONUS NUTROOT VIDEO: The Joe Lieberman sucks video (featuring Avril Lavigne) UPDATE (James Joyner): Jane Hamsher, who is in CT working on the Lamont campaign, has background [...]
The Republican Party now feels it has a legitimate shot to snag the Senate seat belonging to Joe Lieberman. It appears that Bob Dole is the key to making it happen. And, no, he’s not going to be on the ticket. Last week’s Rasmussen Poll showing Ned Lamont winning handily the Democratic primary and in [...]