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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Peter Dierks who wrote (12561)	9/28/2006 4:45:28 PM
From: Jim S	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

"The only things he has in common with republicans is his stance on the war and his service to ethics." In that, he reminds me of two other Dem senators I respected, Moynihan and Sam Nunn.

To: Peter Dierks who wrote (12561)	10/20/2006 9:11:48 PM
From: Peter Dierks	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

A Democrat McCain Joe Lieberman rediscovers belief in Connecticut. BY DANIEL HENNINGER Friday, October 20, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT We see where the Democrats are laying in cases of champagne to celebrate their Nov. 7 victory in the congressional elections. If as seems possible control of the Senate turns on a single seat, attention will return to one probable winner who likely won't be in the Democratic clubhouse spraying bubbly that night--Joe Lieberman. Sen. Lieberman is going to defeat the Ned Lamont "insurgency" from the Democratic left. Now what? His lead in the most recent polls runs between 8 and 13 points. It is safe to assume that if the Democrats win next month, they won't be urging reporters to focus on the Lieberman victory in Connecticut. This wasn't supposed to happen. What was supposed to happen is that Joe Lieberman was supposed to go away. After Ned Lamont defeated Mr. Lieberman in the primary, a procession of his Senate friends traveled ostentatiously to Connecticut to recreate the scene in "Godfather II" where Tom Hagen tells Frank Pentangeli about how marked guys went away in the time of the Roman Empire. "Yeah," said Frankie, "and their families were taken care of." Hagen: "A nice deal." That was a movie. Instead of a political corpse, the Democratic Party is about to get its own version of John McCain--a shrewd and independent maverick. By the accounts of friends and associates, Joe Lieberman feels "liberated" and "unshackled." Back in 2000, as Al Gore's running mate, Joe Lieberman did what the party asked him to do. He threw over some of his core beliefs, as on affirmative action and school vouchers, and swept left in a way that made his bipartisan admirers cringe. After the Lamont defeat, he could have slicked together a campaign that threw sops to Greenwich's liberals and held his Democratic base (he got 48% in the primary). Didn't happen. In terms of what comes next for Mr. Lieberman and his party, the signal event in this campaign is his Sept. 25 speech to the Veterans of Foreign War in East Hampton. It's about Iraq. This speech could serve as a template for Democratic Party policy on Iraq after the election--but it won't. In August, just weeks before the Lamont antiwar frenzy crested, 12 Democrats led by Sen. Harry Reid and Rep. Nancy Pelosi sent President Bush a letter urging the start of withdrawal from Iraq by the end of 2006 and a reduced mission there. That's the party's current business model. It was the energy source that the progressive blogosphere took into Connecticut. Sen. Lieberman is running straight at it. His East Hampton VFW speech describes bringing the troops home prematurely as a "formula for defeat and disaster." He restates his support for Saddam's overthrow, criticizes rank partisanship in a time of war, praises Iraq's democratic progress and ends by offering an alternative strategy for avoiding defeat. It includes resolving the crucial issue of sharing Iraq's oil revenues, ending the out-rotation of the U.S.'s best military commanders, accelerating the logistical support system for Iraq's army and, most interestingly, increasing the overall force structure of the Army and Marine Corps to face future threats. Sen. Lieberman says the troops he has spoken to want to see the job finished in a way that honors their service and sacrifice: "We owe it to them not to give up and walk off the battlefield before the job is done." He proposes forming a "bipartisan Iraq working group" when Congress reconvenes in January made up of senior members of the relevant committees who would meet regularly with the president. It could happen. If the Democrats take the Senate, Sen. Lieberman is in line to chair the committee on homeland security. There is talk of the ever-present Democratic "insurgency" on the left organizing to prevent Mr. Lieberman from gaining the committee chairmanship. That will happen if the Republicans are lucky, leaving Sen. Lieberman as a cherished but ignored party eccentric. But it could be bad luck for the GOP if the Democrats take a close look at what is winning in Connecticut. Sen. Lieberman is probably going to carry the Democratic vote in places like the Naugatuck Valley around Waterbury--blue-collar, culturally conservative Reagan Democrats deeply discomfited by the war but unwilling to truck with a Vietnam-like pullout. He is pulling well in the suburbs around New Haven, home to knowledge-based industries in the biosciences, information and health. In the Republican stronghold of Fairfield County, where incumbent GOP Congressman Chris Shays may lose, a new internal Lieberman poll puts him up 15 points. A diverse in-migration of Republicans is helping Mr. Lieberman. Maine Sen. Susan Collins, a moderate, will be in the state today for him. Jack Kemp arrives next week for stops in New London and Mystic. Most intriguing, New York City's nominally Republican mayor Mike Bloomberg is about to hold his third fund-raiser for Sen. Lieberman. For fans of political irony, this is a wonderful race. The blog-based Democratic insurgents created the Lamont movement. But after receiving investiture from party elders Kennedy, Dodd and Kerry, Mr. Lamont was the candidate of the Washington establishment. Driven from the compound, Joe Lieberman was now the man not "of" politics-as-usual. Unlike in 2000, Joe Lieberman is running this time on his beliefs, something he probably thought a lot about while pulling the knives out in August. The Democratic Party lost in 2000 and 2004 by running liberals who couldn't get across the goal line. The 2008 party desperately needs a belief-based centrist, with national name recognition, to hold off McCain, Romney or Giuliani. If perchance Hillary falters . . . It won't happen, but for a reborn winner, even the dreams are sweet solace. Mr. Henninger is deputy editor of The Wall Street Journal's editorial page. His column appears Fridays in the Journal and on OpinionJournal.com. opinionjournal.com