Do They Even Need Lieberman Anymore?

To be honest, I never really like Joe Lieberman, even back in 2000. There was something about this guy that bugged me. Now I know what it is, the hypocrisy. Lieberman loves to call himself "the great independent" and he loves to argue how we should work in a "bipartisan" way. Meanwhile when a bipartisan resolution to oppose the troops escalation came to the floor, he voted against it. Lieberman says he "won't switch to the GOP" and will continue to caucus with the Democrats. Of course, cause if he doesn't, all the other Democrats will be united and half the Senate will vote the way the people want.

Lieberman attacks the Democrats for wanting to "score partisan points" by opposing the President's plan, yet he caucuses with them. Now, yes, the Democrats do score partisan points initially and possibly long-term thanks to popular opinion, but remember why the Democrats won in 2006. They won because they were opposed to Bush, they won because the voters wanted someone to put pressure on the President and because they want a Congress that will keep him in line. Perhaps letting Lieberman loose isn't a bad idea after all.

As Keith Olbermann says in his blog;

It's a high stakes gamble, but the American people didn't vote the Dems in in '06 so that they could compromise to keep the tiniest sliver of political power... did they?

Republicans like to argue that Lieberman's victory in 2006 shows the American people don't support withdrawing troops. Well, first of all, the victories of Sheldon Whitehouse, Bob Casey Jr, Sherrod Brown, Jon Tester, Claire McCaskill and Jim Webb should all say otherwise. Second of all, Lieberman won 70% of the Republican vote in Connecticut, thanks to the weakness of Republican candidate Alan Schlesinger, who won only 21%. If Schlesinger would have won even just half of the Republican vote, it would've been just enough to throw the election to Ned Lamont. Lamont won 65% of Democrats, 35% of Independents and even 8% of Republicans.

Therefore, essentially, Lieberman WAS the Republican candidate, and he WAS the independent candidate and to 48% of the Democrats, he WAS the Democratic candidate, so pretty much the fact that only 50% of Connecticut voters voted for him isn't that spectacular and doesn't really equal mandate.

Perhaps it's time for Connecticut voters to recall Lieberman. If he gets recalled, then we'll know the truth, if he survives, then we live with him.