Wednesday, August 09, 2006

Good morning

I'm that by now you've heard that Lamont beat Lieberman, and Lieberman intends to run as an independent.

I'm going to quote kos whole, because I think he's right, and because I think every should be on the same page in attempting to stop Lieberman's independent run:

Lieberman just announced that he is running as an independent.

I know Democrats in DC, including many of Lieberman's allies, are horrified at that possibility. Lieberman will tell them all to fuck off. He doesn't care. He doesn't care about promises he made to them to respect the will of the primary voters.

Lieberman's original rationale for collecting signatures was that only 20 percent of Democrats would vote in a summer primary. Well, we got a blockbuster primary turnout. While only about 3 percent of Democrats voted in the Virginia primary a few weeks ago, about 50 percent will have participated today. That's an incredible number -- unprecedented -- for a Senate primary. I'll leave others to do the historical research, but this isn't normal. This is what people-power looks like, and it is changing the face of politics.

Now, Lieberman wants to stab his allies and his party in the back. It won't be the first time.

Here's what we all need to do the next few days:

1. Push Harry Reid to strip Lieberman of all committee assignments.

2. Let people know what a sore loser Lieberman is.

3. Get all Democrats -- including Bill Clinton -- to publicly back Ned Lamont.

4. Get the Democratic interest groups who backed Lieberman to switch allegiances in the general.

The DSCC and the DCCC will have to deal with the fact that this race will continue to suck oxygen from great pickup opportunities. And I won't apologize for that, because as a proud Democrat, I will help in whatever way I can the Democratic nominee from the Great State of Connecticut.

The Republicans rejoiced at Lieberman's decision to stay in. They couldn't be happier. And let's not talk about the lobbyists! They're besides themselves!

Joe Lieberman is not an independent Democrat. He needs to be stripped of his committee assignments and have those handed to real Democrats. And then we need to buckle down and finish the job we started.

This was never going to be easy. it still is not. But in the end, we will prevail.

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