What bugs me the most about the Joe Lieberman thing

[mtnsnake]

It wasn't Democrats from Connecticut who got Lieberman elected over Lamont. It was all the Republicans in Connecticut who voted for Joe who made the difference. No wonder the Republican candidate, Alan Schlesinger, only got a handful of votes from his own people.

Lieberman is shrewd, no two ways about it. He used Democrats to get him where he is in the Senate, and when he betrayed his own Party, he then used Republicans, those stupid fools, to keep him there.

[Totally Committed]

1. EXACTAMUNDO!

You got that exactly right.

TC

[babylonsister]

2. He's going to be one to watch and to my way of thinking, will

be one of the most dangerous senators out there. Who knows which way he'll vote and how much spite will play into his decision-making?

[mtnsnake]

8. Yup. Republicans in CT re-elected him, so who's he gonna be loyal to?

He will be a big question mark at best.

[Selteri]

3. Keep him there to be 'democratic leaning' according to his promise

But 1 who can trust his promises and 2 Who knows which way he'll flop at any one time, why vote for someone who changes loyalty with power.

[AzDar]

4. Can Senators be recalled? n/t

[Atman]

5. What bugs me is that I VOTED FOR A DEMOCRAT

and got stuck with the same asshole as I had before because of the REPUBLICANS. Joe had a most ironic quote in the paper today, saying he will caucus with the Democrats because "I am a man of my word." Unless the words are "I'll won't stay more than 18 years" or if his word involves the will of the people.

Ass. I'm so pissed...the election was like bad sex here in CT...sure, we still got laid, but I'm not feeling particularly satisfied.

.

[mtnsnake]

7. LOL!

I feel your pain, Atman!

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

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[Lurking Dem]

9. Good G-d.

[salvorhardin]

14. Oh come on!

Do you realize how idiotic that assertion is?

[Anarcho-Socialist]

16. You should be ashamed of yourself

for spouting such nonsense.

[LoZoccolo]

10. Netroots Lamont supporters gave Lieberman a good share of free advertising...

...as a Republican by continuously and disingenuously trying to establish him as one, even after the primary. They should have found a more nuanced way of differentiating him from Lamont, but nuance is scarce on the Internet where people have the illusion of being able to say what they want without consequence.

[mtnsnake]

11. Excellent point

[Silent3]

12. Nuance is scarce?

Am I going to have to compare you to Hitler!? :evilgrin:

[salvorhardin]

13. How do you know this?

Do you have polling data that backs up this speculation?

Lamont was basically a one issue candidate, and like it or not, Democrats in Connecticut on a whole tend to be more conservative in their views than Democrats in, for instance, Massachusetts, Vermont or New York. Many of them supported the Iraq War or at least feel that Lieberman has good reasons for supporting it. Finally, Lieberman has one of the most liberal voting track records in all of Congress. Is it any wonder that Connecticut voters turned out in droves for the guy.

Just because you don't like Lieberman doesn't mean his constituents don't. If there was a groundswell of Republicans voting for him, more likely than not it was a vote against both the Republican candidate and Lamont.

[madfloridian]

15. Read this.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/581

[salvorhardin]

17. OK

I followed madfloridian's link to My Left Nutmeg. I think the comment by bigdavefromqueens gets it right:

So we did poorly with very rich people who inherited their money from daddy.

We did poorly with seniors who felt a sense of loyalty to Lieberman even though Lieberman has voted against them. A case of voting for name recognition over substance.

We did poorly with low information Democratic voters who didn't realize where Joe stands on the issues.

And we did poorly with right wing republicans who 6 years ago hated Joe but now love him.

And the next generation of voters who couldn't vote overwhelmingly favored Lamont.

All in all we have a base of 40%, about another 20% who voted for Lieberman but agree with us, and a new generation of voters.

Six years ago, Joe Lieberman was considered too liberal. Today, Joe Lieberman is a pariah, further to the right of at least 49 United State Senators (Nelson of Nebraska the possible Democratic exception).

The day will come when a person like Joe Lieberman will be considered too conservative by the majority of Americans with voters being given a choice between the likes of Hillary Clinton and Russell Feingold as their top two choices. We lost a battle on Tuesday but we are well on the way to winning the war.

Joe Lieberman and George Bush believe that our govt should cut and run on capturing Osama Bin Laden so that Bush and the neocons could invade Iraq. Despite no Wmds and no links to 9/11, Lieberman supports that decision.

But why speculate on exactly who voted for Lieberman by party id based on extraneous factors when you can go direct to source that My Left Nutmeg referred to?

VOTE BY PARTY ID
..................TOTAL....Lieberman...Lamont.....Schlesinger
Democrat..........(38%).......33%........65%...........2%
Republican........(26%).......70%.........8%..........21%
Independent.......(36%).......54%........35%..........10%

So the Democratic vote was split pretty evenly between Lieberman and Lamont but the Republican vote overwhelmingly went to Lieberman. This would seem to uphold my supposition that Republicans were voting against Lamont AND Schlesinger. If you look at the Republican candidate Schlesinger's views on the issues, you can easily see that he is far to the right of Lieberman. This should tell you that Connecticut's Democratic and Republican voters tend to be centrists and thus would prefer Lieberman over Lamont and Schlesinger. http://www.schlesinger2006.com/issues.shtml

But probably the more telling data, which My Left Nutmeg did not bother to look at either, is the vote by ideology.

VOTE BY IDEOLOGY
..................TOTAL....Lieberman...Lamont.....Schlesinger
Liberal...........(26%).......27%........69%............3%
Moderate..........(53%).......55%........36%............8%
Conservative......(21%).......66%........13%...........21%

Nearly 1/3 of those identifying as liberal and 55% of those identifying as moderate voted for Lieberman. Right there you have 36% of the total vote for Lieberman. Conservative voters only made up 21% of the total vote and 66% of that went to Lieberman which means that 14% of the total voters voted for Lieberman. Again, my supposition is borne out. For ever conservative who voted for Lieberman, 2.6 liberals and moderates voted for him.

Finally, for those holding the idiotic view that the Jewish vote won Lieberman the election, here's the vote by religious affiliation.

VOTE BY RELIGION
..................TOTAL....Lieberman...Lamont.....Schlesinger
Protestant........(36%).......52%........38%..........10%
Catholic..........(42%).......55%........32%..........12%
Jewish............( 6%).......65%........34%............*
Other.............( 6%).......21%........68%...........9%
None..............(10%).......27%........66%...........7%

The Jewish vote only represented 6% of all voters, of which 2/3 voted for Lieberman. That means only 4% of the total number of voters who voted for Lieberman were Jewish.

[madfloridian]

20. Dems went heavily for Lamont...you said evenly split.

I am not going into the liberal/moderate/conservative stuff with you because that is not what this is about. It is about a guy who turned on his own party and did not accept the primary vote.

But I must differ when you call this "evenly divided".

TOTAL....Lieberman...Lamont.....Schlesinger
Democrat..........(38%).......33%........65%...........2%

33 versus 65 is not evenly divided.

You did a good analyis, but you missed the point.

Joe ignored the Democratic voters of CT in the primary.

[salvorhardin]

21. You're right.

I read that one line wrong. That does not change the fact that 70% of Republicans voted for Lieberman over the more conservative candidate, which means that ideology has to be accounted for. And when one looks at ideology, it's very clear that liberals and moderates won the day for Lieberman.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

23. I also find it interesting

is that the independents split for Lieberman at similar ratios as for Democratic winners elsewhere.

Also we should remember that Republicans in the north east are not the same as the ones in Oklahoma.

[AtomicKitten]

18. It was a combination of the GOP and indie vote.

I think Lamont ran a brilliant primary contest and then I just didn't see a terribly aggressive effort in the general. I did phone bank work for him here in California but am not familiar with his ground game, but he seemed to virtually deflate in the general.

[AZBlue]

24. I totally agree with that. It was as if thought he could slide the rest of the way home.

eom

[otohara]

19. If There Ever Was A Sore Loser

it's Joe Lieberman. I have no respect for him and don't believe for one minute he will caucus with the democrats. He has set the stage for more loser candidates to just say "fuck it" I'll run anyway. He has no loyalties and is power hungry.

[madinmaryland]

22. One thing about CT repubs is that they are quite socially

liberal. Many would be considered moderate dems outside of the Northeast. The true Bush repubs have no chance whatsoever in CT.

[Zhade]

25. It's ALWAYS been more Republican than not voting him in.

Every single election.