Reply #27: Lieberman has been a Democrat all his life [View All]

[dolstein]

Unlike many "fair weather" Democrats around here, who'd vote third party at the drop of the hat, and spend all their time bashing the DLC.

I don't know why Lieberman won't rule out an independent party bid. While I have no doubt he'd win in the general election if he runs as an independent, talk of an independent run (which, up to this point, has come only from left wingnuts and Republican fantasists) would only cut into his support among primary voters. And seeing how Lieberman is a Democrat, I'm sure he'd prefer to run as the nominee of the Democratic Party. So if this story gets any real traction, then I'd expect Lieberman to issue a clarification.

Of course, if Lieberman were to run as an independent, I'm sure he'd caucus with the Democrats, seeing how he disagrees with Republicans on >90% of the issues. I'm sure he'd also endorse all the Democrats running for Congress. In a sense, it would be like having two Democrats on the general election ballot. So would having Lieberman on the general election ballot hurt the Democrats? Doubtful. None of the left-wingers around here buy into arguments that having Lieberman as the nominee helps Democrats down the ballot. It's hard for them to argue at this point that a Lieberman bid as an independent would somehow hurt Democrats. But there are a variety of reasons why I don't think this will happen, not least of all the fact that Lieberman remains the prohibitive favorite to win the primary.