Sunday, July 16, 2006

Leave Joe Lieberman Alone

Joe Lieberman, the senior U.S. Senator from Connecticut and the Democratic nominee for Vice-President of the United States in 2000, who probably should be in office right now instead of Cheney, is facing a very tough primary challenge in this year's Democratic primary on August 8th. After three terms in the U.S. Senate, Lieberman has the backing of such staple Democratic groups as the AFL-CIO, Planned Parenthood, the Human Rights Campaign, and the league of Conservation Voters. His lifetime rating from the Christian Coalition is a big, fat, squa-doosh (that's zero for those of you not up on your Italian-American slang).

And yet, Lieberman is subject to the vile of the liberal "net-roots" who have not learned the quintessential lesson of the 1990's: it is better to be in power than to be ideologically pure. For those who have not yet grasped this concept, Sen. Lieberman's continued support of the war in Iraq puts him squarely in the gunsights. His primary challenger, Ned Lamont, advocates an immediate withdrawal of all American forces from Iraq, consequeces be damned. Polling on this primary indicates that Lieberman's slight lead is too small to be comfortable, forcing him to file petitions to run as an independent should he fail to win re-nomination on the Aug 8th.

Sen. Lieberman is no doubt the most hawkish member of the Senate Democratic caucus, and also one of the few willing to reach across the aisle to work out compromises with the other side. To punish him for these qualities would weaken our party and our attempts to reach out to centrists and convince them that our party is not only the domain of the super liberal.