Monday, November 10, 2008

What to do with Joe Lieberman?


WOOO, I am totally screwed!

Joe Lieberman has had things pretty good for the last couple of years. He got re-elected to the Senate despite losing the endorsement of the Connecticut Democratic party over his support for the Iraq War, and he's been all over TV the last few months stumping for his friend John McCain. He even got to speak in prime time at the Republican National Convention this year. I don't think he got this kind of shine when he was actually on a presidential ticket eight years ago.

But now the election is over, his guy lost and his fate is in the hands of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who did not like the idea of the kinda-Democrat acting as a surrogate for the Republican nominee, speaking at the RNC and trashing the Democratic nominee as someone who couldn't put "country first" and for "voting against funding our troops." Reid is displeased.

“Joe Lieberman has done something that I think was improper, wrong, and I’d like — if we weren’t on television, I’d use a stronger word of describing what he did,” he said on CNN Friday.
Reid has three options. He can either forgive Lieberman in the spirit of bipartisanship (a theme Barack Obama has stressed since winning the election last week,) throw him out of the Democratic caucus or give him a lesser punishment, like stripping Lieberman of his title as chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security. But even if Reid (who has said he will leave it up to the Democratic senate caucus) does take away Lieberman's chairmanship, that could be the last straw anyway. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has already discussed with lieberman the idea of caucusing with the Republicans.

“Senator Lieberman’s preference is to stay in the caucus, but he’s going to keep all his options open,” a Lieberman aide said. “McConnell has reached out to him and at this stage his position is he wants to remain in the caucus but losing the chairmanship is unacceptable.”
Whatever happens, Lieberman's in a bad position. The best thing to do would be to remain in the Democratic caucus, at least if he ever wants to be re-elected (Connecticut currently has zero Republicans representing them in either the House or Senate, and that's not a conincedence.) However, the odds of him remaining with the Democrats and not facing some kind of punishment is likely slim. If he gets his chairmanship taken away, it's obvious the democrats don't really want him, and there's no point to sticking around. But would his reception among Republicans be any warmer? Remember, one of the reasons McCain did not pick Lieberman as his running mate was because of the potential backlash he would have faced among the party's base. Are the same people who might have staged a brawl on the floor of the Xcel Center if this guy had been nominated for VP going to embrace him as a Republican senator?

So basically, Joe Lieberman is doomed to serve out the next four years as either an almost Democrat who no Democrat trusts or as a pseudo-Republican who no Republican really likes.

UPDATE: HuffPo is reporting that Obama has told party officials he wants Lieberman to stay. They might let him keep his chairmanship in Homeland Security but take him out of the committees on Armed Services and Environment & Public Works. So hooray for bipartisanship maybe.

No comments: