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.

The Other Four Fingers.

I seen it on my 20-inch Zenith.

After John McCain was soundly beaten on Tuesday (North Carolina also went to Obama, pushing the final total to 364-173 in the Electoral College), the fingers pointed at the most predictable scapegoat.

Shortly after the election, McCain's aides were already laying blame for the loss on Sarah Palin's lack of knowledge of the issues. I could be mistaken, but wouldn't this be the kind of thing you find out in a vetting process BEFORE you pick your running mate? The vetting process McCain's people CLAIMED they did?

A couple of McCain's aides anonomously told reporters that Palin didn't know that Africa was a continent and couldn't name the members of the North American Free Trade Agreement while they were prepping her for the VP debate.

They also claimed she was a diva, and that she greeted some of McCain's top advisers in nothing more than a towel on one occaision.

While the towel thing is probably untrue, it was clear during the couple months that Palin was in the spotlight that she was in way over her head.

I don't know how she didn't see that she was getting set up to be thrown under the bus.

Anybody could see that when the Palin Express started derailing and the disapproval started getting louder, she was going to be the scapegoat when McCain's campaign inevitably failed.

I felt sorry for her when I said it about a month ago, and now that its coming to fruition I feel sorry for her now. This was like a backup QB getting his first start ever....versus the Baltimore Ravens.

The coach can blame the player for the sorry game he's bound to have, but he has to look at the other four fingers pointing back at his own mistakes.

The McCain campaign has a lot of soul searching to do before they can even begin to hang this on somebody else.

Who says election season is over?

I bet you thought that after November 4 we would be done with this whole "democratic process" thing for a while. But you would be wrong. Three senate races still have yet to be decided, and it's going to be awhile before we know who will be representing Alaska, Georgia and Minnesota in the senate.

First, in the Land of Hockey Moms, convicted felon Ted Stevens holds a narrow lead over his challenger, Democrat Mark Begich. There are still a bunch of absentee ballots left to count, so Begich isn't yet conceding. Even if Stevens does hold on to win, he might be unable to serve his term, as he is facing pressure from both Democrats and Republicans to step aside, which means the governor of Alaska would have to appoint the kid who knocked up her daughter to be Senator.

Down in JAWJA, Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss is headed for an old fashioned runoff against his Democratic rival Jim Martin, since nobody got 50% of the vote. The runoff will be held December 2nd, and the month leading up to it could feature appearances from John McCain, Sarah Palin and/or Barack Obama. Remember those people?

And in Minnesota, Republican incumbent Norm Coleman holds a 238 vote lead over Democrat and star of the short-lived but critically acclaimed Lateline Al Franken. By state law (which also forbids the opening of liquor stores on Sunday, because the laws were all written by a crazy Lutheran oligarchy) there must be a recount, which might not start until the middle of this month at the earliest. We will never know who won and the seat will be given to Kent Hrbek, maybe, because he is so down home and folksy.

Since all three seats in question are held by Republicans, these races are especially critical. If democrats win all of them, it will give them 58 members in the Senate. Add in the independent socialist guy from Vermont who caucuses with them and Joe Lieberman, who is still technically kind of a Democrat and they have 60, the magic number required to block fillibusters. Winning all three is a longshot, as in each of these races the Republican candidates have the lead.

But on the bright side, it gives me something to blog about in my free time.

It's All Over: How it Happened pt. 1

Rev. Jesse Jackson Crying During Barack Obama's Acceptance Speech.

Yes he can. In what analysts are calling the most dominant Democratic win in about 40 years, Barack Obama is now the President Elect.

Obama beat John McCain by a tally of 349-163 in the electoral college, a margin of over two to one. The popular vote nationally was 53% to 47% for Obama. Obama's 53% of the popular vote is the most by any Democratic candidate since Jimmy Carter in 1976.

Obama is also the first Democrat to win the state of Virginia since Lyndon Johnson in 1964.

John King of CNN summed up the election best in saying that Obama outperformed Kerry across the board, and McCain underperformed Bush across the board.

As soon as the numbers started rolling in from the big cities across the East Coast and Midwest, Obama's lead grew exponentially. When the media outlets called Ohio and Pennsylvania for Obama, two states that every Republican pundit said that McCain had to win, even McCain's aides began to say the race was out of reach.

At around 11:00 p.m. eastern time when the polls on the West Coast closed and the early numbers started to come in, all the media outlets called the race for Obama.

Shortly after that, McCain conceded:



Then at Midnight EST, Obama delivered this acceptance speech:



I'm sure Ty will add more on the House, Senate, and Presidential races soon.

So, there was an election yesterday

Americans went to the polls and pushed buttons, pulled levers, filled in circles and colored in little arrows until some people were named our new overlords. Here's who they are.



That's the first family.



And that guy's Vice President. Really!



These people get to control the Senate and the House, even though there are presently 4 Senate races and 10 House races that haven't been decided, including one in Minnesota that's heading for a recount.

More analysis later, but that's your quick (and I do mean quick) recap of the night that was.

My E-Day Voting Experience

Election day is finally here after 11 months of ads, slander and stump speeches.

Throughout the early morning I saw lines out of the doors of every polling place I passed, everywhere I went people were very excited about voting.

When I went to McDonalds to get some breakfast, a normally empty restaurant was packed with people who were either coming from voting or on their way to vote.

Everybody was talking about a certain issue or a certain candidate that made them want to vote...it nearly brought a tear to my eye.

If I had one complaint, it would be....WHERE WERE YOU FOOLS FOUR OR EIGHT YEARS AGO?!?

I understand that sometimes it takes a serious event to compel people to vote, but did it have to get this bad? Over 4000 troops had to die in Iraq, the stock market had to crash and millions of jobs had to go into the toilet for people to actually care about who runs this country again.

I'm not complaining, i'm just saying.

I'll be watching the numbers roll in tonight just like everybody else, it's time to find out if white people really have the heart to vote for a black man to lead the country.

The end of culture warring?

Peter Beinart has an interesting column in today's Washington Post where he predicts the end of the "culture wars" coming once this election is over. The culture wars Beinart refers to are the so-called "wedge" issues such as gay rights, abortion, guns and immigration that the Republicans have been able to emphasize over the last few decades, with mostly successful results. Sarah Palin's selection as running mate was seen by some as a sign that the McCain campaign was dedicated to fighting the culture wars, similar to George W Bush in 2004, and her plummeting popularity is evidence that the war has ended.

Beinart says that the faltering economy is a reason we are on the verge of cultural peace in our time, as nobody cares about gay people getting married and Mexicans stealing their jobs if there are no jobs to steal. Combine that with a rise in younger voters who don't care or are opposed to many of the positions that culture warriors have taken, and that's it. It's a wrap. Finito.

Except maybe it's not.

From the column

Today, according to a recent Newsweek poll, the economy is up to 44 percent and "issues like abortion, guns and same-sex marriage" down to only 6 percent. It's no coincidence that Palin's popularity has plummeted as the financial crisis has taken center stage. From her championing of small-town America to her efforts to link Barack Obama to former domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, Palin is treading a path well-worn by Republicans in recent decades. She's depicting the campaign as a struggle between the culturally familiar and the culturally threatening, the culturally traditional and the culturally exotic. But Obama has dismissed those attacks as irrelevant, and the public, focused nervously on the economic collapse, has largely tuned them out.

Palin's attacks are also failing because of generational change. The long-running, internecine baby boomer cultural feud just isn't that relevant to Americans who came of age after the civil rights, gay rights and feminist revolutions. Even many younger evangelicals are broadening their agendas beyond abortion, stem cells, school prayer and gay marriage. And just as younger Protestants found JFK less threatening than their parents had found Al Smith, younger whites -- even in bright-red states -- don't view the prospect of a black president with great alarm.

The economic challenges of the coming era are complicated, fascinating and terrifying, while the cultural battles of the 1960s feel increasingly stale. If John McCain loses tomorrow, the GOP will probably choose someone like Mitt Romney or Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal to lead it back from the wilderness, someone who -- although socially conservative -- speaks fluently about the nation's economic plight and doesn't try to substitute identity for policy. Although she seems like a fresh face, Sarah Palin actually represents the end of an era. She may be the last culture warrior on a national ticket for a very long time.

It might be that "culture wars" are limited to times of economic progress, when people can afford to care about these things. But what happens when the economy improves, which it probably will at some point in the next decade or so? And when these young voters get older, as the baby boomers did? The same generation that made Woodstock happen also made the Reagan 80's happen, partially because Reagan was so skilled at tying a traditional conservative philosophy of limited government to these seemingly unrelated wedge issues.

We might be at a cease-fire, but I doubt the war is over.