A harbinger...

Now that we have a winner (for now) in Connecticut, let's move on to its counterpart, Rhode Island.
No one is even doing a poll on the Chafee-Laffey GOP Senate primary because so many Democrats are disaffiliating (independents can vote in either primary here). Laffey is essentially the GOP Lamont - he has big support in the conservative blogging community, and Club for Growth (now run by a R.I. native) has been a big presence in this race. Chafee, meanwhile, has historically had plenty of Democratic support, like his father did (my father was a lifelong Democrat and worked for six Warwick mayors from both parties, but felt Chafee was the best mayor he ever dealt with).
Meanwhile, Democratic candidate Sheldon Whitehouse (kind a of 20th-century Al Gore) awaits, watching Ali-Frazier I, II and III go on.
Polls have shown Whitehouse ahead of Chafee, but it's still competitive. Laffey has gained a bit in a Whitehouse matchup, but still trails by 24 points in the new poll.
Laffey tries to run as a populist within R.I., but is a hardass social conservative when he goes out of state to raise $. He flip-flopped big-time on immigration - he took a pro-immigration stance to try and get the Latino vote, but has cartwheeled to the other side recently.
Bring it on, folks.

 

We don't have control in the WH, SCOTUS, Senate or House...

We've got lots to worry about.  Isn't that obvious?

 

This will be an interesting race. My guess is Chafee pulls it out, but a lot of GOPers are quite unhappy with him -- for a lot of reasons, not just one (as apparently the Connecticut Dems were with Lieberman).

Lieberman voted with his party 90 percent of the time. I don't know Chafee's numbers off the top of my head, but I know it's substantially less than that.

 

If we're still in the Iraq bloodbath in 2008, pulling the troops out will be the Democratic platform. And it will be a winning one. And the Republicans will nominate a hawk on Iraq at their peril.

And Lincoln Chaffee is a Republican in name only...probably only because of familiy tradion.

 

My guess is, a while down the road, the Dems will be sorry Lieberman isn't there. Run as an independent and win. Abandon your party, because it abandoned you.

Sad day for Connecticut Dems. :'(

 

I feel no pity for Lieberman's loss. His moralism, stance on Iraq and the selfish acts he has taken has really soured me on him. People talk about Hillary Clinton acting as a power-mad woman. Well, Joe "Lost all of his" Momentum is far worse in that regard. The man saw his Congressional seat as a birthright that should never dare be questioned. Then, when it was demonstrated that the Democrats in the state don't feel he represents them, he cries off to be his own party.

We have a democracy and as such he has a right to run. I just find it a bit hypocritical to make statement after statement about how he's a real Democrat and then when told they prefer someone else, he turns into Mr. Bipartisan.

Why does it have to be one or the other? Both parties, clearly, have something to worry about.

The Democrats need to present a clear message. The Republicans need to get their shit in order.

I work with a guy that is ardently Republican. In the discussion of politics and various news, he compared Mel Gibson's recent arrest with Bush and oil.
"If you have family that is anti-Semitic and you make a movie like the Passion, which borders on anti-Semitism, you can't spout off about Jews when you are drunk. It is just like Bush and I've voted for the guy twice. If you are an oil-man and you have lots of contacts in the filed, these prices reflect upon you poorly."

Between the production of the war, the price of gasoline, the ever increasing debt of the nation, and overall economic concerns the Republican party just isn't looking too good. If the Democrats don't exploit this, it will be their own fault.

 

But if you're running for the House or the Senate in an area where the 40 percent is in the majority you probably will win.

 

I like the hamburgers at In-N-Out.

 

Where are you getting the 90 percent number?
I did some research, and the best I could find was that Jo Jo voted with the Dems 56 percent of the time over the length of his Senate career.
Also he didn't back the filibuster of Sam Alito, was willing to privatize Social Security. Supported Catholic hospitals denying emergency contraceptives to rape victims and was opposed to same-sex marriage.
What a Democrat Jo Jo is.
Other numbers suggest that most Conn. Dems won't vote for Jo Jo, but instead go with the party. One story I saw said that he might get as much as 15 percent of the vote, but that will probably be about it.
And what most people are advancing isn't a complete pullout, but a gradual troop reduction. John Edwards, who is positioning himself as the anti-Hillary, says 40K at first and then work down from there.

 

Joementum's Terry Schiavo position is the type of wedge issue that is going to hurt him in the general election.

 

This race is so much more subtle and complex than "a referendum on Iraq" or "liberal bloggers."

For example, there was a huge submarine base that almost closed. Many people believe Joe saved it at the 11th hour by cutting a deal with Bush. Its closing would've been devastating for that part of the state.

Another factor involves a longtime pol equally as popular as Joe once was-- the state's AG Richard Blumenthal, or "Blummie" as he's affectionately known in that state. As the New Yorker piece points out, Joe screwed Blummie out of a seat in the U.S. Senate by choosing to run both as VP and as Senator in 2000. Looking at the demos of Lamont's voting bloc, that's the kind of voter who would still be pissed at Joe for what he did to Blummie.

------------------

I'm seeing reports that Rove contacted Lieberman this morning... and naturally Joe took the call. Go ahead, Joe, let him run your campaign... perfect.

http://abcnews.blogs.com/theworldnewser/

 

One wonders if Gore would have won (in the electoral college) with Edwards as his VP instead of Lieberman. Lieberman is no Zell Miller, but I'm not sure if he's the most Democratic of Democrat.