Shocking Turn

Who could have guessed that Joe Lieberman would wind up hiring conservative Republican and hard-core warmonger Marshall Wittman to be his new spokesperson? I look forward to Wittman's and Lieberman's efforts to demonstrate their interest in humanitarianism by trying to get other people to risk their lives in an effort to kill lots of Iranian people.

UPDATE: Mark Schmitt notes the possibility of a McCain/Lieberman combo third party run peddling the line "We were each rejected by the ideological extremists in our parties, therefore we represent the true forgotten center of American politics." And, as Mark says, they'll be in the "center" if by "center" you mean "on the far, far right on national security issues."

UPDATE II: Ed Kilgore comments: "The Moose became a passionate advocate for Lieberman's primary and general-election campaigns in no small part because he sincerely believes both parties are in danger of abandoning the political center, and quite frankly because he is happiest free of either party's yoke." Seriously, though. In what way does Joe Lieberman represent the center? In McCain's case it's clear that he's the furthest right Republican on defense and use of force issues. And as best I can tell, Lieberman holds . . . the same views. Which, I mean, is fine -- I have extreme views on some issues, too, but just because mainstream Republicans and mainstream Democrats both reject something doesn't make it centrist; it could just be fringey and foolish.

Comments

What a legislative disgrace Joe Lieberman is.

Posted by Ari | November 22, 2006 10:51 AM

Lieberman's pathological hatred for people who criticize him is matched only by his desperate need for people to fawn over him. He's getting what he pays for in this one.

Posted by Tom Hilton | November 22, 2006 11:05 AM

Kind of suspicious that Wittman blogs on Lieberman's behalf during the whole election campaign and then gets hired right afterwards. Did any of Lieberman's slush fund money find its way to Wittman? It wouldn't be the first time.

Posted by neil | November 22, 2006 11:08 AM

A new "Bull Moose" party would effectively sideline those two irritating blowhards forever, therefore I wholeheartedly support it.

Posted by RWB | November 22, 2006 11:10 AM

neil --- excellent question. makes sense.

Posted by bs23 | November 22, 2006 11:14 AM

That's a great electoral strategy- "No one in either party likes us, so we have the best chance to win!"
On the other hand, Lieberman won't have as much cash on hand, his dry cleaning bills will be going way up since Wittmann is now in-house and can give him blowjobs on a regular basis.
(Ooh, do I get to be cited as an example of incivility on the blogs?)

Posted by SP | November 22, 2006 11:14 AM

And, as Mark says, they'll be in the "center" if by "center" you mean "on the far, far right on national security issues.

Don't you know the rule? Right-wing on national security and left wing on domestic issues averages out to center.

Posted by Al | November 22, 2006 11:16 AM

(It wouldn't be the first time politicians have paid putatively 'independent' bloggers under the table, that is. No idea about Lieberman or Wittmann.)

Posted by neil | November 22, 2006 11:17 AM

Matt, you've just never experienced the thrill of having tens of thousands of people killed at your whim. Nothing "fringey and foolish" about that.

Posted by dj moonbat | November 22, 2006 11:18 AM

"Who could have guessed that Joe Lieberman would wind up hiring conservative Republican and hard-core warmonger Marshall Wittman"

A "conservative Republican" who stopped identifying as a Republican, voted for John Kerry, and is now working for a Senator who caucuses with the Democrats...

Posted by Petey | November 22, 2006 11:35 AM

"Don't you know the rule? Right-wing on national security and left wing on domestic issues averages out to center."

It doesn't average out that way if you only care about a single issue...

Posted by Petey | November 22, 2006 11:37 AM

Or it averages out to everyone hates you for something.

Posted by daveNYC | November 22, 2006 11:41 AM

Lieberman and McCain are extremists on foreign and domestic affairs. Complete and utter frauds pretending not to be extremists.

Posted by Ari | November 22, 2006 11:51 AM

"Seriously, though. In what way does Joe Lieberman represent the center?"

Seriously, indeed.

Seriously, how narrow would your perspective have to be to not see Lieberman as representing the center?

He's had two contested elections for the Senate, and in both cases, he's run in the center surrounded by candidates of the left and right. His electorate sees him as a centrist.

In the Senate, his voting record has been left-center, and his rhetoric has always been a bit more centrist than his votes.

He's always been accurately perceived as a centrist in internal Senate terms - it would have been a big surprise to not find him part of the Gang of 14, for example.

You'd have to be wearing blinders that restrict your vision exclusively to US policy towards the Lands of the Caliphate to be unable to see Holy Joe as a centrist...

Posted by Petey | November 22, 2006 11:57 AM

No, no. See, if McCain is pro-life and Lieberman is pro-choice, it averages out to centrist on abortion. It's the law of averages!

Posted by Al | November 22, 2006 11:58 AM

A "conservative Republican" who stopped identifying as a Republican, voted for John Kerry, and is now working for a Senator who caucuses with the Democrats...

Yes, he's changed the name but the tune's the same. And all because the Bushies so thoroughly soiled the Republican label. And once you realize that both Lieberman and Wittman are far more likely to criticize liberals than conservatives, all becomes clear. They can sell themselves as Dems, but nobody's buying.

Posted by Doctor Biobrain | November 22, 2006 11:59 AM

Lieberman supports having the women of CT drive to from hospital to hospital in search of emergency contraception. That's not a centrist position. That's just straight up sexism.

Posted by Sharon | November 22, 2006 12:00 PM

Seriously, how narrow would your perspective have to be to not see Lieberman as representing the center?

Petey's basically right: Lieberman is basically in the center, and that's not an endorsement of Lieberman, but an indictment of the center.

Posted by dj moonbat | November 22, 2006 12:01 PM

"In what way does Joe Lieberman represent the center?"

Well, let's go to the scoreboard: Lieberman 50%, Lamont 40% and Schlesinger 10%.

Posted by ostap | November 22, 2006 12:02 PM

Wittman supposedly became a Democrat, but does anyone but Petey believe that Wittman would support a Democrat if McCain was in the race?

There was a point at which the Democratic Party seemed so feeble that it seemed that a disgruntled Republican like McCain could just waltz in and take over. Wittman was the advance man for that move.

This year's election put an end to that nonsense, so McCain is going to Fallwell now. That will fail too, so McCain will have to work through the national "Connecticut for Lieberman" party. That could be ugly, but it seems more likely that it will be ridiculous.

Posted by John Emerson | November 22, 2006 12:07 PM

He's had two contested elections for the Senate, and in both cases, he's run in the center surrounded by candidates of the left and right. His electorate sees him as a centrist.

But why are we assuming that it was his positions they were favoring? When, in reality, it had more to do with the fact that he ran a better campaign. He's a well-honed politician who had much better name recognition and was favored by much of the "centrist" media, many of whom labeled Lamont as little more than an anti-war rabble-rouser. So why pretend that it was his "centrism" that people were selecting, rather than the politician?

"Centrist" is merely a phrase used by people as an attack on the "extremists" which means anyone who isn't a centrist. You can try to label all of us extremists, but I know that I'm still a moderate. "Centrists" aren't really at the center of anything. They have their own policy agenda, much of which is not tolerable by most Americans.

Posted by Doctor Biobrain | November 22, 2006 12:14 PM

"Wittman supposedly became a Democrat"

Nope. He changed his registration from Republican to Independent, tho he did endorse Kerry in '04.

"does anyone but Petey believe that Wittman would support a Democrat if McCain was in the race?"

Nope, including Petey. Wittman's been quite up-front that he'd pick McCain in a second if McCain were to come calling.

Posted by Petey | November 22, 2006 12:17 PM

Hey Petey...It's shut the fuck up time.

Thanks.

Posted by slivey | November 22, 2006 12:20 PM

Is there something about having been a Trotskyist/ite when young that addles the brain?

Posted by etaoin shrdlu | November 22, 2006 12:22 PM

"See, if McCain is pro-life and Lieberman is pro-choice, it averages out to centrist on abortion. It's the law of averages!"

Thus do they have to average out their religions too? Perhaps arriving at a compromise faith like Bahai will prove a perfect centrist ticket.

Posted by Petey | November 22, 2006 12:23 PM

I keep hearing that Lieberman scores high on liberal score cards. What exactly? I mean he's the force behind the accounting bill that permitted Enron. How liberal is letting corporations fudge their bottom line? He supported the bankruptcy screws-on-paupers bill. He's a kill-every-brown-man hawk.

So what dear-to-our-heart liberal causes does he score well on? Lemonade stands for poor kids?

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | November 22, 2006 12:23 PM

"Hey Petey...It's shut the fuck up time."

Hey slivey...It's shove a splintery wooden stick up your ass time.

Thanks, and many happy returns.

Posted by Petey | November 22, 2006 12:25 PM

Say what you will about the DLC, but regardless of the merits of their politics/philosophy, hiring that clown to speak for them was an unmitigated disaster. Ed Kilgore, no matter his friends, does appear to be among the ranks of the children of light for the most part. I suspect Kilgore is really glad he no longer has to associate himself for the biggest Washington hack who will literally work for anyone, spouting anything.

Although I don't think either McCain or Lieberman are extreme right on foreign affiars, national defense issues. I've heard wingnut radio & read freerepublic & little green footballs. Until either of them enthusiasticly endorse extreme torture, of the variety that includes drills & eyesballs, or just say "why don't we just bomb the whole fucking country!" they are not "extreme right."

Posted by DRR | November 22, 2006 12:28 PM

towards the Lands of the Caliphate

Petey, next time you're gonna run up the "I'm Crazy" flag, do it at the start of your comment, so I know I can just skip over the next dozen lines without missing anything? Thanks, hon.

Posted by Dan | November 22, 2006 12:31 PM

Here's the CT - Exit poll data

Democratic Votes:
Lamont - 65%
Lieberman - 33%
Schlesinger - 2%

Republican Votes:
Lamont - 8%
Lieberman - 70%
Schlesinger - 21%

Indepedent Votes:
Lamont - 35%
Lieberman - 54%
Schlesinger - 10%

It seems like the group that liked Lieberman the most were Republicans, who strongly preferred him over the Republican candidate, who wasn't particularly extremist. Heck Lieberman did better with Republicans than Lamont did with Dems. That's a centrist for you.

And then there were the independents who preferred Lieberman, which would once again confirm that "centrists" are their own party. And even then, they only went to Lieberman by 54%, though he was the "centrist" and Lamont was a clear Dem. As I've said before "centrists" aren't in the center of anything, they're just their own thing.

Posted by Doctor Biobrain | November 22, 2006 12:34 PM

Until either of them enthusiasticly endorse extreme torture, of the variety that includes drills & eyesballs, or just say "why don't we just bomb the whole fucking country!" they are not "extreme right."

Oh, yes they are. All that means is that they got their rabies shots.

Posted by hamletta | November 22, 2006 12:48 PM

Wittman was one of the least interesting liars in the blogosphere.

I gather few people actually read his blog on anything resembling a regular basis (not least because there is little audience on the left or right for an anti-establishment poseur peddling a demented and banal brand of centrism and politics of unity that implicitly condones the anal rape of teenage boys in Iraq prisons, and a weird fetishism for that first Roosevelt [whose own context has literally nothing to do with our own]).

But apparently writing that kind of crap does help you land a gig as spokesman for an anti-establishment poseur peddling a demented and banal brand of centrism and politics of unity that implicitly condones the anal rape of teenage boys in Iraq prisons.

Note to Petey: just because the Connecticut electorate is dumb enough to see Professor Lieberman as a centrist doesn't mean he is one. And it isn't just a matter of what the man says, but what he does. No one who voted to gut bankruptcy protections for the middle class is serving the interests of the broad center of the electorate, and our true national bellweather for the political center - Mrs. Clinton - voted against it.

Posted by Linus | November 22, 2006 12:48 PM

The whole question of whether Holy Joe is a "centrist" is beside the point. (Whether "the center" is a meaningful political category is a big question I'm not prepared to weigh in on yet.) He is, in generally, fairly described as a middle-of-the-pack pro-business Democrat with hawkish foreign policy views -- not much different from, say, Hillary Clinton. The real problem with Holy Joe is that he's a sanctimonious fraud who talks the talk about being more principled than anyone else without walking the walk. His vaunted "independence" is demonstrated by taking conservative but seemingly safe or popular positions now and then and being damned annoying about it.

Posted by CJColucci | November 22, 2006 12:49 PM

"Petey, next time you're gonna run up the "I'm Crazy" flag"

I'm quite fold of using the phrase "Land of the Caliphates" (as shown on this map) to indicate the threater of war the WH is currently enagaged in - only Eastward from the Nile, of course...

If you have a more pleasing nomenclature, please share it with others.

Posted by Petey | November 22, 2006 12:51 PM

our true national bellweather for the political center - Mrs. Clinton - voted against it.

It's "bellwether."

Posted by dj moonbat | November 22, 2006 12:53 PM

Oh, and based on the exit poll data I cited above, I show that 36.5% of Lieberman's votes came from Republicans while only 25.2% came from Democrats. Had the Republicans favored their own candidate instead of Lieberman, Lamont would surely have won. But I suppose I'm an extremist for suggesting that this doesn't put Lieberman square in the middle of the political spectrum.

Posted by Doctor Biobrain | November 22, 2006 12:57 PM

"It's "bellwether."

It's good to see that I have graduated from having my comments simply fact checked (or is it fact-checked?) to having them spell checked as well. Some threads back I hoped out loud for this promotion.

But I continue to agree that the actual points Linus is making don't deserve to be dignified.

Posted by Linus | November 22, 2006 12:59 PM

But I continue to agree that the actual points Linus is making don't deserve to be dignified.

Substantively, then: If you want to cling to a [Hillary] Clintonian conception of The Center, fine -- a hearty "whatever!" to that.

Thing is, Holy Joe got ousted from his own party, then went on to win a Senate election anyway, attracting voters from multiple sources. That's just not fringe politics. If that's not getting votes "in the center," nothing is.

That's not to say that Joe's not all-sorts-of-fucked-up. He is. But so is The [much-fetishized] American Center. Including The Bellwether.

Posted by dj moonbat | November 22, 2006 1:05 PM

"Mark Schmitt notes the possibility of a McCain/Lieberman combo third party run peddling the line "We were each rejected by the ideological extremists in our parties, therefore we represent the true forgotten center of American politics.""

It is a grim spectre, and I can think of few compelling arguments to dismiss its prospects out of hand (which is not the case with the idea of McCain getting the GOP nomination; Giuliani [let alone various conservatives] polls much higher among the base than McCain).

Posted by Linus | November 22, 2006 1:06 PM

"Thing is, Holy Joe got ousted from his own party, then went on to win a Senate election anyway, attracting voters from multiple sources."

I'm not suggesting his views on national security and foreign policy are out of step with the broad center of electorate; I'm not sure they are.

But I am suggesting that his views on the changing needs of the middle class are.

Posted by Linus | November 22, 2006 1:13 PM

But I am suggesting that his views on the changing needs of the middle class are [out of step with the changing needs of the middle class].

Not sufficiently out of step to get voted out of office.

Posted by dj moonbat | November 22, 2006 1:14 PM

"a weird fetishism for that first Roosevelt [whose own context has literally nothing to do with our own]"

TR's positions have a great deal of relevance to our own day--see, for example his views on the estate tax, or on antitrust. TR, although in some ways an imperialist, was one of the founding figures of progressive politics It's no accident that Rove and other Bushites hero-worship McKinley, the president before TR--they think TR is where the country started to become liberal.

I suspect, however, that the real TR would have cheerfully beaten Wittman over the head with a big stick . . .

Posted by rea | November 22, 2006 1:15 PM

Thing is, Holy Joe got ousted from his own party, then went on to win a Senate election anyway, attracting voters from multiple sources. That's just not fringe politics.

As the numbers I cited above prove, Joe won because the Republicans loved him so much; giving him almost 37% of his vote total. Had they supported their own candidate, Joe would have most definitely lost. And the Democrats rejected him fairly thoroughly. Nobody's saying he's a fringe candidate. Merely a Republican in Dem clothing.

Posted by Doctor Biobrain | November 22, 2006 1:19 PM

"Not sufficiently out of step to get voted out of office."

I believe that had more to do with Lamont's deficiencies than with Lieberman's strengths.

Posted by Linus | November 22, 2006 1:21 PM

Seriously, how narrow would your perspective have to be to not see Lieberman as representing the center?

Narrow enough to actually include the center, which Lieberman doesn't.

Lieberman had to be pulled kicking and screaming into line to sign up with the rest of the Democratic Party to support Social Security rather than Cat-food accounts. Support for Social Security in the United States is well over 70%.

Lieberman has not signed on to much anything the public supports - getting out of Iraq, universal healthcare, holding Bush to account, filibustering judges who are actively and vocally opposed to the US Constitution, you name it.

Lieberman's initial run for the Senate was in opposition to Republican Senator Lowell Weicker - and Lieberman ran so far to the right of him that he was endorsed by William F. Buckley. He has always had support from the right wing.

In Connecticut, Lieberman got votes from people who are used to voting for a Democrat but don't pay much attention to politics (and from conservatives). People who don't pay much attention to politics aren't necessarily politically in the center, they just don't know much about politics.

Posted by Avedon | November 22, 2006 1:27 PM

Doctor Biobrain: Nobody's saying he's a fringe candidate.

No? Matt Y seems to be saying exactly that.

Posted by dj moonbat | November 22, 2006 1:28 PM

"TR's positions have a great deal of relevance to our own day..."

Positions yes, context no.

Historical analogies are almost always problematic, but I believe there are periods in American history these times are much more like.

The policies of TR that helped usher in a long period of "limited government" and "federalism" were more important than his nods to the Progressive movement. Something similiar happened with Nixon. Letting the gold standard (and with it Bretton Woods) collapse, and deep stealth tax cuts for the rich, as well as beginning to pack the courts with corporatarian Republicans was more important in my view than all the Great Society stuff he signed into law.

Posted by Linus | November 22, 2006 1:29 PM

He's had two contested elections for the Senate, and in both cases, he's run in the center surrounded by candidates of the left and right. His electorate sees him as a centrist.

HAHAHAHA ROTFLMAO!

Hey, if I range politically *somewhere* between Attila The Hun and Pat Buchanan, then I'm a centrist!

The reason "centrist" is now such a dirty word is that it doesn't represent someone in the middle of America, it represents someone in the middle of a skewed sample between a hard-line right wing nutcase and a squishy moderate. It started with Crossfire, and the formula hasn't changed.

It might not be so blatantly manipuLIEtive if once in the last 25 years I'd heard it used the other way - you know, Chavez is a centrist because he's somewhere between Noam Chomsky and Vladimir Lenin.

And it wouldn't be nearly so offensive if Lieberman and others hadn't spent the last three years calling us traitors and extreme left-wingers - you know, "US", the the 60%-70% of Americans who think the Iraq war was a mistake and a disaster. We're not the extreme left wing, we're the majority of America, and if you disagree with us, you must be an "extreme right winger", like Joe Lieberman.

I'm just not going to let that weasel Lieberman or anyone else get away with this sort of thing any more.

Posted by JT | November 22, 2006 1:34 PM

No? Matt Y seems to be saying exactly that.

Not to put words into his mouth, but he seems to be saying that Joe is "fringey" on some issues, particularly on "defense and use of force issues". But that's not to suggest that Joe is a fringe candidate. And without any doubt, his primary support comes from Republicans and, to a lesser extent, "centrists". And as I've mentioned above, centrism is merely a label designed to attack non-centrists as extremists, and not the actual center of anything. I'm a firm liberal but there is nothing extreme about me.

Posted by Doctor Biobrain | November 22, 2006 1:35 PM

I've long considered both McCain and Lieberman to be among the worst of American politicians precisely because people are convinced that they are "moderates." But I actually want to comment on the possibility of a McCain/Lieberman ticket. It won't happen. Who gets to be president? McCain already rejected being the VP on Kerry's ticket in 2004, and he certainly won't be VP to Lieberman, making him eligible for president when he's what, 90 million years old? As for Lieberman, he's been both a VP and presidential contender. It seems like a step backward to accept a VP slot for someone so conscious of appearing macho on foreign policy. Deferring to McCain sounds like weakness, does it not?

These efforts to "reclaim the center" (whatever the hell that means) are going to fade faster than any 3rd party bid in American history (Unity 08, I'm talking to you). Smart politicians always govern from what they perceive as the center and that dynamic has only been disrupted by the electoral strategy of Karl Rove since 2002 (rally the base, fuck everyone else). Now that the GOP can no longer win elections that way, the classic model of campaigning will, I predict, return: Run to the base during the primary, run to the center in the general election. Guess which party is going to find it most difficult to make that transition?

Posted by Morte | November 22, 2006 1:36 PM

To the extent that Left, Right and Center had meaning, it was within an ideological spectrum having to do with the role of the state in the political economy. Somehow or other, hawkishness/dovishness has gotten hauled into the mix, with dovishness being associated with the left (Lenin is rolling over in his tomb, I guess). If we just look at Joe on the traditional politicoeconomic definitions, the man is pretty clearly a centrist.

Posted by dj moonbat | November 22, 2006 1:40 PM

"No? Matt Y seems to be saying exactly that."

To the extent that Matt *is* saying that, how can you be sure he is wrong?

The Iraq War is going quite badly, and while it seems certain that Mr. Lieberman would almost certainly support further interventions in the region regardless of the cost in lives, liberties, and dollars, it seems decidedly unclear that the American people - including the people of Connecticut - would support further interventions in the region regardless of the cost in lives, liberties, and dollars.

Posted by Linus | November 22, 2006 1:42 PM

I don't know about the rest of you fellows, but "ManipuLIEtive" gets my vote for blog neologism of the year.

Posted by apk01004 | November 22, 2006 1:47 PM

"Hey, if I range politically *somewhere* between Attila The Hun and Pat Buchanan, then I'm a centrist!"

Well, maybe not. But in both '88 and '06, Lieberman was running as a centrist between intellectually mainstream liberal and conservative candidates. And he won both of those elections with a center-in coalition.

And while both Lamont and Weicker had their problems, I don't think it's particularly fair to compare either of them to Attila the Hun.

Posted by Petey | November 22, 2006 1:48 PM

If we just look at Joe on the traditional politicoeconomic definitions, the man is pretty clearly a centrist.

And we're saying that there is no true centrist. That's a label used to denounce everyone else as extremists, which is exactly what Lieberman's intent is. But "centrists" are their own seperate group which isn't in the middle of anything. Particularly with Lieberman, whose vote record is a forced deception compared with his more rightwing actions. Again, how else is he so much more popular with Republicans than Democrats if he's so centered? Had the Republicans preferred their own candidate, Joe would certainly have lost the election.

If you want to call him a centrist, I guess that's fine. Just as long as you stop pretending that he's in the center of anything. Defining him as the center is an insult to everyone else.

Posted by Doctor Biobrain | November 22, 2006 1:49 PM

"If we just look at Joe on the traditional politicoeconomic definitions, the man is pretty clearly a centrist."

If by "traditional" you mean the terms of the New Deal era (roughly the early 1930s through the late 1960s) Lieberman would not have been considered a centrist on economic matters. He would have been to the right of Scoop Jackson, and of the Eisenhower wing of the Republican Party. And if by "traditional" you mean the terms of the political era that began with Nixon and I believe will end with Bush, his vote on the bankruptcy bill still places him to the right of the mainstream. A new center is emerging, and it is a populist center. What it means for foreign policy is unclear. A new era of isolationism? A draft, and further occupations in the Arab world and Central Asia? Something else? I don't know.

Posted by Linus | November 22, 2006 1:50 PM

The point to which Matt and others are hinting at but not quite saying aloud is that our elites have gone batshit crazy in the past six years, and any number of the policies they have pursued and or supported don't represent the political and policy mainstream - no matter how many politicians voted for them, and no matter how many people voted for those politicians. I'm not sure the Iraq War is one of those policies, but the bankruptcy bill certainly is.

Posted by Linus | November 22, 2006 1:56 PM

"Again, how else is he so much more popular with Republicans than Democrats if he's so centered?

The man won with 50% of the vote as third party candidate ina three way race, in which he garnered a majority of self described independents and a third of self described Democrats (who make up a much larger portion of Connecticut's voters than either Republicans or "Independents")

Let's flip this question on it's head. Why was Lamont only able to get 65% of self described Democrats to vote for him. Why was Alan Schlesinger only able to garner 20% of self described republicans? Were these men extremists who were out of the mainstream?

"Had the Republicans preferred their own candidate, Joe would certainly have lost the election."

Was Joe Lieberman to the left, or to the right of Alan Schlesinger?

Posted by DRR | November 22, 2006 1:57 PM

To reiterate my earlier point which has been ignored:

Lieberman won 70% of the Republican voters and only 33% of the Democratic voters. If that's the "center", it's clearly leaning heavily to the right. And that's what we've been saying the whole time.

Posted by Doctor Biobrain | November 22, 2006 1:58 PM

Were these men extremists who were out of the mainstream?

Or perhaps there's another alternative: That Lamont was an extremely inexperienced candidate widely labeled by media "centrists" as an anti-war extremist being pimped by the wacky netroots and Schlesinger was a joke of a candidate who got the slot because Republicans didn't know that Lieberman would be so weak that he couldn't even carry the Democrats. A real Republican challenger would surely have sunk Lieberman. And in any case, Lieberman ran a much better campaign than either of the other two. So why pretend that "centrism" was the key here?

And honstly, why do you consider it to be good for an 18-year Senator who's always run as a Democrat to only receive 33% of Democratic voters? As I mentioned earlier, 36.5% of Lieberman's votes came from Republicans and only 25.2% came from Democrats. How is that the center? He sounds rightwing to me.

Posted by Doctor Biobrain | November 22, 2006 2:06 PM

He's not dead in the center of American politics, no, but who is? This is (usually) a two-party system, and apart from hiccups like Jim Trafficant or Lincoln Chafee, politicians are almost always at least X degrees to the left or right of center.

To receive 36.5% of your votes from Republicans, and 25.2% from Democrats does mean you have more of a right-wing appeal, but name another centrist icon. About what percentage of his votes do you think Ben Nelson got from Republicans? Or Chris Shays from Democrats?

There are definitely people closer to the center of American politics than Lieberman, but the structure of our system is such that they almost always get pushed further to one side or another than he did. That's centrism.

Posted by apk01004 | November 22, 2006 2:13 PM

I don't claim to know exactly what happened in Connecticut - I don't live there - but to use the Lieberman/Lamont race as some kind of standard of measure for centrism misses the broader context of what seems to have taken place in the 06 midterms.

To be sure, I don't know what happened there either. My belief was that the polls were probably exaggerating support for Democrats (or at least exaggerating the number of independents [who might favor Democrats] that would turn out to vote), and that the Democrats would probably continue to control neither branch of congress. My belief was that running on an enforcement-only immigration message (without explicitly endorsing the house bill) was probably not conservative enough for many centrist voters, and that the Democrats' lack of a positive alternative both in Iraq and in the wider "war on terror" would only hurt them. I saw the CA-50 race (where Billbrae ran on local issues and immigration) as a leading indicator of how important corruption was to voters (not very it seemed; if they weren't going to give Duke Cunningham's seat to a Democrat why would they hand over a cleaner Republican's seat to a Democrat), and as a leading indicator of the midterms as a whole.

But I was wrong...

Something *did* happen in this election, even if Democratic gains were modest by historical standards (see gerrymandering perhaps for more about that), and while I'm still hesitant to draw sweeping conclusions, it seems that the Democrats who won were more populist than liberal or conservative. Whatever happened elsewhere (even in Connecticut) didn't seem to happen in the Connecticut senate race, but to treat the Connecticut senate race as some kind of measure for the national mood just seems kind of off.

Posted by Linus | November 22, 2006 2:21 PM

I'm not making a judgement on whether him only getting a third of the Democratic vote is a bad thing, merely challenging the idea that Joe Lieberman was somehow out of the political mainstream. Only 25% of his votes came from Democrats, big deal, only 36.5% of his votes came from republicans. Does the average right-winger pull in fully a quarter of the Democratic vote in a liberal state (in which Democrats vastly outnumber republicans)? Does the average right-winger only have self described republicans account for a little more than a third of his total vote?

I'm not sure how to classify Lieberman, but he obviously occupied a space that, in addition to attracting 7/10ths of Connecticuts GOP minority, also attracted a full third of Connecticut's Democratic majority as well as a majority of self described independents (who also tend to lean Democratic in connecticut), accounting for a little over 50% of the total vote (AS A THIRD PARTY CANDIDATE) in a liberal state. Say what you will, that's not out of the mainstream, and falling back on excuses for the other two candidates, especially for Lamont who ran a great race, won't change that.

Posted by DRR | November 22, 2006 2:25 PM

The comments would be better on this thread if people explicitly separated the general perception of Joe, Joe's past votes, and Joe's current effect on politics, I think.

Posted by theCoach | November 22, 2006 2:26 PM

To receive 36.5% of your votes from Republicans, and 25.2% from Democrats does mean you have more of a right-wing appeal, but name another centrist icon.

But for a Democrat to rely far more heavily on Republican voters in a heavily Democratic state is fairly telling. Particularly when 70% of Republicans picked the Democrat, compared with only 21% picking the guy from their own party. And we're talking about a state that leans heavily towards Lieberman's party, as opposed to Nelson and Shays who are running against their state's political leanings.

And are you actually suggesting that either Nelson or Shays receives a larger portion of their votes from the opposite party than they receive from their own? That seems doubtful. Neither of them ran this year, but of all the Senate races I could check this year, it was fairly standard for Dems to go heavily to the Dems and Repubs to go heavily Repubs. Only for Lieberman do we see Republicans heavily going towards the non-Republican. Are you suggesting we ignore this?

Sure, no one is in the exact center, but Lieberman's not even close. As I keep saying, "centrism" has nothing to do with the center, but is its own position. Your argument might make sense had Lieberman done better with Dems, but he did poorly with the party that he's been a Senator in for eighteen years. This isn't reaching across the aisle, but sitting there.

Posted by Doctor Biobrain | November 22, 2006 2:34 PM

"And, as Mark says, they'll be in the "center" if by "center" you mean "on the far, far right on national security issues."

They represent the center, the center in DC Media Elite thinking.

McCain and Lieberman's views are identical to that of the WP editorial page and most of their op-ed columnists. In Washington that is considered center.

Just turn on any TV gasbag show. You will find the panelists are all gushing over McCain and Lieberman.

And as Paul Krugman wrote in one of his columns to be considered "serious about national security" in Washington you must have been completely wrong about Iraq. So the DC journalism elite considers McCain serious on national security issues.

Posted by Nan | November 22, 2006 2:42 PM

Does the average right-winger only have self described republicans account for a little more than a third of his total vote?

You're taking that number out of context. The reason his Republican support only accounted for 36.5% of his vote total was because Republicans only make up 26% of the state. But of those Republicans, 70% chose Lieberman. And he only got a third of the people in his own party. That's the proper context for the numbers you're referring to.

And to answer your question, for a Republican to pull-in only 33% of his own party would be entirely pathetic. Again, were it not for Republican support, Lieberman would surely have lost. And Republicans supported him far more heavily than Democrats. And for a state that leans heavily Democratic, that's really bad. Particularly for the longtime incumbent with media support against an inexperienced opponent often derided by the media as an extremist. Again, Joe won because Republicans liked him so much. And unless you're suggesting that Republicans are more centrist than Democrats (a laughable suggestion at best), your argument makes no sense. Lieberman is a Democrat in name only.

Posted by Doctor Biobrain | November 22, 2006 2:44 PM

"Whatever happened elsewhere (even in Connecticut) didn't seem to happen in the Connecticut senate race,"

There is a very simple explanation for this.

There was no credible republican candidate running in the Conn. senate race. So GOP voters went for the only credible conservative candidate in the race; Lieberman.

In other words Conn. race doesn't tell us anything about national trends.

Posted by Nan | November 22, 2006 2:46 PM

No, I'm suggesting that when you receive no more than 3/2 as many of your votes from one party as from the other, you are unusually centrist (going by a who-votes-for-you model, rather than an actual-policies-advocated model, which is a whole other story).

Shays probably received a huge percentage of his votes from Republicans. Lieberman, comparatively small. Far, far higher than most Democrats -- but far, far lower than most Republicans.

I figure he did better with Democrats than any Republican candidate who didn't win in a landslide, and better with Republicans than any Democrat who didn't win in a landslide. Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm not too wrong.

Posted by apk01004 | November 22, 2006 2:47 PM

"Again, Joe won because Republicans liked him so much."

Joe won because republicans didn't have a candidate of their own.

The GOP candidate was a gambling addict with all kinds of weird legal issues. He was not a legitimate candidate.

In a normal election, with a credible GOP candidate Joe would not have won.

Posted by Nan | November 22, 2006 2:49 PM

P.S. between his nutso politics and his fondness for referring to himself in his third-person cutesy nickname, Marshall Wittman gets my vote for "would most like to kick in the groin, 2006"

Posted by apk01004 | November 22, 2006 2:54 PM

"Something similiar happened with Nixon. Letting the gold standard (and with it Bretton Woods) collapse, and deep stealth tax cuts for the rich, as well as beginning to pack the courts with corporatarian Republicans was more important in my view than all the Great Society stuff he signed into law."

Dude,wtf are you talking about? FDR took the country off the gold standard in 1933 (and a good thing too). The "Great Society" was LBJ's program, not Nixon's.

Posted by rea | November 22, 2006 3:02 PM

Lieberman actually ran on "Bringing the troops home." It takes a very special cynicism, arrogance, dishonesty and selfishness; I guess we have to feel lucky for that. When is he going to get some scrutiny for the campaign finance abuse? How can the NY Times do an article like the other day where they talk about candidates using campaign funds to buy flowers but let Joe Lieberman off scot free for $387,000 with no documentation whatsoever to say what he did with it. At least Hillary's campaign actually bought the flowers and has receipts.

Posted by Karen | November 22, 2006 3:13 PM

The best line I've seen about Wittman's new "employment" is on the splendid "Lawyers, Guns and Money" site: My question: why would Lieberman pay for what he's already getting for free?

I can think of few people who deserve each other more than Lieberman and Wittman. Maybe when their pompous self-love combines it'll form a singularity, and they can disappear into some kind of parallel universe of narcissism.

Posted by sglover | November 22, 2006 3:25 PM

Marshall Wittman gets my vote for "would most like to kick in the groin, 2006"

I second that nomination.

Posted by Doctor Biobrain | November 22, 2006 3:29 PM

Shays probably received a huge percentage of his votes from Republicans. Lieberman, comparatively small. Far, far higher than most Democrats -- but far, far lower than most Republicans.

I wrote a big comment on this, which says it needs approval so it hasn't shown-up, but I think you're mistaken. Shays and Nelson didn't run, but in the 2006 Montana race, the Dem won 91% of Dems and 11% of Republicans in a Republican state, and only won due to support from 59% of Independents.

And in 2004, heavily Republican North Dakota was won by the Democrat, with 99% Dem support and 37% Republican support. And that 37% is a huge outlier, yet is barely half of the Republican support Lieberman got in a Democratic state. Though I didn't look at every race, I didn't see anything near a 37% support from an opposing party in any other race. And again, the guy got 99% of his own party, compared with Lieberman's 33%.

I couldn't find many other races won by someone running in a state that strongly supported the opposing party. And again, there's a HUGE difference between getting support from Republicans when you're in a state that leans heavily Republican, and getting that support in a Democratic state. And even still, Dems weren't getting anything close to a majority of Republicans in these states.

Face it, there is no comparison with what Lieberman did. He got 70% of Republicans and only 33% of Dems. That's not a centrist and certainly not a Democrat: That's what we call a Republican.

Posted by Doctor Biobrain | November 22, 2006 3:41 PM

"You're taking that number out of context. The reason his Republican support only accounted for 36.5% of his vote total was because Republicans only make up 26% of the state."

No actually I'm not taking this out of context. It doesen't matter how many republicans there actually are in the state, if Lieberman was really as right wing pseudo-republican as you make out, the percentage of his vote accounted for by republicans would have been much higher. But on the contrary, it only made up for a little over a third, the rest being accounted for by democrats & Independents. I imagine self described Republicans acount for something close to 80-90% of Alan Schlesinger's vote total, and he was dealing with no bigger a pool of republicans than Lieberman was.

I'm not saying Lieberman wasn't to the right of Lamont. But to pull fully a third of self described Democrats & a majority of Self described Independents in a liberal state incredibly undermines the case that Lieberman is some kind of right-winger.

Of course, lost in all this is an assessment of Lieberman's actual voting record.

Posted by DRR | November 22, 2006 4:04 PM

"And in 2004, heavily Republican North Dakota was won by the Democrat, with 99% Dem support and 37% Republican support. And that 37% is a huge outlier, yet is barely half of the Republican support Lieberman got in a Democratic state."

What's the overall percentage of self described Republicans in North Dakota compared to the number of self described Republicans in Connecticut.

Posted by DRR | November 22, 2006 4:09 PM

No actually I'm not taking this out of context. It doesen't matter how many republicans there actually are in the state, if Lieberman was really as right wing pseudo-republican as you make out, the percentage of his vote accounted for by republicans would have been much higher.

Yes, but not by much. He got 70% of all Republicans and only 33% of Dems. That's horrible for a Democrat and unprecented by anyone else, at least in any Senate race I looked at in 2006 or 2004. As I've cited , even in a heavily Republican state like North Dakota in 2004, the winning Dem could only muster 37% of Republican voters, and I couldn't find anything to come close to that. And that was a Dem running in a Republican state; not like Lieberman, who doesn't need to look Republican. Yet that Senator got 99% of his party, compared with Lieberman's 33%. And can you honestly doubt that Lieberman would have had even more Republicans and fewer Dems had he actually ran as the Republican? It's quite likely he would have lost, and it was only his prior Dem affliation that carried him to victory.

Your argument is fairly shameless. Again, the facts remain that Democrats rejected Lieberman and Republicans embraced him; and those numbers aren't even close. This isn't the political center. He's effectively switched sides and requires Republican support to offset how he turned-off Democrats.

Posted by Doctor Biobrain | November 22, 2006 4:21 PM

What's the overall percentage of self described Republicans in North Dakota compared to the number of self described Republicans in Connecticut.

Sorry, that was in my original post which hasn't shown up, as well as a post I'm writing for my own blog. North Dakota was 41% Republican, 28% Democrat in 2004. That's a 13-point advantage for Republicans, compared with Connecticut's 38% Dem, 26% Republican 12-point difference. Yet the Dem got 99% of Dems in North Dakota and 37% of Republicans.

Overall, 44.9% of the Dem's votes in ND came from Democrats and 22.2% came from Republicans; in a Republican leaning state. And this compares with Lieberman relying on Republicans for 36.5% of his votes with only 25.2% coming from Dems; and in a Democratic state. So the Dem in North Dakota relies on Democratic support in a Republican state, while Lieberman relied on Republicans in a Democratic state.

Posted by Doctor Biobrain | November 22, 2006 4:31 PM

Does "centrist" mean the center between Republicans and Democrats or the center between liberals and conservatives? If the latter, I'm not sure that looking at the percentage of votes by Republicans and Democrats makes sense, since Republicans and Democrats don't necessarily correlate with conservatives and liberals. And that's ignoring that a "conservative" from Connecticut may be different than a "conservative" from, e.g., Texas (just the same as a Republican from Connecticut may be different than a Republican from Texas).

Posted by Al | November 22, 2006 4:37 PM

The whole centrist meme is in my opinion really just a way of saying someone doesn't want to make any tough decisions. Essentially they want to be children and not have to think things through. Put simply there are very few contentious issues that have some sort of meaningfull position taht sits between the left and right. Take abortion either a fetus is a person or it isn't. The typical compromise positions, the right of center "exception for rape and incest" or the left of center "abortion should be legal but it is icky and should never happen" are both abusrd. If a fetus is a person then a rape or incest clause is still murder. If a fetus isn't a person (my view) then it does make sense to try and prevent unwanted pregnancy and the need for abortion for the simple reason that preventative medicine is always better than waiting for something that is more intrusive and more expensive, but that isn;t what the whole wishy-washy middle ground says.

Before someone accuses me of calling centrist voters stupid let me add that in reality I think very few people outside of elite DC pundits actually think there are any centrists in this regard. What a lot of people have are some views that are on the right and others that are on the left and when they say they want a "Centrist" candidate what they really mean is someone who has their unique combination of left and right views, not someone who has carved out some magical position exactly in the middle on every significant contentious issue.

Posted by Eric | November 22, 2006 4:40 PM

Does "centrist" mean the center between Republicans and Democrats or the center between liberals and conservatives?i>

I do tend to think of it as a centrism between the two parties, and with the term "moderate" being far more vague than the straight party identifiers, I went with party ID rather than ideological leanings. But we can crunch this for ideology too.

CNN Exit Poll:

Liberals:
Lieberman - 27%
Lamont - 69%
Schlesinger - 3%

Moderates:
Lieberman - 55%
Lamont - 36%
Schlesinger - 8%

Conservatives:
Lieberman - 66%
Lamont - 13%
Schlesinger - 21%

And again, we're talking about a "centrist" that got much stronger support from conservatives than liberals. And that conservatives support Lieberman more strongly than moderates, and more strongly than the Republican "extremist".

A true centrist should be pulling equally from liberals and conservatives, or at least there should be some level of parity. But instead, we see his strongest support from conservatives and his weakest support from liberals. And that doesn't sound particularly centrist to me. And again, more conservatives supported Lieberman than the guy many people on this board have implied is a rightwing "extremist". Face it, Lieberman's credentials as Mr. Center are surely in question.

Oh, and regarding the CT v. Texas difference in ideology, Lieberman is supposed to represent Connecticut, not America. If he can't get liberal support in a state that supports liberals, that doesn't bode well for him. In fact, I've always seen that as one of Joe's problems: That he works too hard at establishing his rightwing credentials for a future presidential run, at the expense of his real constituents. And I think America has suffered for it.

Posted by Doctor Biobrain | November 22, 2006 4:58 PM

A true centrist should be pulling equally from liberals and conservatives, or at least there should be some level of parity.

I guess that's just where you and I differ. I see 66/27 as "some level of parity". There weren't any other races this cycle where a candidate who is generally considered a centrist won by 10 points, but more typical is what happened in Arizona (Kyl won 17 % of liberals and 83% of conservatives) or Washington (Cantwell won 92% of liberals and 16% of conservatives).

The figures are sketchy when you get into blowouts -- Snowe won 49 percent of liberals, and Conrad won 41% of conservatives -- but that doesn't tell us much. They also won the huge majority of their bases, and if you appeal to absolutely everyone, you're not so much a centrist as you are "popular".

Sure, more parity than 66/27 would make a better centrist. But as I said, you're not likely to find one.

Posted by apk01004 | November 22, 2006 5:19 PM

Sure, more parity than 66/27 would make a better centrist. But as I said, you're not likely to find one.

Oh come on. That's horrible. Even if it was a 66/27 split with a liberal advantage that'd fairly non-centrist. But the fact that Lieberman pulled a supermajority of conservatives, while liberals rejected him with even more fervor is horrible for him. Particularly that so many more conservatives sided with Lieberman than the so-called extremist Republican. I mean, Lieberman pulled stronger support from conservatives than moderates. Sorry, but the man just ain't in the center.

I'm having very strong doubts about your intellectual integrity when you keep dressing up these damning numbers as if they somehow help you. Face it, Lieberman isn't in the center, and the fact that his Republican-conservative numbers aren't as strong as a Republican's isn't very persuasive. By contrast, the 2004 North Dakota race I spoke of gave the Dem a 97% vote from Liberals, 80% from Moderates, and 39% from Conservatives. And in a state that is 33% Conservative and 13% Liberal. That's how a centrist would look, not Lieberman, who is clearly swung into the conservative and Republican category. And yet still, the Dakota numbers make him look more liberal than centrist.

The truth is that there are people who call themselves "centrists", but they're not in the center or particularly popular. Had Republicans run a real candidate against Joe, he would have most certainly lost. But he was rightwing enough to impress Republicans, and lose a huge portion of Democrats. That's not the center.

Posted by Doctor Biobrain | November 22, 2006 5:42 PM

"Yes, but not by much. He got 70% of all Republicans and only 33% of Dems. That's horrible for a Democrat"

He wasn't running as a Democrat.

"As I've cited , even in a heavily Republican state like North Dakota in 2004, the winning Dem could only muster 37% of Republican voters, and I couldn't find anything to come close to that."

ONLY 37% That's a huge crossover.

"And can you honestly doubt that Lieberman would have had even more Republicans and fewer Dems had he actually ran as the Republican? It's quite likely he would have lost, and it was only his prior Dem affliation that carried him to victory."

It would be difficult to argue that whatever forces attracted over a third of Dem voters to the Independent candidate, would have dissipated if he had run as a Republican. It certainly didn't affect Byrdon Dorgan's appeal to North Dakota GOPers.

"Your argument is fairly shameless."

Save the judgement.

"Again, the facts remain that Democrats rejected Lieberman and Republicans embraced him; and those numbers aren't even close."

A third of the Dems voted for an Independent over t