The News and Observer reports that “In what may be the closest presidential race in the state since 1992, Democrat John Kerry is within 3 percentage points of President Bush in a new poll”.
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Editor’s Corner
By Ed Kilgore
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March 28: RIP Joe Lieberman, a Democrat Who Lost His Way
I was sorry to learn of the sudden death of 2000 Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Lieberman. But his long and stormy career did offer some important lessons about party loyalty, which I wrote about at New York:
Joe Lieberman was active in politics right up to the end. The former senator was the founding co-chair of the nonpartisan group No Labels, which is laying the groundwork for a presidential campaign on behalf of a yet-to-be-identified bipartisan “unity ticket.” Lieberman did not live to see whether No Labels will run a candidate. He died on Wednesday at 82 due to complications from a fall. But this last political venture was entirely in keeping with his long career as a self-styled politician of the pragmatic center, which often took him across party boundaries.
Lieberman’s first years in Connecticut Democratic politics as a state legislator and then state attorney general were reasonably conventional. He was known for a particular interest in civil rights and environmental protection, and his identity as an observant Orthodox Jew also drew attention. But in 1988, the Democrat used unconventional tactics in his challenge to Republican U.S. senator Lowell Weicker. Lieberman positioned himself to the incumbent’s right on selected issues, like Ronald Reagan’s military operations against Libya and Grenada. He also capitalized on longtime conservative resentment of his moderate opponent, winning prized endorsements from William F. and James Buckley, icons of the right. Lieberman won the race narrowly in an upset.
Almost immediately, Senator Lieberman became closely associated with the Democratic Leadership Council. The group of mostly moderate elected officials focused on restoring the national political viability of a party that had lost five of the six previous presidential elections; it soon produced a president in Bill Clinton. Lieberman became probably the most systematically pro-Clinton (or in the parlance of the time, “New Democrat”) member of Congress. This gave his 1998 Senate speech condemning the then-president’s behavior in the Monica Lewinsky scandal as “immoral” and “harmful” a special bite. He probably did Clinton a favor by setting the table for a reprimand that fell short of impeachment and removal, but without question, the narrative was born of Lieberman being disloyal to his party.
Perhaps it was his public scolding of Clinton that convinced Al Gore, who was struggling to separate himself from his boss’s misconduct, to lift Lieberman to the summit of his career. Gore tapped the senator to be his running mate in the 2000 election, making him the first Jewish vice-presidential candidate of a major party. He was by all accounts a disciplined and loyal running mate, at least until that moment during the Florida recount saga when he publicly disclaimed interest in challenging late-arriving overseas military ballots against the advice of the Gore campaign. You could argue plausibly that the ticket would have never been in a position to potentially win the state without Lieberman’s appeal in South Florida to Jewish voters thrilled by his nomination to become vice-president. But many Democrats bitter about the loss blamed Lieberman.
As one of the leaders of the “Clintonian” wing of his party, Lieberman was an early front-runner for the 2004 presidential nomination. A longtime supporter of efforts to topple Saddam Hussein, Lieberman had voted to authorize the 2003 invasion of Iraq, like his campaign rivals John Kerry and John Edwards and other notable senators including Hillary Clinton. Unlike most other Democrats, though, Lieberman did not back off this position when the Iraq War became a deadly quagmire. Ill-aligned with his party to an extent he did not seem to perceive, his presidential campaign quickly flamed out, but not before he gained enduring mockery for claiming “Joe-mentum” from a fifth-place finish in New Hampshire.
Returning to the Senate, Lieberman continued his increasingly lonely support for the Iraq War (alongside other heresies to liberalism, such as his support for private-school education vouchers in the District of Columbia). In 2006, Lieberman drew a wealthy primary challenger, Ned Lamont, who soon had a large antiwar following in Connecticut and nationally. As the campaign grew heated, President George W. Bush gave his Democratic war ally a deadly gift by embracing him and kissing his cheek after the State of the Union Address. This moment, memorialized as “The Kiss,” became central to the Lamont campaign’s claim that Lieberman had left his party behind, and the challenger narrowly won the primary. However, Lieberman ran against him in the general election as an independent, with significant back-channel encouragement from the Bush White House (which helped prevent any strong Republican candidacy). Lieberman won a fourth and final term in the Senate with mostly GOP and independent votes. He was publicly endorsed by Newt Gingrich and Rudy Giuliani, among others from what had been the enemy camp.
The 2006 repudiation by his party appeared to break something in Lieberman. This once-happiest of happy political warriors, incapable of holding a grudge, seemed bitter, or at the very least gravely offended, even as he remained in the Senate Democratic Caucus (albeit as formally independent). When his old friend and Iraq War ally John McCain ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, Lieberman committed a partisan sin by endorsing him. His positioning between the two parties, however, still cost him dearly: McCain wanted to choose him as his running mate, before the Arizonan’s staff convinced him that Lieberman’s longtime pro-choice views and support for LGBTQ rights would lead to a convention revolt. The GOP nominee instead went with a different “high-risk, high-reward” choice: Sarah Palin.
After Barack Obama’s victory over Lieberman’s candidate, the new Democratic president needed every Democratic senator to enact the centerpiece of his agenda, the Affordable Care Act. He got Lieberman’s vote — but only after the senator, who represented many of the country’s major private-insurance companies, forced the elimination of the “public option” in the new system. It was a bitter pill for many progressives, who favored a more robust government role in health insurance than Obama had proposed.
By the time Lieberman chose to retire from the Senate in 2012, he was very near to being a man without a party, and he reflected that status by refusing to endorse either Obama or Mitt Romney that year. By then, he was already involved in the last great project of his political career, No Labels. He did, with some hesitation, endorse Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump in 2016. But his long odyssey away from the yoke of the Democratic Party had largely landed him in a nonpartisan limbo. Right up until his death, he was often the public face of No Labels, particularly after the group’s decision to sponsor a presidential ticket alienated many early supporters of its more quotidian efforts to encourage bipartisan “problem-solving” in Congress.
Some will view Lieberman as a victim of partisan polarization, and others as an anachronistic member of a pro-corporate, pro-war bipartisan elite who made polarization necessary. Personally, I will remember him as a politician who followed — sometimes courageously, sometimes foolishly — a path that made him blind to the singular extremism that one party has exhibited throughout the 21st century, a development he tried to ignore to his eventual marginalization. But for all his flaws, I have no doubt Joe Lieberman remained until his last breath committed to the task he often cited via the Hebrew term tikkun olam: repairing a broken world.
As of “flip-flopper”: Remember that it worked last time around. They called it “reinventing himself” and it was devastating. Dubya makes much of his “staying the course”. He never takes back anything, no matter how wrong or stupid it might occur. That’s the reason why he will never throw out Cheney or Rumsfeld.
The sad thing is: The electorate seems to have liked this stubbornness so far. Fortunately there are some indications that this is changing. But I wouldn’t bet on it. The “reinventing”-charge against Gore only fully blossomed in September und October.
It looks like someone finally polled Colorado but it is not yet on their web site. Survey USA says Colorado is tied 47-47. I saw this at 2.004k.com.
Looking at 2 sites that give good state by state data we find that Kerry is doing better than expected in AK, TN., VA, WVA, OH and now NC.
Kerry’s choice of Edwards could now be made to pay off big time if Chris Lehane would schedule Edwards on a continuous circuit of travel that covered AK., TN, NC, western VA, WVA and south east OH. Those are areas where Edwards’ populist politics flavored with his religious values will resonate.
Even if such a stategy were not entirely successful, it would move the numbers and grab enough media attention to force the Bush campaign to respond with money and Bush’s time. Bush doesn’t need that.
Ahh Ed..
You cant let the likes of Bush and the other “christians” in the white house determine your thoughts, feelings and perspectives on christianity. If you are a Bible reader or a reader of the life and times of Christ, you will quickly realise that Judas had his close moments with Christ too but… alas, the money. I dont think that many people deliberately fashion their christianity off of Judas’ but because of greed and a distinctly singular purpose in life, some become replicas of Judas. They will lie, cheat, steel and deceive to obtain their purpose. If you are following these elections, you will know exactly what I mean. I dont need to spell out anything here.
So Bush’s style should not affect your style, just like it didnt affect Peter and James and John and the other members of the crew.
And then there is the Thomas approach where a person need answers and evidence. In the eyes of some, this is a wishy washy christian, however in the eyes of others, Thomas might more fit the researcher/scientist mold. Its about perspectives, purposes and causes.
So naaaaaah…. dont let him make you wonder what christianity is… you didnt let Judas, so why Bush. We cant let people mislead us with this born again phrasing. The excellent thing about Christianity is that its a life style and hence you know people by how they walk. You also know how you are progressing by how you walk and what makes it even more excellent is that people walk differently and hence we will have differing approaches to the same subject. Ask Peter and Paul (EX-SAUL).
What I also love about Christianity is that it suits humble people really well, cause it allows you to make mistakes, to totally screw up and then take a step back, review the last move and try again.
For the arrogant and the fundamentals however, its a rigid, stiff, do or die thing. So you live in this proverbial straight jacket and you try to commit suicide everytime you mess up and in this life you will mess up billions of times. Ask Peter.
So keep trucking Ed.. Dont let your spiritual eyes rest on Bush and his “born again” phenomenon. Keep the focus… and you know where.
Cheers
“Its this brand of christianity which causes people to be sympathetic to evil and evil doers.”
This is so true with me! I thought things were going to be special with Bush because he was a “born again” Christian. And then, I guess it was a few months, after 911 my attitude changed about him and now I have serious questions about just what Christianity is?
Hey Mimiru… I catch your strong objection but it was meant to imply Bush’ style of christianity, where he shakes hand with the truth from an eternal distance.
I cant quite grip why they dont understand that thinkers wont hold fast to the flip/flopper thing on elections day.
Lets face it, who would prefer a perpetrator of terminological inexactitudes to a flip flopper? I am sure the filp flopper wins everyday. Its so hard to trust a person who lies constantly and its worse when that person juggles the lies perpetually and hence never confesses. You cant want a worse person… How frightening.
Is sure does amaze me though that the evangelicals who support the GOP so strongly are not “christian” enough to come out and declare that this administration does not wallow in the truth. I just cannot comprehend how they can sit so stoically on TV and proclaim the gospel, reaching souls for Christ and still support an administration and a person that appears so evil.
Its this brand of christianity which causes people to be sympathetic to evil and evil doers. Its because they cant find the line that divides the righteous from the unrighteous and as such they cant tell who they should be supporting. Its a pity.
I have posted a few times that this brand of Christianity is such a debgerous tool in the hands of a master like Bush. It makes it even more dangerous because the evangelicals support him and they have such huge followings in the US and across the world that they can quite easily create a mass following which can make this earth and even more dangerous place to live.
Change is essential. It cant be pleasant to have this kinda thing happening to the world. I support Christianity but I like the style that Chirst portrayed. So until we get someone with that level of balance lets keep Bush away from being a perpetrator.
“but directly with Bush’s christian approach to truth”
I object to that pretty strongly. Don’t tar all Christians with a single Bush, er brush. Many of us object to Bush, its just the vocal crackpots who get all the press.
Bel,
Re “flip/flopping” – you are taking the rational, adult attitude. The sorry truth is that any dumb ass negative label will do – the point is to find something that sounds bad, not to find a reason that stands up to rational analysis. I remember when I was eleven years old and our whole class was calling each other “nose-breather!” “oh, yeah? well you’re a mouth-breather!” That, unfortunately, is often the level of debate we will get in american politics.
I could never understand this “Flip/flopper” thing either. I remember GW’s Daddy doing that with Clinton, weeks upon weeks of staged rallies with everyone waving little American flags and daddy Bush calling Clinton a flip/floppper. It didn’t work then either. I seem to remember, during Kerry’s primary campaign, Barbara Bush saying something to the affect that she is seeing the same thing happening to her son that happened to her husband in the loss to Clinton. I don’t know what exactly she meant by that but maybe she knew something that we will find out.
I am always examining Kerry’s approach and wondering this and that about his campaign. While I may only comment on Kerry’s approach, I do take good long looks at Bush’s approach too.
From what I have seen for the past 6 – 8 months, I am of the distinct impression that Karl Rove and crew are actually painting Bush into a corner. They are removing his attack capability and are not providing any defense for him.
They have limited Bush to attacking Kerry on small and almost insignificant issues, have not taken the time to hoist any new programs onto the political platform, have not created the positives out of Bush’ record and have not given him something about himself to market. When I do the analysis, I can see that their approach is going to leave Bush doing a hop scotch in order to move himself from the acute and sharp angles of that corner.
I am not sure why they decided to brand Kerry as a flip flopper because people reserve the rights to change their minds on any issue as many times as they see fit. Especially if conditions and times warrant such. So targetting Kerry’s voting patterns over the past 20 years cannot be a genuine reason not to vote for him. He must have won his senate term on more than one occassion over the past 20 years and as such, people must know how he votes by this time. I dont think its possible to find a single candidate who voted in exactly the same manner over the past 20 years. If such a person can be found, I would be bold enough to declare that such a person could not be representing the people’s interest unless the electorate never changed, times never changed etc.. etc.. In this regard every candidate would have voted in different modes from time to time and in some instances in a non-partisan manner. To me therefore, its wasted energy to keep harping on a flip flopping Kerry. It seems elementary, infantile and blatantly childish.
With regard to Iraq, I am sure that the electorate recognised a long time ago that Iraq is indeed a complex issue. Notably, they will have recognised that its complexity has nothing to do with Saddam or WMDs but directly with Bush’s christian approach to truth. In this regard, then the electorate does not expect Kerry to act in any manner contrary to the information given. I am pretty certain that his vote is reflected in the varying degrees of indecision exhibited by most of the other senators. So I am sure that when the analysis is done, it will show that he voted in similar vein to the core of senators.
Its really an insult to challenge the record of someone who actually found themselves in the line of fire because the Commander in Chief sent them. Its almost reprehensible that those who didnt get the opportunity to serve in the way that Kerry served can find the courage to challenge his record of service in the military. There will come a point when the electorate will recognise the “red-herring” that this challenge really is and will move on, leaving Bush with the red-herring in his hand, wondering what really happened.
I have also noted in another post that the anti-kerry issues which Bush has raised over the past 8 months have not really taken hold on the ground. In the recent past, the swift boat issue has not really taken off and it has left Brit Hume on Fox lamenting that the main stream media did not take up the swift book story and run with it. Of course they did take it up but they did not do the kinda home run which he was expecting.
In like manner, the direct question that Bush posed on Iraq to Kerry seems to have fizzled also. I agree that Kerry’s answer is still being deciphered, translated, extrapolated, studied etc.. etc. but the focus is no longer on Bush as a challenger but on Kerry in trying to clear his position on the issues. From just about every report that I have read, the writers all seem to be wanting Kerry to give a simple answer and move along. Alas, Kerry has not yet had his meeting with simple answers, so for now, he muddles things, smile and walk away.
I also think that Karl and crew did not make plans for a stalwart challenge from groups such as move-on.org and hence they are not responding to these groups successfully.
Finally, Karl and crew never did get around to finding a new agenda for George. Unfortunately, this has relagated him to rehashing old programs. I cant wait to hear the output from the coming convention.
I am not sure what the GOP plans to do but at this very moment, they are painting poor George into a corner and I suspect that he will be upset with quite a few people very soon. We may see some changes in the team before election day.
By the way… what has become of Mrs. C. Rice and Mr. C. Powell? The Don is surfacing again but this might not be a good idea.
Cheers
“Beforeth the Fall, goeth Pride.”
Be very wary, we are against an Enemy who knows no bounds.
Maybe this one check it out.
http://www.electoral-vote.com/
One by one the Battleground States are falling into Kerry’s lap and the ‘new’ Battleground States are those that use to be solid red. There’s an Electoral Vote Map page I’ve been following in which Ohio and Florida went from Barely Bush to Weak Kerry in the last week. Sorry, I don’t have the URL handy but it should be pretty easy to Google.
This is great. I moved to MA from NC but kept my residence in NC so I can vote there. Now it seems like my vote might actually count.
Yeah it close, a dead heat…if you don’t count the undecided. I can just see Giuliani, Shwarzenegger and McCail swaying those undecided voter – “George Bush is not as bad as you thought, four more years of this.”
Well, let us not get overconfident.
Kerry’s advantage in current polls is very slight,
and Bush has plenty of chance to make it up with
his convention coming up.
This is just incredibly good news. If this keeps going on like that it will mean unfavorable press coverage in the fall for Bush, no matter how close the national polls. “Why does he have to campaign in this red state, why in that red state?” and so on.
Let’s hope we’re still standing on Monday, September 13th. (I’m confident, though. It’s terribly difficult for Bush to exploit 9/11 for political reasons.) And I hope Kerry studies the Gore debates carefully (sigh, sigh..)
NC has been becoming more and more open to dems.
There are a lot of military families there, there are a lot of transplants from points north and west…I think they should definitely spend some time there.
I just went down to see my family, and I noticed at least one Kerry sticker, several support our troops get rid of Bush type stickers and as far as my father is concerned -a lifelong republican, voted for Bush last time- he’s not sure what he’s going to do this election. He’s thinking voting Libertarian or not at all!
I hope Kerry’s campaign takes advantage of this positive polling news, and keeps fighting for those southern votes. The south doesn’t belong to Bush, unless you assume it does.
I have to think that campaigning in North Carolina in September was pretty high on Unka Karl’s list of Things We Don’t Want To Have To Do.
More and more good news for Kerry. One important thing to note is that many of the undecideds will give Kerry a hard look and the majority will vote for him. That inherent nature translates into an even bigger lead for Kerry.
Look at the electoral college… the swing states are poised to go for Kerry and he may pick a few red states off as well.
As it stands now, Kerry has a solid lead in that there seems to be little hope of Bush gaining any ground. I wish the election would end sooner rather than later, though!
I noticed that this poll says that there is 7% undecided. So, if it is true what they say about undecided voters usually voting for the new man Kerry would be on top in North Carolina.