Bush ahead by 4% Florida LV’s (Mason-Dixon Poll 10/4-5).
Kerry leads by 2% Florida LV’s (American Research Group Poll 10/2-5).
Kerry, Bush tied at 47% NH LV’s (American Research Group Poll 10/3-5)
Kerry ahead by 3% New Mexico LV’s (Albuquerque Journal Poll 10/1-4)
Kerry, Bush tied at 48% Ohio LV’s(American Research Group Poll 10/4-6)
Kerry leads by 7% PA LV’s (WHYY-TV/Westchester University Poll 10/1-4)
Kerry ahead by 3% PA LV’s(American Research Group Poll 10/2-4)
TDS Strategy Memos
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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.
ditto on what DC in CA said. I am doing phonebanking to the swing states and planning to do GOTV during the days before the election. I am glad the numbers are looking good- but shouldn’t we be focused on making them even better?
Splendid news! Let’s just hope (and pray-) that the crucial third debate goes as well as the first two did.
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BTW, what kind of “message” do you think Kerry should send to undecided voters in the debate? (I assume there will be some sort of closing statement again). Off the top of my head —
1) He should promise to be a “uniter” by solemnly pointing out the U.S. is at war and Congress likely will remain in Republican hands. He should hint that this might mean compromises on spending priorities, so that at least the deficits could be reduced. I think many fiscal conservatives and independents would like this.
2) He might touch the cultural issue (the red wine, fluent french, his windsurfing hobby etc.) and beg culturally conservative voters not to dismiss him out of hand if they agree with his economic policies.
3) He should point out that his opponent has expressed his unwavering determination to continue the same policies for another four years, if re-elected. In other words, the current policies in the Middle East will continue to be pursued and the handling of the federal economy won’t change. He should ask voters who think they were better off in 2000 to take a chance on him. I think it is a very powerful argument, since “Shrub” and his followers are strugging to portray 2001-04 in a positive light and mostly duck the issue altogether.
4) He should defuse the extremely silly “global test” smear/scare campaign by explaining that it is merely a common sense term for saving American lives and dollars before going to war. In 1991, the other Gulf states largely reimbursed the U.S. for the cost of Gulf War I. Not so this time.
5) Debate tactics. In the first debate, he was polite, well informed and surprisingly clear and succinct. More of the same, please! I would also like to see him damn the president with faint praise by first agreeing with the conventional wisdom that “Shrub” is a decent man who does what he thinks is best of the country. Having said that, he should then gently question whether “Shrub” really is qualified for the job, in the light of this Administration’s numerous screw-ups at home as well as abroad. “Grand vision” alone is not enough, he should say — the U.S. now needs competent management to turn Iraq and the federal economy around. It’s a very powerful argument. Saying “Shrub” is an immoral liar won’t work. Saying he simply isn’t up to the task of running the country just might work, since there is ample evidence for it.
MARCU$
These are all nothing more than a good start.
Yes, they are a very good and encouraging start, but let us all do what we can to keep those trend lines going.
A good start. Now let’s do what we can – canvassing, phone banking, and other GOTV activities – to make for a great finish.
Nice Cherrypicking, but here’s a few you forgot. Btw, ARG = Kerry’s Private Poll.
Marist: Bush 49, Kerry 46, Nader 1
Reuters/Zogby Tracking Poll: Bush 46, Kerry 44, Nader 2
Florida: Quinnipiac: Bush 51, Kerry 44
Rasmussen:
Pennsylvania: Bush 47% Kerry 47%
Colorado: Bush 48% Kerry 44%
Michigan: Bush 46% Kerry 46%
Virginia: Bush 50% Kerry 44%
I think tide is turning. After the debates, GW will finally be exposed as being way over his head as president. (if not already) I’m still one of those who think the race will be a route for Kerry, similar to Reagan over Carter in 1980