1. Anonymous says:

    If BushCo would screw over two real Republicans, like Snowe and Collins, and close Brunswick Naval Air Station, while the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard (actually in Maine) hangs by a thread, why does Joe think that his walking on the wild side will save New London?

  2. Anonymous says:

    I think the likelihood of Lieberman becoming a Republican is zero. After the ’real Democrat’ Clinton rally, no one would respect or vote for him. and you can’t win with nothing.

    I think the chance of Joe running on the R line was equally close to zero. I have no idea where Klein gets his material, but he’s not what I would consider a reliable source.

    The above is merely my own personal opinion. Now, he may have taken the SoD job last year, but he’d do it the way Wm Cohen did.

    Oh, if you didn’t catch it, check out Chris Matthews on (Joenertia supporter) Imus re Joe, the war and 2006.

  3. Anonymous says:

    DemFrom

    I agree with you completely that now there is no chance of Joementum accepting the Republican nomination. But his horizon of possibilities has narrowed considerably since, say, January. I don’t think Klein is suggesting this would still happen, just that Joe might have been considering it back before the Democrats decided to challenge Joe’s loyalty.

  4. Anonymous says:

    As Dem says, I’m not about to start taking Joe Klein’s sayso as gospel. But I can see Lieberman viewing this the way Ed Koch did his 1981 mayoral re-election, where he ran simultaneously as Dem and Rep. Koch hardly NEEDED the double-designation — but it fed his outsize ego, to think he was so wonderful EVERYONE wanted him.

    Koch, it might be observed, drifted further rightward much as Lieberman did (usually finding more to criticize in â€fellow†Dems than the GOP), and finally fell to an intra-party challenge.

  5. Anonymous says:

    btw, the anonymous R candidate senator in the Dana Milbank WaPo piece yesterday was Michael Steele – MD

    link

  6. Anonymous says:

    Does anybody know if you actually have to (publicly) accept a party’s nomination to appear on the ballot in CT?

  7. Anonymous says:

    Catastrophile — the rules on ballot access, nominations and endorsements are state by state. With few exceptions we have no true Federal Election Law. There is however a rule of thumb. States with a history of strong party machines usually have rules that permit party leaders to accomplish what they want, whereas states with more popular party structures usually have quite precise state laws that leave little room for party manipulation.

    For instance the Texas – DeLay problem could not happen in Minnesota. If a candidate resigns a place on the ballot, Minnesota law dictates the form of the letter of resignation, to whom it is sent, and the requirement that the appropriate party central committee meet to endorse a substitute within a certain number of days. It is just state law. Minnesota law would never have permitted Lieberman to run for both VP and the Senate in the same election. In CT that’s possible. In fact in Minnesota you cannot â€petition†on to a ballot in any election when you have contested for a party endorsement for that office in the same election cycle. We even have a law that requires county Election Officials to replace absentee ballots by overnight mail if a late change has been made. We had to do that when Wellstone died, and Mondale replaced him — it was about 50 thousand ballots. They had quite a time replacing about a dozen in Afghanistan. But each state is different, and each accomodates the political culture of the state.