Lieberman Bombshell?
Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut told the Politico on Thursday that he has no immediate plans to switch parties but suggested that Democratic opposition to funding the war in Iraq might change his mind.
Lieberman, a self-styled independent who caucuses with the Democrats, has been among the strongest supporters of the war and President Bush’s plan to send an additional 21,500 combat troops into Iraq to help quell the violence there.
“I have no desire to change parties,” Lieberman said in a telephone interview. “If that ever happens, it is because I feel the majority of Democrats have gone in a direction that I don’t feel comfortable with.”
Asked whether that hasn’t already happened with Iraq, Lieberman said: “We will see how that plays out in the coming months,” specifically how the party approaches the issue of continued funding for the war.
He suggested, however, that the forthcoming showdown over new funding could be a deciding factor that would lure him to the Republican Party.
“I hope we don’t get to that point,” Lieberman said. “That’s about all I will say on it today. That would hurt.”
From TIME:
In his 18 years in the U.S. Senate, Joe Lieberman has cultivated an image of himself as a lonely prude among the morally corrupt, that rare Washington official who places principle above politics. But with the Democrats’ hold on power dependent on just one vote — in effect, his — and with Republicans courting him to tilt the balance in their favor, Lieberman has been indulging in some fairly immodest political footsie. Early this year he terrified fellow Democrats by skipping several of the weekly caucus lunches that cement party fidelity in the Senate. Recently he was spotted in the Republican cloakroom talking with South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham about reforming Social Security. He even says he might vote Republican for President in 2008, a not-so-veiled hint that he would prefer John McCain, his fellow true believer in the Iraq war, to most, perhaps all, Democratic alternatives.
The Democrats’ 2000 candidate for Vice President is the only party member in the Senate supporting President Bush’s Iraq policy and says he is “very troubled about the direction the party is heading on foreign policy generally.” With his re-election in November, many old allies now rue abandoning him after he lost the Connecticut Democratic primary to Ned Lamont last August. Both sides concede that bitterness remains. “It’s still a little painful and awkward,” says the majority whip, Dick Durbin, “but I think the caucus counts him as a friend.”
Lieberman says leaving the Democratic Party is a “very remote possibility.” But even that slight ambiguity — and all his cross-aisle flirtation — has proved more than enough to position Lieberman as the Senate’s one-man tipping point. If he were to jump ship, the ensuing shift of power to Republicans would scramble the politics of the war in Iraq, undercut the Democrats’ national agenda and potentially weaken their hopes for the White House in 2008. Those stakes are high enough to give Lieberman leverage with both parties no matter how slim the chance of his crossing the aisle.
I would love nothing more than to have Joe Lieberman become a Republican (well, okay, a few things more) but I seriously doubt it will ever happen. These two articles are filled with so many ifs, ands, and buts that we can all have a merry Christmas (pardon me for that obscure pun).
What this renewed focus on Lieberman and Iraq does show, however, is that the ridiculous assertions of Kos post-election (you can read here about how this self-styled ‘guru’ held that Lieberman had been ‘neutered’ (!) by the election) are stupider now than they were then (and they were pretty stupid then). The most powerful man in the Senate is Joe Lieberman, not Harry Reid, and we can thank our progressive friends and the Lamont campaign for that.
The howling (and the self-delusion) among the Nutroots® has already begun (bonus self-delusion here)…
If I understand Senate rules correctly, Lieberman isn’t actually all that powerful. I believe that as things stand, even if he switched parties it wouldn’t effect Senate control or committee control. The only reason that happened in 2001 was because of a deal that was in place, one that no longer exists. And given the breakdown of Senate seats up for election in 2008, it seems highly likely that the Dems will pick up at least a few more seats. In which case Joe would really be unimportant. That’s why I don’t think he’ll switch. If he did, he’d be just another Republican and no one would listen to him.
It probably won’t happen, because Reid knows better than to push Lieberman too far. What it DOES mean, however, is that — assuming the Murtha “slow bleed” provisions get included into the House military appropriation bill — Reid will be forced to hold a vote specifically on whether the Murtha provision should included in the bill*. This would give Bush time to lobby the seven wobbling Republicans and put some electoral pressure on the 12 Democrats up for re-election in 2008.
* There is always the filibuster in the Senate, of course, but if I’m not mistaken appropriations bills are exempt from the filibuster protection.
A.L.:
Actually, a Lieberman defection WOULD affect committe control. The rule in 2001 you are referring to was an agreement to split all committee assignments evenly to reflect the 50-50 senate split in the wake of the 2000 elections (at the time, Republicans were worried about losing control over the untimely demise of Strom Thurmond and were willing to cut a deal).
Since the rule in effect wasn’t conditioned on power remaining in the Republican hands, they didn’t lose any committee seats. This meant that when Jeffords switched, Republicans replaced Jefford’s seat on certain committees with a non-defecting Republican, while the Democrats were forced, as part of their deal with Jefforts to give up seats on committees Jeffords was already sitting on to take over the majority (!) a result that likely rankled a few Democrats. If Lieberman switched, however, the Republicans would probably gain 2 seats on each committee. So for every committee Lieberman was sitting on, Republicans would get one new member, plus Lieberman, and for every committee Lieberman wasn’t sitting on they’d get 2.
Sean P,
Since I know nothing about Senate rules, I’m more than willing to defer to you if you know more. Here’s where I was getting my info, for what it’s worth.
Oh, and this too.
Keep an eye on Susan Collins for a flip in the other direction. The dhimmis in Maine are looking at her as vulnerable in 2008. She may no longer be the dhimmis favorite Republican. Oh, that’s right, it was her mentor Bill Cohen who was the favorite. Like father, like daughter.
She will vote for the slow bleed, without a doubt.
A.L.
Thanks for the links. They contradict what I read about the Senate Rules from a New Republic article back in 2002 and since I’m not any more intimately familiar with the rules of the Senate than you are (my name’s Sean P, not Robert B
) I guess the linked post trumps the unlinked post.
Even assuming your sources are correct, however, Lieberman is still a lot more powerful than you give him credit for. It would seem impossible to have a “gentleman’s filibuster” over a change to the rules for organizing the Senate. If nobody agrees on who the Majority leader is, or the committee chairmen are, then there would basically be a shutdown of the Senate until the issue was resovled. So who would lose more? The House is controlled by the Democrats so they would, in effect be fillibustering all of the Democrat sponsored bills that made its way out of the House.
Tommy: Yeah, that Maine seat is looking pretty vunerable on paper right now (Snowe cruised to re-election, but Collins isn’t an institution like she was). I’d add to that list New Hampshire, Colorado and Minnessotta (barring a Franken nomination). Republican pickup opportunities look very good in South Dakota and Arkansas (if Huckabee can be persuaded to give up his hopeless Presidential campaign), but right now I’d say the only way the Republicans can retake the Senate in ’08 is a candidate at the top of the ticket with strong appeal to socially moderate swing voters in Colorado and New England to help eke out a victory in at least three of their vunerable seats. Hm, I wonder who that candidate could be?
I have a hard time seeing the switch. Lieberman’s got it pretty good at the moment. When one sees that his positions on everything but Iraq don’t line up very well with the GOP, and considering the marginalization and shoddy treatment of the RINOs, I just can’t see the incentives.
[...] I said the latest spate of ‘Lieberman going GOP’ stories were much ado about nothing yesterday, and today Senator Lieberman used the exact same words to deny them – almost: U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman rejected speculation Friday that he would join the Republican Party, calling the notion “much ado about nothing.” [...]