As he mentioned in somebody’s pro-Joe diary over at DKos, Pachacutec’s been talking to various DC pols and insiders about this and they’re all in shock that Holy Joe’s using the pretext of “saving” a non-endangered sub base to justify doing a photo-op campaign appearance with two GOP Congressional candidates eager to distance themselves from Bush, and who are looking to Holy Joe to give them the fake “feint to the center”.

There is some ambiguity, but there is enough there to call this “campaigning with Republicans.” It adds to what we already knew–that Lieberman is the Republican-preferred candidate in this race.

Beyond that, this is far from the strongest case against Lieberman. It’s not enough, by itself, to use to call for things like removal of Lieberman’s seniority. There’s enough ambiguity in this being a state event to give Lieberman cover.

It’s not that terribly significant a thing, but I did wind up in a debate over this after I linked to this at my blog, Liberal Values. The discussion is at:
http://liberalvaluesblog.com/?p=141#comments

I suspect it comes down, Clinton-like, to what the meaning of “with” is. Here in New York, if you’re running for office, you attend the Salute to Israel parade or risk being smeared as a latent or blatant anti-Semite. And if politicians of the other party do the same, you could technically be considered as campaigning “with” them, but let’s get real.

I suspect it’s the same deal with the Groton event. The Groton base is as sacred a local cow in CT as Israel is in NYC. Did Lieberman appear “with” Republicans in the Salute to Israel sense or, as Jane insinuated, in the lending-support sense?

If she made too much of this, she could acknowledge such openly and move on. Holy Joe is sufficiently odious without any added hype.

51 votes. If a Lieberman win assures them 51 seats Schumer, Reid, Clinton and Obama would all blow the S.O.B. on alternating days for a month after the election. Don’t believe any crap about Joe getting put on some sort of shit list or being booted from the party. 51 votes. That’s ALL that matters. Today’s Dems are a cesspool of cowardly invertebrates. LBJ would’ve taken Lieberman aside and informed him defying the party meant he was soon to be the most miserable bastard roaming the halls of Congress. He’d have to swim a stream of shit just to get to his desk. No chance for that type of enforcement with this crew.

What gave LBJ power was the seniority system. There weren’t all those sub-committees for every day of the week so every Senator can preside over something. In the old days the leadership had the kind of power that only the Republicans now wield and nobody crossed the party line or they’d get a call from Sam Rayburn or LBJ.

The democratic caucus today is like a band of headless chickens running in every direction. None of them can ever resist the urge to put both feet firmly in their mouths, usually on national TV.

It’s just sad how spinelessly useless they all are. As Teddy Roosevelt said “You can’t carve a man with backbone out of a banana.”

I also noted it was worrisome I had to point this out to them, and that I had hoped that were smarter than that.

Guess not.

FYI, Groton was on the chopping block in the Base Realignment and Closure thing last year or the year before. Keeping it open was pretty huge for CT’s economy and a major accomplishment on the part of their entire congressional delegation (Dem’s and Repub’s). So if they’re breaking ground for new housing down there now, I guess they’ve got a right to crow about it a little.

This was kind a relief for me to hear though. I was sore afraid Lamont was going to have to run against a sane Joe Lieberman. But Lieberman can’t win without a sizable chunk of the Democratic vote. There just aren’t enough Republicans in CT to make up the difference if the Dem vote goes over overwhelmingly for Lamont. And I seriously doubt this kind of behavior is going to further endear Mr. Lieberman to Democrats in any way.