Joe Lieberman Concedes

only to announce on the basis of a hairbreadth loss that he is running as an independent for Senator this fall.
Oy Vey...
His "concession speech" was not as far as I could see, Lieberman's finest rhetorical hour. On the one hand he excoriates DC's partisan politics and promises a "new politics" of unity & purpose...and apparently he will achieve all that as soon as he is done calling Ned Lamont a dirty flippant guttersnipe and an appeaser.
Well it has come to this, Lieberman is running on an independent ticket...out of what? Anger, spite or a perverse sense of destiny?
Did Robert Reich run as an independent in 2002?
Did Frank Bellotti run on a third party ticket in 1990?
Did Tsongas bolt the democratic party in 1992?
The answer to all that is no, their issues were important, they were passionate, maybe they didn't deserve to lose.
Tsongas certainly didn't God rest his soul.
However all these candidates and thousands more like them knew that politics isn't stickball there is NO do-over if you strike out.
Joe just doesn't get this...the man is singularly devoid of irony so far as I can see from CSpan.
Frankly I thought it was grimly hilarious to see Bill Clinton down there in Connecticut campaigning for Lieberman last week given the fact that Joe never defends his colleague Hilary Clinton whenever Don Imus takes to calling her a witch and a dyke during Lieberman's call in appearance on that show.
Like I said, no sense of irony.
More and more I've decided Joe Lieberman is a politician of the past, he did well in the good old days of the Clinton Aufklarung when the issues weren't too taxing and consensus however rough ruled the land.
However today all is ideological warfare and partisan strife...we may well not see another "era of good feeling" in our lifetimes.
Joe just doesn't get that.
You can't bring back consensus and bipartisanship to DC simply by offering your opponents bigger and better concessions, not when the opposition has made it's bones by never ever keeping their word in matters large & small.
This bespeaks a sort of dangerous naivete'.
Alas, even the naive' can jump plenty ugly when their own pissing patch is threatened.
Joe Lieberman may not be too tough on the GOP but he will play this crazy third party candidacy up for all that it is worth and no doubt he will try to intimidate as many of his senate democratic colleagues as possible.
This thing has evil potential for the national party.

So it is a three way race in Connecticut, my only question is what will Karl Rove do? Will he try to funnel aid to the Lieberman campaign in hopes of getting him to switch sides after the election?
Can't rule that out can you? Lieberman is spiteful enough to run as a spoiler, what is to stop him from switching sides if he wins?