Lieberman strategy-good or bad?

[quinnox]

Do you think Lieberman's strategy of going after Dean will work? Or will it have no effect, or backfire? I am curious to see poll numbers in a month or so to see if anything changes. It appears Lieberman has decided to run an aggressive campaign against Dean. I also wonder how this will affect the Kerry-Dean rivalry. Maybe Lieberman and Dean will be so busy with each other, that rivalry will move to the sidelines.

[MiddleRiverRefugee]

1. Oh, it's good. Very good.

Lieberman. Heh-heh. He's the one we want.

[PAMod]

2. Will it work for J.L.? no. Will it torpedo Dean? maybe.

I know it will never happen, but I wish our primary-season candidates would treat each other as a potential standard-bearer.

I hate giving sound-bites (ammunition) to Rove.

[demnan]

3. I think it's a lousy strategy

If you notice last night Lieberman got the least amount of applause of the group. The rest of them were very impressive, but Lieberman just looked nasty. I thought Dean gave poised responses to Lieberman's attacks.

Also I think Kucinich is a bit too intense, but I guess that's what his supporters like about him.

I watched the debates with a Democratic friend who was undecided and her take on the candidates was,

"I like Kucinich's stand on the issues, but Gephardt makes me feel safe. Dean has good things to say too."

I think my friend is going with Gephardt.

[CMT]

4. this is nothing new

the front runner and Dean can now be called this is always going to be open to attacks. It goes with the territory. The thing for Dean is that he can't fold under such attacks and last night he didn't. He handled it well and if he continues to do so, he will be fine.

[unfrigginreal]

5. For Dean or Lieberman?

I'm sure that the Dean campaign is really fretting over the most right leaning candidate attacking their guy.

Personally, I like the strategy.

[Classical_Liberal]

6. I don't worry about Lieberman's attacks very much

as it pertains to Dean. It does worry me whenever a democrat gets more emotional about attacking other Dems than Bush.

[poskonig]

7. Probably bad.

You would think Lieberman's candidacy would be all about how he supports the Clinton/Gore record. Making his candidacy about how much Democrats should support Bush is piss-poor strategy. In the primary his voting pool is going to be mostly the anti-Bush zombies like myself who will make the effort to show up on a cold January night.

[Classical_Liberal]

8. Also someone who makes his candidacy about supporting Bush

will most certainly lose to Bush in the general election. I think that is what most Lieberman supporters want anyway. They will command all Loyal Democrats vote for Lieberman while they pull the lever for Bush. Lieberman supporters are Bush supporters. Meanwhile Lieberman will agree with Bush on everything in the debates, which will drive sane dems insane and make them vote green or some other stupidity. Lieberman just won the New Republic primary. The New Republic editors have admitted voting for Shrub. They are also doing a cover of Dean as Hitler, meanwhile they are spreading the latest neocon talking point that comparing Bush to Hitler is evil.

[Melsky]

11. You took the words right out of my mouth

Lieberman supporters are Bush supporters. So why wouldn't they vote for the real thing?

Remember in the last election, wasn't there some far more liberal party who took votes away from Gore/Lieberman? Could those possibly be people who used to be part of the Democratic party, but were unhappy with their corporatist/slightly less right than the republicans?

I guess we learn from history that we don't learn from history.

[LoneStarLiberal]

9. I Don't Think Lieberman Has A Choice

He has to go negative. Unfortunately negative works in general elections, but I do not know if negative will work this early in the contest.

He looked bad last night, sounded bad, and (I think) spent too much time trying to beat up on Dean instead of getting his policies out. I think he faired the worst out of all the candidates last night.

It's too bad Braun doesn't stand a chance; she was excellent!

[Classical_Liberal]

10. Braun has been hitting all my buttons lately

I wish she was better funded, and the punditocracy didn't hate her so much.

[LoneStarLiberal]

16. This was my first time to hear her

This was my first time to hear her beyond the cable news soundbites, and I was very impressed. She was under control (unlike others in the debate), she was articulate while being on-message (not an easy thing to do), and I thought her message was the best-sounding of the bunch: Populist without scaring off moderates.

I'll definitely be paying more attention to her from here on out.

[cjbuchanan]

12. It will not work

because Lieberman seems to live in a different world from the rest of us. When he said Bush's tax cuts had returned thousands of dollars to middle class families, my wife and I (who are part of the middle class) started laughing. No one we know got back thousands of dollars. It made Lieberman look out of touch. This is the same p.r. that Bush & Co. puts out. Do we want this in the future nominee?

Also, he tried to hit Dean concerning changes to NAFTA, but Dean turned it against him. Due to Dean's answer, it sounded like Lieberman was against improving labor and environmental standards. Plus the Dean Depression line just came off as mean.

There are plenty of things on which Lieberman could attack Dean, but he picked the wrong ones last night. He hurt himself much more then he hurt Dean.

By the way, I don't think Dean is going to spend much time attacking Lieberman. I really think this is going to be a one sided thing.

[dolstein]

13. Probably good for Lieberman

At this point, the conventional wisdom is that the race is going to come down to Dean and somebody else. And you're not going to become that somebody else unless you're willing to draw contrasts between yourself and Dean. Nobody is going to defeat Dean for the nomination by running to Dean's left.


Lieberman got plenty of coverage in today's news stories on the debate, and I'm sure his willingness to confront Dean was the reason why. Besides, people forget that states like Oklahoma and Arizona are holding earlier primaries, and they may be more receptive to a centrist message than Iowa and New Hampshire.

[Classical_Liberal]

14. Iowa and New Hampshire are hardly liberal dem states

They don't allow republicans(90% of whom will vote for Bush in the general election) to vote in Democratic primaries so perhaps I see your point. Why wouldn't someone who approves of the war and the tax cuts just vote for Bush?

[BurtWorm]

15. Embarassingly transparent

You can see the campaign management's strings tugging on him as he does it.

[Pale Blue Dot]

17. Lieberman is running a stupid campaign.

In a primary you have to win over your party's core constituancy - and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that your typical Democrat hates Bush and everything he stands for. Yet Lieberman has been most vocal about the areas in which he agrees with Bush.

Since he can't go after the Chimp, all he can do is attack his major Democratic opposition.

I don't understand why he is still in this race, unless it is to do further damage to the Democratic party.

[seventhson]

18. Horror scenario

In 2000my biggest fear was the assassination of Gore.

I grew up in the era of political assassinations and remember JFK, RFK and MLK very well.

I also worked on the Hill for a democratic Congressperson, I have met Holy Joe and generally I like him. He is very good on many issues.

But in 2000 and leading up to it I just had this horrific foreboding that Gore might get JFK'd. He might make it in and get JFK's and WHO would be his replacement?

Now , like with JFK and RFK, the Evil Empire (including the BFEE et al)had a PLAN: the assassination put into place someone whom they could use and utilize to achieve their ends.

The worst scary scenrario is that Lieberman (like I feel about Kerry) is really a right wing status quo candidate who could be used by the extreme right (and Joe is way to close to the extreme right's position in the PNAC and Middle East situations -- tooclose to Sharon's and Wolfowitz etc.) to achieve their goals. MAYBE Lieberman was the extreme right's trojan horse. MAYBE. I would not rule it out.

My biggest fear after 2000 was that in 2004 Gore would win and would select Kerry for VP. get inaugurated, and THEN get JFK'd. The best scenario for the BFEE is that their stealth pawn gets into the White House by any means necessary. That is why I was appalled when I first camwe to DU to find such powerful "progressive" voices as Will Pitt bashing Gore and lauding Kerry. I believed then as I do today that Kerry id the BFEE alternative if Shrub crashes in 2004.

Those who think I'm flakey may find this ridiculous. But remember I grew up inside this elitist and corrupt culture by an accident of birth. I KNOW how they operate and I know they will kill to hold their power and keep from being prosecuted for their crimes against the people of the US and the rest of humanity. You can believe it or not --- I don't care. I believe it.

NOW what seems a possible scenario is that Lieberman, who has little or no chance of winning, MAY be being used to bolster Kerry over Dean and to state the case for the BFEE about Dean.


A DEAN DEPRESSION Joe said. Despicable.

But who does Dean bashing help?

Not Lieberman, really, but KERRY.


I think a Dean/Edwards ticket is really the best one we have.

And Joe is becoming dasngerous to democracy by bashing Dean like this.

Who benefits?

Bush and Kerry. The BFEE. Rove.


So who is Joe helping when he bashes Dean?

NOT the democrats. Not US. Not the US.

That's what I think

[Classical_Liberal]

20. Excuse me? I am a Dean supporter, but why do you think

Kerry is PNAC? He waffled, which lost me in the primary, but he never expressed any support for the PNAC empire. I also don't see why his attacks on Dean benefit Kerry necessarily?

[seventhson]

23. He voted for the PNAC plan, FOR the war.

That indicates to me that his actions speak louder than his words.

Attacking Dean helps Kerry in TWO ways: the centrist Dems have more to hold against Dean on the question of his being too left

and

Lieberman is trying to smear Dean (which helps Kerry by allowing Kerry NOT to look like the bad guy).

Lieberman and the DLC know Lieberman can't win, but they can keep him in the race to fight dirty (and the Dean depression line was waaaaayyy dirty) so that Kerry can stay above such lowlife tactics.

So they get more mileage for their money.

You don't see Holy Joe smearing Kerry now, do you?

I've been into researching this dirty politics stuff for a long time. It only makes sense if you look at Lieberman and Kerry as being supported by the same right wing hypocrite "Dems" within the DLC who screwed Gore.

Dean is (I sincewrely hope) the real outsider. So they must do a tag team to stop him. Kerry plays the good cop (sort of) and Holy Joe the mean one.

[Classical_Liberal]

24. The Iraq resolution wasn't sold as "The PNAC" plan

it was sold as a defense of the country from WMD, with a nonbinding request for UN endorsement. Therefore Kerry's
vote for it, while cowardly, can't be considered and endorsement of he pnac.

Attacking the frontrunner isn't a new thing.

[seventhson]

28. That's your opinion. I disagree

The PNAC plan included the Iraq war. Kerry supported it.

That, to me, says it all.

[blm]

25. You also think Kerry shot himself to get Purple Hearts.

And everything that Kerry did in Vietnam was a BFEE production number.
Sheesh. Dean is WAY more establishment than Kerry.

[seventhson]

27. He did? I do?

I never said that.

What I said was that I have serious doubts about the legitmacy of his medals and want mnore evidence that he deserved them.

I want the details.

Anything wrong with that?

Lots of richy rich officers got perks and medals undeservedly.

I think Kerry may have.

But I am open to proof if I am wrong.

But as much of a liar as I believe kerry is - him shooting himself for a fake medal is NOT outside of the range of probability for me.

[dfong63]

19. stupid

a sign of desperation on Lieberman's part.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

21. everything joe says lately is BAD

[dofus]

22. Lieberman has no chance whatsoever

to win the nomination. And he won't be asked to be VP again, you can be sure of that. Even if the favorite dream of the die-hard Gore supporters comes true and Gore becomes the nominee (which ain't gonna happen) he still woudn't select Lieberman the second time around.

Lieberman has been booed at more than one forum when he speaks up, supporting Bush and Bush's policies. Back in the winter, there was some kind of dinner several of the candidates went to. It was the first time I saw Dean speak and was immediately impressed. Lieberman was booed. There is almost no support for him, and he'll be out of the race probably before the first primary.

The main thing we should all be anticipating is rallying around the eventual nominee, even if not our personal choice.

[theboss]

26. Good on Dean/Bad overall

I think candidates should go after each other. I don't care if its primaries or general elections. As long as they are talking issues and not slinging mud, I want aggressive fighters.

But I don't think it matters becuase Lieberman's overall strategy is flawed. You can't run a national race in the primaries. Who cares if it leads in overall polls if he doesn't get any delegates?