Lieberman's Strategery – funny as hell

[pruner]

In a break with convention, the campaign will not worry about winning early primaries to generate momentum, preferring instead to focus on simply having the most delegates when the process is mercifully completed.

First off, the campaign will not be spending time in Alaska, Nevada, Colorado or Utah, because they don't have presidential primaries, and as the Lieberman folks like to point out: "There are no flies on us."

The campaign will also bypass Idaho, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana and Wyoming, due to the fact that no one lives there.

Next, you can eliminate New Mexico, North Dakota, Michigan, Washington, Maine, Hawaii, Minnesota and the District of Columbia because they have caucuses rather than primaries, and, basically the testosterone-spiked Lieberman faithful are of the opinion that real candidates don't caucus.

Still another primary bloc that will be avoided are states from which a rival Democratic candidate hails, thus subtracting Vermont (Dean), Massachusetts (Kerry), Missouri (Gephardt), Ohio (Kucinich), North Carolina (Edwards), Illinois (Braun), Arkansas (Clark) and New York (Sharpton).

Finally, the Lieberman brain trust will see no sense in wasting resources in New Jersey, Washington, Oregon, Wisconsin, Rhode Island, or Maryland, states in which Democratic voters tend to be too Democratic.

<snip>

http://www.ctnow.com/news/nationworld/hc-caucus1022.artoct22,1,511891.story (free registration required)

[Jacobin]

1. He's just putzing around

hoping the other dem nominees screw up enough and have the media beat up on them enough to be the "only one standing". He knows he'll get reasonable treatment from the media, since he's a corporatist himself.

Then, if Smirky's numbers get bad enough, Lieberman might have a shot as the only one left standing with some name recognition.

A typically un-principled, opportunistic, cynical approach.

Reminds me of when Edwind Edwards, guv of Louisiana (who had been involved in numerous scandals and who nobody wanted back) ran against David Duke (the nazi). All the bumper stickers read: "Vote for the Crook--it's important"----and Edwards was re-elected.

[Saudade]

2. Lieberman

Lieberman is completely deluded and has the potential to do great harm to the Democratic Party. Like when he hits the desparation point and starts really negative stuff against the candidate or candidates who have the popular support he lacks.

Believe me, Lieberman will feel no compunction whatsoever about dirty tactics against real Democrats.

I often wonder why a hapless putz like Lieberman even bothers with politics, much less a Presidential campaign. It's obvious he has absolutely nothing to offer, he's ugly and repulsive.

I guess his Mama told him when he was a teenager that he had "leadership qualities," and the poor schmuck can't get it out of his pointy little head.

Go away Joe. Just go away.

[LittleDannySlowhorse]

3. Seriously

When the hell will this guy get a clue and drop out already?

[pruner]

4. I totally agree

Day of the Spoiler

by Rick Perlstein
October 22 - 28, 2003

The listbot at meetup.com, the commercial site whose clever software facilitates face-to-face gatherings between Web surfers of like interest, sent me a forlorn little e-mail the other day. "Congratulations on a successful National Lieberman in 2004 Meetup last week! See photos from every city," it read, giving a link. Click lieberman2004.meetup.com/photos yourself, and you'll see the pathos: There ain't no photos.

That's not surprising. In Chicago, where I live, there wasn't any meetup. Not enough supporters RSVP'ed to trigger the software's automated threshold. Meetup.com, in fact, has registered only 332 Joseph Lieberman fans in the entire United States of America, four in Chicago. An undercover reporter from The Village Voice—uh, me—represents one quarter of the total.

It could be considered comic, this abyss at the Lieberman grassroots. It could be, that is, if Lieberman showed any signs of going away. Instead, he's been ramping up: launching a splashy new tax plan; publishing a dowloadable campaign book, Leading With Integrity: A Fresh Start for America, and an accompanying website; kicking off a campaign tour—all just this past week. And that's not funny. Because it's not too early to predict that if the Democrats lose the presidential election next November, Lieberman will be the one to blame. That will certainly be so if he ends up becoming the nominee—in which case the Democratic Party will be left without an activist base. ("I'll vote for Joe Lieberman absentee from whatever country I move to if he wins the nomination," as one friend of mine puts it.) Perversely, it might even be worse for the Democratic Party if he fails.

It works like this. He has already conceded Iowa, but let's suppose Lieberman doesn't do too poorly in the other early states, picking up some delegates here and there, perhaps even winning a primary, say one of the five on February 3, the week after New Hampshire, when his name recognition will help him because no one will have time to campaign in all these states. Thus emboldened, he campaigns harder—by intensifying his pattern of tearing down his opponents as dangerously liberal—and remains committed to staying in for the duration. Then, as his star fades, he'll have only one viable strategy left, a manic, all-or-nothing strategy: trying to convince Democrats that the front-runner must be dumped altogether, using the dark arts of opposition research, trying to dig up something purportedly embarrassing from the front-runner's past that the jubilant Republicans might even have missed if left to their own devices.

Lieberman still loses the nomination. But the successful nominee ends up, in a self- fulfilling prophecy, becoming just what the spoiler-candidate said he was: unelectable—as a man named George Bush effortlessly exploits the opposition research that a member of his own party has dug up. It has happened exactly this way before. Just ask Joe Lieberman's old friend Al Gore.

<snip>

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0343/perlstein.php

[indigo11153]

5. I am truly sick

of Holy Joe. He is off message and he is only hurting the party with his attacks on his fellow Democrats.
He is part of the problem and I wish he would quit and end the pain. He is the only candidate that I just can't stand.
:thumbsdown:

[Pastiche423]

6. "...states in which Democratic voters tend to be too Democratic."

Says it all.

[Rowdyboy]

7. Thanks for posting this...

A very long and very interesting article. I disagree with the author fundamentally, though. He fears Lieberman may be able to continue to fight through until the convention and thus damage the eventual nominee by painting him as "unelectable". I believe Lieberman will be out of the race by May 1, at the latest.

Still, I enjoyed it...

[ShimokitaJer]

8. Lieberman's greatest weakness: a failure to commit

I still think one of the biggest problems with campaign 2000 was Lieberman "hedging his bets" by not resigning his seat to campaign for VP, and his performance has been pretty lackluster throughout campaign 2004 so far. It's like he really doesn't seem to mind that Bush is in office, and will run if the DLC asks him nicely but doesn't really see the point himself. Give me a candidate with fire in his (or Carol's) belly.