Lieberman is struggling and it's not just because of his policies

There is a news article in LBN that says Centrist Lieberman is struggling. I think that it is not just because of his centrism, or his pro-war stance.

I think that Democrats realize that if the voters want "someone you can have a beer with", then Joe Lierberman is not the person for the job. What I don't understand is why the media have never mentioned this fact as one of the reasons he is doing so poorly. They must think we are stupid.

The media frame everything in terms of his centrism and his pro-war stance. Their comments seem to say: The Democrats are a bunch of angry, antiwar, anti-religious haters, so they don't like JL.

Surely the media are not avoiding the issue because they don't want to hurt Joe's feelings, or that they would appear petty. It's never stopped them before.

Joe Lieberman is unelectable, not because of his positions, but because in this era of the superficial, he's just too funny looking, his tone of voice is grating, and he moralizes and pontificates not only in his speeches, but in his off-the-cuff comments. We Democrats aren't so stupid as to not see this.

I remember what my sister-in-law said to me just after the 2000 election. She's a lawyer, not too political, and a moderate. She said she didn't vote for Gore because of his voice and she didn't like his bald spot. Nuts, isn't it?

I don't support him because I haven't heard enough from him on how he disagrees with Bush foreign policy. I would actually like to know if he does differ from PNAC world view. Does anyone know? I really would like to know.

I think most Democrats know this. Now, he has done the usual talk about he he hasn't done a good job in the aftermath, but he is 100% behind Bush as far as going to war.

I think he probably supports the objectives of PNAC because if what Wolfowitz believes to be the eventual outcome is successful, then Israel would certainly be more secure.

It would be just hunky-dorey if Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya etc were all modern successful western-style democracies, but any thinking person knows it ain't gonna' happen in our lifetime. And waging war is a stupid way to achieve that goal IMO.

Because I beleive those places could very well become moderate represent democracies in my lifetime. Iraq and Iran, obviously being the 2 most important of them, could be withing 7 or 8 years.

Small military dictatorsips and occupied countries like Syria and Lybia have gone from that to western style democrasies in my lifetime and I don't see why they couldn't as well.

It's really offensive to me to say that these people are unable to improve there countries

He also holds citizenship in Israel, this is not what we need!

Hair?



:smoke: :hippie:

Sheesh....

n/t

I was looking at a breakdown of a NH poll. One of the questions they ask is who do you think has the best chance of beating Bush. They broke that statistic down by the candidate the person responding to the question favors.

Only people whose first choice was Edwards or Lieberman thought Edwards had the best chance of beating Bush.

I think 8% of Edwards "best chance" votes came from Lieberman supporters. Since Lieberman has lots of support from people because of name recognition, this might indicate that Edwards could get a small but significant bump if Lieberman dropped out today.

so I hope Lieberman does drop out!!!
Clark and Edwards are my favoites.

I don't know why, but Edwards support of IRW is just not as bothersome to me as Lieberman's. I think I see Edwards as a do-gooder, who really believes in saving people and he has such compassion for the people of Iraq, that he wanted to get rid of Saddam for humanitarian reasons. I think he was misguided, but sincere.

dang - things are moving quick today. Lots of people home I guess

He has never had the support of many old "New Deal" Democrats. Even is his first senate run, he was considered to be far to likely to always give the pass to big business at the expense of protection (eg even reasonable regulation) of workers, investors, etc. Count me in this category - I had just left living/working on and around the hill, and that race was the only senate race in 20 years where I favored the republican (Weicker) over the democrat, as he was the more liberal candidate. Thus, part of the traditional democratic base has never been enamoured with Lieberman and hasn't gotten behind the campaign.

Also he suffers from either arrogance or self-righteousness (haven't figured out which it is.) Go back to his criticisms of the Gore campaign - where he faulted Gore's populism as the reason the ticket failed. This grew louder as Gore started to make a comeback, beginning with the Florida Democratic Party convention in the summer of 2002. The problem is that he seemed to be giving an over-weighted reliance to some of the more entrenched democratic strategists in DC who favor a more corporate approach to campaigning, without recognizing that some of the campaign realities have changed with Bush2. This seems to have been transfered to the current field of candidates, which Lieberman (or his strategists) dismissed in terms of their campaigning while seeming to ride on Lieberman's big number advantage as being more 'proof' of their strategies rather than a recognition that he had a built in edge of name recognition. Thus they did not do any aggressive early campaign building. His pulling out of Iowa is a big indicator that their efforts - which appeared on the surface to be mostly sitting on the laurels - had failed. He who had so roundly critiqued Gore's campaigning (too populist), had squandered a natural lead.

Overall whininess. Lieberman has a tendency, when speaking, to preach in a tone that is almost whiney. This, I agree, is a more superficial critique, but it is both about some of the content as well as the tone of his speech.

Finally a distrust of how firmly he would fight off the rightwing agenda. It isn't clear that he buys into the right wing, but he does seem to fail to understand the purpose behind much of their agenda. For example, his support of vouchers - which garnered him a great deal of criticism as he was perceived to have flipped from pro-voucher before joining the ticket with Gore to anti-voucher in order to run with Gore. While his reasons may be 'upstanding' - he seems to fail to understand that the agenda behind many of those funding and pushing hard for voucher solutions stem from areas that have resegregated schools via private schools in urban districts (look at St. Louis for a prime example.) Thus this former civil rights worker, seems to blindly support issues from the right that often have at their heart an agenda which sets back that very movement to which he previously devoted energy. If he were faced with a tough Republican congress... could he really stave off their onslaughts - especially if they package the efforts in ways that appeal to his more religiously centered self in order to hide their more insidious effects? I don't know that he could.

All of these doubts, and areas that make him less appealing to base dem voters might not translate to the general public - but some of them might also impact independent voters as well. None of these are related to the more recent issues related to the war in Iraq.

I am so damn sick of that litmus test. Who came up with that ridiculous test? I don't want to have beer with the president. I think it's pathetic that someone would expect so little from a man who holds the highest office in the land. The first time I heard it, it came from Chris Matthews who used it to explain why Bush was more likeable than Gore.

It's crap. This is what American's REALLY want from a president:

(1) They want to see someone who is far more qualified than they are to run this country.

(2) They want someone who isn't one dimensional.

(3) They want someone who has proven she/he is capable of working their ass off when necessary.

(4) They want someone who relies on rational reasoning processes to reach decisions and not stagnant ideology.

(5) They want someone who will convince them that they are willing to sacrifice business friends in order to do what's right for the country.

Bush doesn't meet even one of those qualifications. Now why didn't Chris Matthews point that out when he had the chance?

but you can chew gum and walk.....

Clinton and Gore could do all those things and I think they would be great guys to hang with...


Bush reminds me of the guy who would be cutting down all the other people in the room...

votes, years ago, because people thought he had no eyebrows.

I swear to God I heard this, and more than once!

Unbelievable, isn't it?

Of course, I also remember people deciding to vote for Kennedy over Nixon because Nixon looked sinister, sweaty, and his five-o'clock shadow was too heavy.

People who LISTENED to that Kennedy-Nixon debate on the radio thought Nixon won it. People who WATCHED it on TV gave it to Kennedy. It's SO DAMNED MUCH a matter of physical appearances, which is just sucky!

For myself, I'm not a Lieberman supporter mainly because he's capitulated so DAMNED FREQUENTLY to the bushies, it's almost as though he is one of them.

Of course, only idiots care.

Unfortunately, appearances have a lot to do with politics. Kucinich and Sharpton suffer from not "looking presidential" too.

I'm actually kind of surprised no one's commented on Kerry's looks. I think he looks funny with his incredibly long chin and tiny mouth...

Once in you can do Dem stuff.. He may have a point. Bush did this by promoting compassion and then turning extremist after the selection.

I think he may have made the error of believing the mood of this country will be militaristic come 2004. I also believe the country is tiring of the war. The mood reminds me of the way the country flipped towards the end of VietNam.

that his record doesn't show that he really supports with much fight a whole lot of traditional democratic stuff (his views reallly veer away from much of the new deal democratic values), thus if faced with a republican congress - requiring even more of a commitment to these democratic policies (as EVERYTHING would be a fight) - would he really have the spit and vinegar to get things done? His congressional record doesn't quite inspire confidence - especially on the corporate front.