You probably already heard that Kent Conrad won’t seek reelection.
I was never able to get into the full-on Lieberman hate stuff until HCR.
Update. I see John already wrote about this. I blame the new format of the blog for my oversight.
by DougJ| 37 Comments
This post is in: Good News For Conservatives
You probably already heard that Kent Conrad won’t seek reelection.
I was never able to get into the full-on Lieberman hate stuff until HCR.
Update. I see John already wrote about this. I blame the new format of the blog for my oversight.
Comments are closed.
trollhattan
Whoa, there’s a surprise. I thought he’d ride the Senatorial pony ’til death. So, who’s the Connecticut teatard favorite these days?
Mark S.
How about the war cheerleading and Israel-firstism?
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
No one hates Lieberman like a Jew who hates Lieberman.
DougJ DougJson
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther:
Indeed, I think my goyism is why I was never able to keep up.
Loneoak
Sure hope Justin Bierberman will run to replace him.
Brisbane Belff (formerly G. Nelson Buttnergle (formerly Mumphrey (formerly Renfrew Squeevil (formerly Mumphrey Oddison Yamm (formerly Mumphrey O. Yamm (formerly Mumphrey))))))
I guess we can wave goodbye to the North Dakota seat. But we still have 2 years until the election, and a lot can happen. This time in 2005, people were seriously talking about a “permanent Republican majority”. That didn’t work out so well for them. I’m thinking that things will be a good bit better by the time late 2012 rolls around. At least I hope so.
Ty Lookwell
man, fuck Kent Conrad. Good riddance, asshole. (and fuck Lieberman, that goes without saying.)
I was sorry to see Byron Dorgan go. I hope (unlikely) that he runs for Conrad’s seat.
Alex S.
Well, there was a time when the unconditioned pro-Israel stance was a cornerstone of the Democratic party platform while Republicans were a little closer to the muslim world actually (the connections between the Bush family and the Saudis, Iran-Contra). Somehow another realignment took place and now you find people like Lieberman and Marty Peretz ideologically homeless.
SpotWeld
Apparently Susan Bysiewicz is looking to run for that seat
http://middletowneyenews.blogspot.com/2011/01/bysiewicz-to-run-for-senate.html
Allan
Thanks for doing the right thing with DADT. You can retire now.
Comrade Luke
So basically, all that’s really happening with this news is that we’re getting rid of the “edge case” or DINO folks, we’re now getting a more true representation of the true Democrat constituency in Congress.
It’s uncomfortable to watch, but it seems like a good thing in the long run.
Steaming Pile
Well, good riddance to bad rubbish, I say. It’s like watching The Sopranos or Sex And The City with all the really good (and usually an essential part of the plot) scenes cut out for content. Or drinking decaf coffee. Or Diet Coke. Just when you think you’re getting something reasonably good, whoops! Joe will always find a way to buzzkill you. Or cockblock you. Or pixel out the good parts of whatever porn you like. Fuck Joe Lieberman with a rusty iron dick.
Nick
Susan Bysiewicz or Chris Murphy will easily win the Connecticut seat. North Dakota will be harder. A lot depends on whether or not Obama makes another play for the state or if the Democrats try to win back the House seat, especially if Berg runs for Senate. ND has low unemployment, so jobs aren’t the issue.
Ed Marshall
@Alex S.:
If you pushed a bill onto the floor that consisted of the language “Jewz rule, Muslims drool, suck it, Raghead. Israel forever!” it would pass the House and Senate with old school politburo kind of margins and the couple of dissenters would not be all Republicans or Democrats.
It’s actually pretty shocking that elected Democrats won’t move an inch on the special relationship while the people who make up the party started asking “WTF” en masse decades ago.
Admiral_Komack
No more Joementum!
Good.
Mike Kay
I actually think Conrad was worst than Lieberman.
Cacti
Thanks for the help with DADT repeal.
FU for healthcare reform obstruction based on personal petulance, and campaigning for John McCain.
Warren Terra
@Mike Kay:
Conrad represents North Dakota, with a lot of rural and conservative voters. He has to stay right by them, and I’m willing to cut him a lot of slack for that. He also wasn’t desperate to get on Fox News every other day, and although he may have played the bipartisan delaying thing to extremes I don’t remember him opportunistically sticking the knife in for the purpose of showing he could in the way Lieberman did. I’m not a fan, he was a total corporate sellout, and there are other ways to represent a state like that (see Jon Tester, who doesn’t always vote my way but is less irritating) – but he wasn’t so bad.
Lieberman represents frickin’ Connecticut. After decades in office and gracing his party’s national ticket, he lost the 2006 nomination to a no-name joker running on the basis of Not Being Joe Lieberman. He was the original Fox News Democrat. He regularly stuck the knife in just to show he could, as with Health Care. He’s much worse than Conrad.
Lev
@Brisbane Belff (formerly G. Nelson Buttnergle (formerly Mumphrey (formerly Renfrew Squeevil (formerly Mumphrey Oddison Yamm (formerly Mumphrey O. Yamm (formerly Mumphrey)))))): Two words: Earl Pomeroy. He’s available, he’s won statewide a bunch of times, and he actually tried to campaign on health care reform in North fucking Dakota. That’s guts. If not him, then I guess we’re in desperate territory (i.e. the DSCC calling up Ed Schultz).
Re Lieberman: I concur with DougJ.
Mike Kay
@Warren Terra: the way I looked at it was that Lieberman was sick in the head – an emotional cripple trying to dull the pain from the lack of attention he didn’t receive as a child. In short, he suffered from a diminished capacity stemming from childhood (much like Nixon).
Conrad on the other hand full faculties. He was simply corrupt (much like evan Bayh).
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
@DougJ DougJson: Tribal embarrassment plays a very big role in these things.
Hawes
Living in CT, the night Lamont beat him was a jump for joy moment. Watching him lie his way to re-election (“No one wants to bring the troops home more than I do.”) made me ill.
I’ve met Chris Murphy a few times, as he’s my congressman. If he runs, I’m volunteering a ton of time. The guy’s awesome.
burnspbesq
Speaking of HCR, Jack Balkin has neatly and concisely described the Republican dilemma that I alluded to last week.
http://balkin.blogspot.com/2011/01/insurance-industry-and.html
gogol's wife
@SpotWeld:
Oh no. That’s too bad.
Ija
What was Lieberman thinking, really? If he was committed to trashing the Democrats in 2008, why come back to the fold after that and piss off Republicans? Now he’s lost both sides.
Gene in Princeton
@Mark S.: Seriously, that was sufficient for me.
James E Powell
Hard to believe Connecticut will give us a Democrat that is not BFF with insurance companies and Big Pharma.
pjcamp
Not a surprise at all. There’s pretty clearly no path to victory next time. Democrats won’t nominate him and Republicans have actual Republican nominees who want to run.
Mark my words, next shoe to drop: Lieberman becomes a lobbyist for the health insurance industry.
After years of supporting a public option and Medicare buy-in, suddenly becoming their opponent didn’t come for free.
newhavenguy
Blumenthal will likely get cozier with those industries, but BFF status? Doubtful. Then again, he’s sort of an outlier in a complicated long-story sort of way. (Please spare me the “lier” based puns; we know. Linda told us all about it.)
True, though, the same way KY and WV are about coal, e.g. Where Lieberman distinguished himself was by being such a transparently self-interested vicious asshole. Another long story, but the short version?
1. Liberal Dems in CT primary Joe with a clueless millionaire, beat Joe because Ct voters don’t want their Senators licking W’s taint on TV every day. Joe’s fee-fees are hurt, apparently deeply.
2. Joe endorses John McCain— and campaigns for that rotten SOB. As an “Independent Democrat”. (Puke) Cue election 2008.
3. Dems generously/self-interestedly let him keep his Chair and he hamstrings the Democratic/liberal/progressive agenda every step of the way until last month. Screws us, big time. Let’s not lie to ourselves, that turned out to mean a lot in DADT repeal: it would probably not have happened without Lieberman fighting hard for it. Not just voting for it, but arm twisting relentlessly. (Still won’t miss him, but I’ll give him credit for that. Not enough to balance out…)
4. In the meantime, he personally killed the Medicare buy-in plan, only because he heard a lot of liberals liked it. Yes, THAT Medicare buy-in part of HCR, the deficit-reducing, popular, good policy idea part. And yes, that was his only stated rationale for opposing a good idea he’d supported for a decade.
= Yet another Connecticut Democrat who will not miss him for even a second.
SIA
Yeah, we might have Medicare for All but for Ol’ Joe. Fuck you Joe.
(In the interest of civility, you get a small silver star on your forehead for DADT).
eemom
As noted on the previous thread, I knew Susie B. in law school, and have a most unseemly interest in what Connecticans have to say about her.
I’ll be here all week.
Tom Hilton
I was on the Lieberman hate train well before HCR (and before he endorsed the motherfucking Republican in the presidential race and before he was hawking the dissent = treason line and even before he shilled for the Iraq war). I really, really disliked him before 2000 (“holy Joe” is an epithet that goes way back–he’s always been a sanctimonious asshole) but when Gore picked him for VP I was willing to give him another chance…until he stabbed Gore in the back over the (illegal! illegal! what part of fucking illegal! did he not understand?) military ballots in the Florida fiasco. That’s when I boarded that particular train.
That said, the role he played in DADT was genuinely valuable and productive. (He’s also been generally good on environmental issues.) I hate him, but I won’t begrudge him credit when he does the right thing.
somethingblue
Now, freed from the shackles of even having to pretend that they give a fuck about reelection, they can both enjoy their last twenty-four months in the Senate, helping to demolish Social Security.
Wake me up for Romney’s inauguration. (I’m assuming Glenn Beck will administer the oath over a specially commissioned genuine 24-carat facsimile of the Golden Plates).
balconesfault
Really … Lieberman calling out Obama as someone who didn’t put country first … or accepting that it was a good question as to whether Obama was a Marxist … that definitely cinched it for me.
Anne Laurie
@somethingblue:
… which will never be seen again (much like the original GPs).
I was a citizen of the Commonwealth during Romney’s governorship. For Romney, like Beck, the only true religion is Narcissism, and their fellow Mormon ‘stakeholders’ exist solely as sheep to be shorn. The positive part is that Willard is such a sociopath, it seems like the longer any human being is around him, the less they like him. By the end of a presidential run (and under the standing Repub rules, “It’s his turn”), all of Romney’s closest advisors will have abandoned him, and at least one of his psychologically abused offspring is liable to
climb up the clock towercome out of the closetsnap and do something very, very indiscrete in a public forum.lllphd
yeah, the guy’s last minute push to get DODT repealed was his lame attempt to boost his approval ratings, but alas – even the general public is aware of his slimebagginess.
wonder if lamont will run; sure hope so.
Paul in KY
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther: I’d like to give you a run for your money ;-)