A Political thought

occurred to me last night. It happened around 1:15AM, it being Hockey Night in Long Island (HNILI)and me still being up. I suspect others have noticed this, but I will post on it anyway.

Joe Lieberman is in a very, very good position. He is, at least nominally, Lieberman (I). I truly believe Joe can have absolutely anything he wants from either party right now, and I think he should ask for it. His vote is the one deciding vote in the Senate that can make the difference between a Democrat success and a Republican one. (I'm discounting the Stalinist independent from Vermont or wherever - I expect him to vote with the Dems regardless.) If Joe decides to vote with the Republicans, and everything else goes along party lines - the tiebreaker goes to the VP, who last I looked was still a Republican and the devil incarnate to boot.

Oh, I'm not kidding myself - I recognize Lieberman remains a democrat at heart, and still a liberal (though an older, more intelligent and more refined type.) He'll vote with the Dems on a lot of issues, no question. But if he chooses to exercise the power he has he'll switch sides to make a point, or to vote with his heart, or just to screw people over. If I understand the breakup of the Senate right now, and unless I'm missing something, Lieberman is the key guy.

If I'm in the leadership of either party, first thing I did yesterday was call Lieberman and try to make friends. If I'm the Dems, I promise him a committee chairmanship. If I'm the GOP, I remind him often how his party cannot be trusted to stand by him when he needs them to. They have votes to trade, and securing Lieberman's openmindedness is worth a vote or two.

Here's my message to Joe - your friends in the party threw you under a bus. They dropped you like a hot potato in a very poor guess at how the electorate felt about you and your stance on Iraq. They guessed incorrectly, and I believe the voters of Connecticut understood that you were unfairly abandoned by your own national party. You mainly lost that primary because of the more liberal types who bothered to vote in it, but Harry Reid, Howard Dean, John (I Served in Vietnam) Kerry hung you out to dry.

What do you owe these people?

Joe will stick to his core principles (since he seems to actually have some), which is as it should be. He will vote with the Democrats most of the time. But he doesn't have to, and he shouldn't when it doesn't suit the need of the people of his state and the nation as a whole. Democrat control of the Senate hangs by a thread, and while other Dems might jump ship occasionally, Joe Lieberman is the one who could be a steady roadblock to the more extreme liberal hopes of the left.