Couple of things
- Wow. Thirty-three votes. Gotta hate that. I don't know about you, but if I'm Bill Overend, I give it a go for a recount ... just to make sure. It isn't like we're talking about 330 votes here, but rather 33 in a local election.
- Also in Election Day (Part Deux) news ... Cynthia McKinney got slammed by Hank Johnson in a runoff - which I think is good, Hillary thinks it's bad- and it doesn't appear to be crossover voting which doomed her, Gary Black crushed local boy done kinda good Brian Kemp in the runoff for Agriculture Commissioner ... ultimately earning Black to right to get blasted by Tommy Irvin in the general election and Joe Lieberman loses his primary challenge to Ned Lamont, immediately vowing to say 'screw you voters of COnnecticut ... I'm gonna do this thing independent-style.'
- As an aside ... where the heck is there an actual story for the Brian Kemp/Gary Black runoff? Black won by more than 20 percent ... this thing couldn't have gone down to the wire.
- Finally, Evanescence has its first song in years on the air.
- Shameless plug ... big plans afoot with The Realist. Made my first contributions yesterday afternoon at the new name, same site of The Cover Two.
- Also in Election Day (Part Deux) news ... Cynthia McKinney got slammed by Hank Johnson in a runoff - which I think is good, Hillary thinks it's bad- and it doesn't appear to be crossover voting which doomed her, Gary Black crushed local boy done kinda good Brian Kemp in the runoff for Agriculture Commissioner ... ultimately earning Black to right to get blasted by Tommy Irvin in the general election and Joe Lieberman loses his primary challenge to Ned Lamont, immediately vowing to say 'screw you voters of COnnecticut ... I'm gonna do this thing independent-style.'
- As an aside ... where the heck is there an actual story for the Brian Kemp/Gary Black runoff? Black won by more than 20 percent ... this thing couldn't have gone down to the wire.
- Finally, Evanescence has its first song in years on the air.
- Shameless plug ... big plans afoot with The Realist. Made my first contributions yesterday afternoon at the new name, same site of The Cover Two.
posted by Jmac at 7:23 AM
10 Comments:
Well, I don't mean to come off like the biggest Cynthia McKinney fan. I think she's kind of an idiot. But she's an idiot who generally votes the way I like, whereas I don't know about this new guy, and the piling on creeps me out.
"It isn't like we're talking about 330 votes here, but rather 33 in a local election."
I think it works out to something like .85 percent, so yeah, it's close, but just within the margin that allows you to ask for a recount.
And yes, 33 votes is very few, but your logic doesn't really hold. 330 votes in a larger election(say Florida's votes in a presidential election) could be a much smaller margin than 33 votes out of just under 4000.
Darren
Ok, it's .8354 percent.
Darren
You and your logic Darren.
Why is Joe's decision to run as an independent the equivalent of a "screw you" to the voters of Connecticut? It's not like he, say, got elected as a Democrat, then decided once the new Congressional session started to switch to an Independent status (like "that dude from Vermont" did back in 2001).
Connecticut is a weird place, so they say. Bush got high 40s in '04, but Republicans don't in general do well there. When you take all those conservative, quasi-libertarian, pro-war people who don't self-identify as Democrats that reside in the state, Lieberman may like the best choice with a realistic shot at winning to that group. If he gets the most votes come November, he'll still be the duly elected representative of the state of CT.
Am I missing your point?
Well, the point is that Lieberman should have run initially as an independent then (as, for instance, E.H. Culpepper is doing here in town for State House). To go through the primary as a Democrat, then lose in the Democratic primary and then run as an 'independent Democratic' suggests that you do have little respect for the wishes of the voters, particularly the ones you claim are 'your party.'
If Lieberman felt he was no longer in tune with the Democratic Party, he should have sought office as an independent from the start of this particular campaign, not as a Democrat.
Isn't the reason people are annoyed is that it shows a greater concern for his own seat than for the direction of the senate as a whole? That is, if it ends up real close Dem-Repub-wise again, a seat that technically belongs to an independent doesn't help the Democratic Party in terms of committee appointments and such, even if he'll always vote with them.
"even if he'll always vote with them."
But he doesn't, and I think that may be more of the problem.
Darren
No, that's the problem with electing him in general, not with electing him specifically as an independent candidate. There are plenty of the former and fewer of the latter.
Lieberman votes "with the Democrats" an awful lot, especially on the "social issues" stuff.
Is "the war" the only issue that matters?
JMac, I just don't get this criticism. Where is it written that democracy means that, once you lose in a primary for a particular party, that you must bow out gracefully and not seek the office. If Joe thinks he has a good chance of winning the seat as an independent, then that means that there are a significant number of Conn. voters who will vote for him. How can asking people to vote for you be a sign that you want to screw voters?
Joe didn't "feel he was no longer in tune with the Democratic party" (do you honestly think he is that out of tune with the entire Democratic Party yourself, JMac?). He presumably thought he could win the primary, and understandably that is his preference (jumping parties or running as an independent is not his first choice, why would it be?). But since that didn't work out, he has decided to seek the office in another way. Why? I guess he thinks he still has something to offer, and that a significant number of Conn. voters still see it that way along with him. What da prob?
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