Joe the Lieberman

Is Joe Lieberman a Democrat?

Short answer: yes. Long answer: it's complicated. Lieberman has run with the Democratic party for the past 20 years as a Senator, a vice-presidential candidate, and a presidential candidate. According to his biography on his web site, "He remains committed to caucusing with Senate Democrats, but will be identified as an Independent Democrat (ID-CT)." Since his flagrant endorsement of Republican presidential candidate John McCain, Democrats have wondered where his true loyalties lie. If he was a Democrat, even an Independent Democrat, how could he justify campaigning for McCain? Regardless, since Lieberman considers himself a Democrat, and since a brief look at his voting record shows that he does vote in agreement with the Democrats (see voting record here), he is a Democrat, albeit an Independent one.

What should Senate Democrats do with him?

Even though I'm posting this after the caucus results, I'll admit that I do agree with their decision, but only because of the current Senate situation. As of today, the Senate Democrats have a Senate majority -- 58 seats -- only 2 short of the "magic 60" filibuster-proof majority. And, as such, every single seat counts. This article does an excellent job explaining why the Democrats voted as they did. A large part of it rested on Obama's appeal to the Senate Democrats to retain Lieberman's posts. But as the article states, "...Obama wasn't just acting out of bipartisan goodwill. In supporting Lieberman's continued inclusion in the caucus, Obama may have effectively defanged his toughest potential opponent in the Senate Democratic caucus. If Lieberman is anything, as he proved with McCain, he's loyal — and now he owes Obama a big one. For the first time in his long political career, his job over the next few years is to keep quiet." In short, the Democrats need him, and his Democratic leanings, to help pass each of Obama's planned legislation. And as this article demonstrates (when you get past the writer's obvious ant-Lieberman bias), Lieberman's single vote has proven crucial for much legislation. "Instead, I found that of 638, 110th-Congress votes through July 31, 2008, 36 of those came down to a tie or were decided by only one vote and, of those, Lieberman voted with the Democrats 31 times -- and on most of those 31, Democrats prevailed based on Lieberman's vote."

Lieberman, as a member of the party-in-government, owes his party his loyalty and his vote. Since he clearly abdicated his loyalty when he formally supported John McCain, he *must* vote with the Democrats in the Senate. As stated in Aldrich, page 23, "The parties-in-government are more than mere coalitions of like-minded individuals, however; they are enduring institutions...in the language of politics, parties may help achieve the goal of attaining policy majorities in the first place, as well as the often more difficult goal of maintaining such majorities." And, on page 195, "Legislation requires the formation of majorities on the floor in each chamber...political parties are one basis on which majorities can be formed, and they can provide long-term stability to such a majority. But these too can be defeated and majorities fashioned on other bases..." Clearly, the Democrats need to hold on to their majority in the Senate, because majorities are so difficult to form. Punishing Leiberman would've upset the majority balance, which would've proven detrimental in the long run.

I think the Senate Democrats, though many of them are still angry about letting Lieberman off with a mere 'slap on the wrist,' they'll not regret their decision in the long run.

When asked if he felt reprimanded, chagrined or punished, Lieberman responded with unwavering support for his fellow Democrats. "This is the beginning of a new chapter, and I know that my colleagues in the Senate Democratic caucus were moved not only by the kind words that Senator Reid said about my longtime record but by the appeal from President-elect Obama himself that the nation now unite to confront our very serious problems," said Lieberman, while admitting that he had uttered certain statements on the trail that he now regretted.

Can they recover?

Sure, it might seem at first glance that the Republican party is on its way out. Not only have they lost control of the House and Senate, they also lost by a landslide to a fairly liberal Democrat, and their former leader has the worst approval rating ever, even lower than Richard Nixon's during the Watergate scandal. Is there hope for the future of the GOP? Definitely, according to the history books.

To determine the future of any given political party, it helps to look at the history of party formation in this country. Even though the founding fathers denounced political parties, worrying that they would actually detract from the major issues, party formation was an inevitability. It became obvious that there needed to be opposing forces in government to resist tyranny. And since America has become a two-party system, with third parties trailing very far behind, there will always be a Democratic party and a Republican party. Political leaders began organizing supporters issue-by-issue, acknowledging that "they stood to benefit the most from organizing, and they surely recognized that they had the most to lose by failing to organize." (Aldrich 78) And I think herein lies the strategy for a Republican comeback.

Now we have to shed the historical context and look closely at the present situation. When looking at the reasons why Obama won, most point to his huge grassroots campaign. Even before Obama formally announced that he would run for president, a widespread, organized grassroots effort had begun, encouraging Obama to run in the first place. After he announced his candidacy, the effort spread even farther, effectively utilizing technology (via Facebook, text messaging etc.) to spread the word. McCain's campaign, and the whole Republican party in general, lacked this essential level of organization. In order to compete in future races, the Republican party will need to reach voters as effectively as Obama has. And they'll need to utilize the internet to the same extent. Right now, Obama's revolutionizing the way the people interact with their government, particularly through his website change.gov. And it doesn't stop there. This article does a great job of explaining just how much of an impact using technology will have on government.

The Republican party has a lot of work ahead of it. Over the next couple years, it will need to ascertain its core beliefs, rally its supporters, and embrace technology the same way the Democrats have. It'll be an uphill struggle, but the GOP is nothing if not determined.

Predictions and Electoral Mandate

First of all, congratulations to President-elect Obama! What an amazing, exciting election! I think this sums it up nicely.

Our group did really well predicting the results of this election. We were correct that Obama would win the presidency, and that the Democrats would maintain their majority in the House and Senate. Most of our state-level predictions were correct, too. We only flubbed on Indiana (which we thought would go Republican), Missouri (which we thought would go Democratic), and North Carolina (which we thought would go Republican). As far as the Senate race, we were only wrong on Maine (we predicted Democrat), North Carolina (we predicted Republican), and Virginia (we predicted Republican).

And does Obama have an electoral mandate? Almost! If I were to judge based solely on his performance last night and the number of electoral votes he received over McCain, I would definitely say yes. And considering the record number of voters that turned out, I think it's pretty clear that America really wants this change. But I'm leaving my answer at "almost" based on the Senate results. Even though the Democrats kept their majority, they did not reach the "magic 60" filibuster-proof majority that they wanted.