Last month, Joe "Three-Way Tie for Third Place" Lieberman said he'd been asked for a meeting by Patty Murray, the incoming head of the DSCC, to discuss running for the Senate again in 2012 as a Democrat.
Of course, any meeting between Joe and the DSCC wouldn't be about him running as a Democrat, but about the national party sitting out the race and not backing any Democratic candidates who run against him, giving him a better chance at the seat.
This is lunacy. Joe Lieberman isn't getting re-elected. His approval figures in Connecticut are only slightly above cancer's. And the only way the Senate Democratic Caucus can hold that seat is if they help to knock him out of the Senate. If the party won't field a real Democrat in Connecticut, and the Republicans nominate anyone who's 1) to the brighter side of Palin and 2) to the left of Attila the Hun, they'd crush him in a two-way race.
If Murray agrees to sit out the Connecticut race in 2012, and our nominee is halfway decent, she'll look like an idiot when the party inevitably reverses course as the President gives in to activist pressure to campaign with the Democratic candidate. If our nominee sucks, then the GOP gets the independents and centrists who don't like Lieberman, and the seat's theirs. And the best-case scenario would be that a high-order miracle allows Lieberman to squeak out a victory, whence he will remain extremely unpopular and politically unmoored.
Keeping that seat Blue requires a better standard-bearer than someone with a 54% disapproval rating. Our best bet at holding the seat with Lieberman running would be a three-way race with three strong contenders and no institutional support for Lieberman. Our best bet overall would be getting Joe the hell out of the way.
Patty Murray needs to step up. Helping Joe Lieberman lose by a more respectable margin isn't her job. Keeping that seat in the Democratic caucus is.
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