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Joe, Joe, Joe

by Prometheus 6
January 10, 2004 - 9:41am.
on Politics

Lieberman Gains Votes, but Not the Best Kind
By DIANE CARDWELL

Published: January 10, 2004

CONCORD, N.H., Jan. 9 — In many ways, Stan Kowalski is precisely the kind of undecided voter that the campaign of Senator Joseph I. Lieberman is trying to reach.

Learning from a flier on his car that Mr. Lieberman would appear at the In a Pinch Cafe, Mr. Kowalski showed up, chatted with him and left strongly inclined to vote for him.

"I like Joe," Mr. Kowalski, a biochemist turned law student, said. "I feel like he's in touch with the middle class. He's a good man."

There was just one hitch. Mr. Kowalski, a registered Republican, cannot vote for Mr. Lieberman in the Jan. 27 Democratic primary here.

With less than three weeks to go before the primary, Mr. Lieberman is making an all-out push here, leaving his Manchester apartment shortly after dawn and returning some 16 hours later while his wife, Hadassah, stumps the state, often on her own.

But the interest of Republicans like Mr. Kowalski, coupled with Mr. Lieberman's seeming inability to attract the kind of Democratic hordes who flock to see Howard Dean and Gen. Wesley K. Clark, has renewed the perception that although he could mount a challenge to President Bush, he may not get the chance.


I pick at Joe Lieberman because I just don't feel he's a progressive. He'd probably admit that himself. And yes, I'm serious enough about A.B.B. that I'd vote for Joe in the general election. But dammit, the "unelectable" label fits him better than it EVER will fit Kucinich. He can't get the progressive vote and can't pull enough support from Republicans to impact Bush, much less compensate for the lack of liberal support.

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Submitted by Al-Muhajabah (not verified) on January 10, 2004 - 5:52pm.

I agree with your assessment. I have no idea why some people seem to think that Democrats can win by moving right. The big group of votes that the Democrats really wish they had in 2000 are the Greens, who are off to the left of the party. Following this logic through suggests that Kucinich may actually be the best choice for the Dems ;-) ;-) ;-)

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Submitted by James R MacLean (not verified) on January 10, 2004 - 7:30pm.

First, "left" and "right" mean something very different when candidates are defining themselves than when we are talking about what options actually exist. For example, if a candidate defines himself as "left" by virtue of the fact that he takes policy positions which are frankly untenable and unfeasible, I am unimpressed. Another thing--D'you recall the 1992 Democratic primary in New Hampshire? In that primary, the first salvo of television adds for the candidates included Sen. Bob Kerrey (D-NE) and Tom Harkins (D-IA) who both had Japan-bashing advertisements--at that time, anxiety about Japanese imports was extreme. Sen. Paul Tsongas (D-MA), thankfully, pointed out that "All the Japan-bashing in the world is not going to revitalize America's industrial core," and argued that the problem was not with the Japanese, but the failure of American business management.This caused me to emphatically shift my support from Harkins to Tsongas, since it was obvious Harkins' "progressive" pretensions were quite shallow. While we all know Tsongas' problem was that he died about four months after inauguration 1992, he did have a clear understanding of what certain populist ideas would do if implemented. So he was very selective, and naturally got tagged as being boring or conservative.

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Submitted by Al-Muhajabah (not verified) on January 10, 2004 - 9:26pm.

I remember trying to get in to see Tsongas when he visited my college but I didn't get any closer than the hallway because there were so many people there.My dad went to college (Dartmouth) with Tsongas; if I remember correctly he was a year ahead of Tsongas. I don't think they knew each other then, but my dad liked to mention it when Tsongas became famous.

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