Lieberman was the AG in Connecticut before he became Senator.  He made a name for himself jumping on whatever the current issue was, promising action in front of the Teevee cameras.  Never actually doing anything he promised, just said he would.

Joe's election to the Senate in 1988 was less about him, and had alot more to do with many residents extreme dislike of Lowell Weiker.  At the time the economy in the Northeast tanked, and the housing bubble burst.  Weiker later was blamed with passing the income tax here, and is still hated by many.

For the last two elections Joe hasn't had a serious challenger, and was re-elected as most incumbents are.

"All polls notwithstanding, is it really possible that the Republican candidate will end up with less than 10% of the vote?  Is the guy that bad?"

In a word yes, he faces civil charges of nearly $ 500,000.00 in unpaid gambling debts he also faces possible criminal charges for gambling under an assumed name.  The state GOP asked him to resign his nomination when he refused, they disowned him they have given him no money and no one has endorsed him either.  

...He's also decidely not mealy-mouthed and non-commital like certain other candidates (McCaskill, anyone?)...

Oh please.

Timmeh!

...MR. RUSSERT: Ms. McCaskill, Speaker Hastert said this: "The people who want to see this thing blow up are ABC News and a lot of Democratic operatives, people funded by George Soros," who's given millions and millions of dollars to Democratic causes. Have any Democratic operatives been involved in spreading this information?

MS. McCASKILL: Tim, as a former prosecutor, I had to handle dozens and dozens of heartbreaking cases where children had been sexually abused, where predators had been doing their work. I know this: that when a 50-year-old man is asking a teenage boy on the Internet for his picture, the response needs to be something other than, "I better go tell the chairman of the Republican Campaign Committee."

Clearly what has happened here is an arrogance of power. It is about holding onto power instead of doing the right thing. And Washington is not working.  This shouldn't be about power. This should be about protecting kids and calling the authorities, calling the Ethics Committee. They didn't even tell the Democrats on the Page Committee. This was about a cover-up.

I think it's wrong. I think it is a great example of how out of touch Washington is, and how they've got their priorities all wrong.

MR. RUSSERT: Should the speaker resign?

MS. McCASKILL: Yes.

MR. RUSSERT: But Ms. McCaskill, you did say, and I want to quote this, "This war will not be won on the battlefield, it will be won through sophisticated criminal investigations." Is that your view, that we don't win militarily, that criminal investigations will win the war on terror?

MS. McCASKILL: I believe there are two issues here. One is the war in Iraq, a failed policy where we're mired in a civil war, where we are losing lives every day and innocent Iraqi lives; and then our effort worldwide to begin to be effective against terror. Terrorist cells are popping up. We are creating more terrorists around the world with this failed policy in Iraq. We need to focus on worldwide surveillance, human intelligence, wire surveillance, Internet surveillance, support our intelligence community--clearly, we've had trouble with good intelligence in this administration--and go after terrorists, capture them and hold them accountable. But to mix the two is confusing the American public, trying to confuse the American public, and trying to roll all this in into an election year effort to make Democrats, who want our country to be safe, look weak. And we're not weak.

MR. RUSSERT: But you came out against the president's eavesdropping program.

MS. McCASKILL: I said we should give the president the tools he needs. Only in Washington would they delay and obfuscate for 10 months instead of passing the law that gives the intelligence community the tools they need to catch terrorists.

MS. McCASKILL: Well, you know, we respect the military in Missouri. It is a historic moment in our country, never before in our country, have we seen generals, retired general after retired general that had been on the ground in Iraq, that came out publicly and criticized the commander chief--in chief at the time of conflict. That is unprecedented in our country. Listening to them and realizing that we have not been leveled with, the American people.

And Senator Talent has sat on the Armed Services Committee for four years and is not asking the questions about accountability. We should be saying, "How do we get out of this mess?" Not "This is a good policy, a sound policy, we need to continue down this road."

MR. RUSSERT: You were asked how you would have voted in the Senate in 2002, and you said, "It's not clear to me how I would've voted."

MS. McCASKILL: Well, I'm certainly not going to Monday morning quarterback the senators and congressmen that voted for this war. I've never seen what they saw. Knowing what we know now, absolutely not. And frankly, I'm surprised that Senator Talent would say that knowing what we know now, knowing what is going on in Iraq right now, knowing that we are not more secure and more stable as a result of this conflict, that he agrees that we should repeat that mistake if it came along again.

What I've heard is that Lamont had a great ground game on primary day and Lieberman's sucked and since then he's lost the support of the unions, which was his only real ground support.

If true, that's terrible for Lieberman as not only did he not have their help anymore, but they're supporting Lamont.

I think lamont needs to be down by at least 5-6, if he feels the CT democratic party GOTV would push him on top.

Now, i dont know how strong the GOTV efford will be on lamont's side, but the fact that lieberman doesnt have one at work, has got to be great news for lamont.

Now,ive heard that lamont has been working and tuning up his GOTV machine and to his credit, all his gatherings and meetings have been very impressive and my thinking is that Lamont will put a lot of his own money on GOTV and if its a smart GOTV that targets well and generate decent numbers to the poll, i think he could pick up at least 2-3% just for his GOTV and the fact that lieberman will not have a decent ground game.

Now, ill give the GOTV 2-3%, which wont be enought if lamont is down by at least 5-6%, but the wild card here is lieberman's position on the ballot and according to expert, a bad position on the ballot could cost at least 2%, therefore, im banking on the position of lieberman + lamont's GOTV to generate at least 5%, therefore, lamont has to be down at least 5%.

Wake a roll call some time of all the moderate, independent, maverick types.

These people carpet bomb American society with so-called maverick bullshit and then ruin everything for their supposed friends.

The center is the biggest lie in American politics.

If you really are in the center, you must have a damned brick for a brain, because few issues are truly centrist.

Centrism is how you get bright ideas like, "Let's fire Rumsfeld but keep turning soldiers into hamburger helping people who hate us."

I'll give Liberman this -- unlike a lot of centrists, when the gloves are off, the mask comes off too.

At the minimum, that makes him better than John McCain.

I agree that lamont made a huge mistake by relaxing after he won the primary, and till this day, i still cant forgive the lamont's campaign for this...Didnt anyone tell those guys that whwnever you have a giant on his heels, you have to go for the kill?? Lamont had lieberman dead on primary night and he let him get up by allowing him to controll post primary airwaves.

The excuse that im hearing was that lamont had to take a couple weeks off to relax and to retune his message...i just cant accept that....Also, they were rumours that lieberman had bought ad for post primary and this was before primary ad and the specific ad was tailored in a way to make the viewers understand that lamont hasnt done anything and that he's still in it...my question is, why didnt lamont buy some time for post primary night to counter lieberman ad?? lamont should have gone on the air the same night to make sure people know that lieberman lost and that lieberman should drop out of the race.

Lamont made a rookie mistake and i hope he gets throught the weather, but if he doesnt, i hope this would be a lesson to every rookie challenger out there and they should known that whenever you have a career policians on the ropes, you dont give him breathing room to controll the debate...now lamont is habving a tought time to regain controll.

For the record, exit polls from the primary showed Lieberman winning the Jewish vote by about a 60-40 margin.  A win, but not a total blowout.