Common Ground Common Sense > Lieberman vulnerable to a primary challenge

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Common Ground Common Sense > State & Local Information > New England > Connecticut

rox63

Dec 15 2005, 10:00 AM

http://www.mydd.com/story/2005/12/14/131453/55

QUOTE

Lieberman Vulnerability

by Matt Stoller

I've written that Lieberman is vulnerable to a primary challenge. His strength as a candidate comes from the relatively closed nature of Connecticut's party system. The SUSA numbers on him though are stunning.

Lieberman is at 63-31 approval/disapproval overall. Not a surprise, and similar to Chris Dodd's numbers, who is the other CT Senator. Among Democrats, however, Lieberman's numbers are 59-36, and among liberals the numbers are 52-41. Among Republicans, Lieberman's numbers are 69-24, and among conservatives the numbers are 63-33.

In other words, Lieberman's approval ratings are higher among Republicans and Independents than among Democrats. And when you go by ideology, base liberals like him less than base conservatives. This is remarkable. Moveon has 50,000 members in CT, and only 130,000 voters voted in the Democratic primary in 2004. I don't see any way you can look at these numbers and not see a strong potential political problem for Lieberman if a credible primary challenger emerges (Weicker is implying he will only run as an independent).

Amazing stats.

UPDATE: The unstated assumption here is that a negative campaign against Lieberman could easily soften up his numbers among primary voters.

Senate 2006 :: Wed Dec 14th, 2005 at 01:14:53 PM EDT

flydangler

Dec 15 2005, 10:47 AM

Methinks Democrats will lose the seat if they successfully go after Lieberman in the primary. IMHO 'twould open the door for Congressman Chris Shays to step in and put it in the GOP column, eh?

From what I've seen methinks CT voters ain't party loyalists in statewide general elections. Democrats here in Little Rhody've been findin' that out plenty in the past 20 or so years.

Arneoker

Jan 13 2006, 08:25 AM

Some points:

1. If Flydangler, who lives next door to CT, is right then losing Lieberman could mean bye bye to any chance of the Democras winning the Senate this year. I am not a fan of Lieberman, but I doubt that a Republican replacement would be an improvement and I would very much like to see the Democrats win the Senate.

2. This guy Stoller commits what might be called the "Only my Kind of Liberals Count Fallacy." We see that Lieberman has a nearly 2-1 approval rating among Democrats, but he is heartened by the fact that the margin of approval is closer among liberals. Does he think that the blue-collar Democrat who doesn't think of him or herself as a liberal is sure not to vote, leaving that task to the liberal living in the adjoining neighborhood? Perhaps this Democrat would not dare offend the hallowed Democratic "base" by being so impertinent as to risk casting a vote contrary to their overall opinion. Stoller might reflect on the fact that even a good majority of self-identified liberals approve of Lieberman, but that would be inconvenient to his thesis. Instead he sees the membership of Moveon as a potential anti-Lieberman army. (But, but...If a majority of self-identified liberals approve of Lieberman, isn't it likely that at least a substantial minority of Moveon members approve of him?)

I think that this general sort of thinking is a big reason why so many of the more left-wing sort of liberal are pretty ineffective these days.

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