What if Lieberman is voted out of his Chair, but then we win all 3 of these last Senate seats?

[yodermon]

Wouldn't that put us at 59+Lieberman, giving him a shitload of leverage?

Why doesn't the Dem caucus wait to vote on his fate until after all the races are decided?

[lapfog_1]

1. The fix is in, he is keeping his chair.

Hopefully someone has told him that on each a every cloture vote, if he doesn't vote with the Dems, he is not only out the chair of any committees, he is out of the caucus AND Obama and the senior Dems will descend on Connecticut in the next election and do everything possible to remove him from the Senate.

[Labors of Hercules]

6. who will the Dems run against him in 2010?

They need to kick his ass.

[RollWithIt]

18. He's not up again until 2012....

Four more years of Dino!

[Lucky 13]

2. This reminds me of a question I had. Maybe someone can answer it for me...

It seems to me, there are always defectors on BOTH sides when any vote is taken. I don't recall any vote where ALL the Republicans voted one way and ALL the democrats voted the other. There are always defectors, MAVERICKS, if you will. So this 60 majority, 59+Lieberman, etc - isn't all of that really just academic?

For a filibuster to occur, wouldn't EVERY SINGLE Republican (and Joe) have to refuse to send a resolution to a vote? What are the odds of that actually happening? Seems to me like that's pretty slim.

Am I thinking about this wrong?

I'd rather us have to work a little harder to convince a few rational republicans to vote with us issue by issue than keep Joe as Chair of anything.

[cameozalaznick]

10. You're right, but

Evan Bayh made a very good point on MSNBC last night. If Joe Lieberman were to resign from the Senate, the R governor of Connecticut could appoint a solid R to the seat.

Of course, I don't think he would resign, but you never know.

[Lucky 13]

14. Why would he resign? He fought off Ned Lamont even after a primary defeat.

I just don't see him doing that...

[customerserviceguy]

12. Toss a little pork towards Maine

in every bill, and you can count on Snowe and Collins to roll over. Maybe our next Supreme Court nominee will come from Maine!

[Lucky 13]

15. Snowe and Collins are good examples.

I don't see them supporting a pointless filibuster unless there are some extreme circumstances. So why do we give a damn if Joe's on our team or not? (he's already clearly NOT)

The asshole LIED to his constituents, stabbed the party in the back, and practically accused Barack of being a terrorist. There are many REPUBLICANS that haven't done that! I just can't understand for the life of me why we are treating him with kid gloves.

[T Wolf]

3. The magic-60 is really an illusion. How many "important" votes come down to

total party-line results? I would think not any.

There are DINOs (blue dogs, dlcers, etc.) who vote with the pukes. And there are a handful of republics who occasionally vote with the Democrats.

It might be a psychological benefit, but I do not see it actually affecting anything of importance.

Besides, if Obama is going to go bi-partisan and appease the rethugs for their votes, he does not need all the Democratic senators in lock-step.

Now, IF Obama was to push a far-left agenda (yeah, right), then IF there were 60 real Democrats in the Senate, that filibuster-proof number would apply.

But, do you really want to rely on Traitor Joe for that last vote?

[leftynyc]

8. I think actual votes are the issue

I think it's the fillibuster or cloture to cut off debate. 40 senators (doesn't have to be all republicans) can twart votes on really important issues like judicial appointments. I agree with you on having to rely on Lieberman - I'd rather count on Collins.

[WI_DEM]

4. Why would it give him leverage? 60 is nice, but there is no guarantee that all 60 Dem senators will

support closure. For instance we can't always depend on Nelson on NE or Lincoln and Pryor of Ark or even Salazar of Colorado. We might still get closure if on some bills some conservative dems don't support us but we get some moderate republicans like the Maine Duo or Specter. I don't think we can depend on Lieberman no matter what.

[Bob3]

5. doesn't matter

Holy Joe isn't going to vote to close off a single GOP filibuster. He'd use that leverage to plant a knife right in Obama's back the first chance he could. Its why I feel leaving him as chairman of anything is a bad idea - that gives him subpoena power and while he never wanted to bother poor George - i'm willing to bet large sums of money that the instant Obama starts to withdraw troops from Iraq or try to do anything else Joe doesn't like he's going to issue a blizzard of subpoenas and scamper down to fox news to get his face on TV to say with a worried look that he is concerned about the course the Obama administration is taking and he feels he needs to find out why they are doing X.

they'd have better luck working with some of gop senators.

[sellitman]

7. When was the last time 60 Dems voted together?

LIEberman is irrelevant.

[AllentownJake]

9. Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe

Kay Baily Hutchinson, John McCain, Lieberman, Arlen Specter, etc.

Depending on the issue they'd be the vote. Even if we hit 60 depending on the issue they may have to be the vote.

[PretzelWarrior]

11. just lean on Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, Voinevich or other moderates

to help break the filibuster. The GOP is disorganized and in disarray. They will not be able to stop Obama and his good will from the American people for his first 2 years. Lieberman can rot in hell. Better to be bold and cast him overboard and still manage to get plenty of things done without his suspect help.

[Az_lefty]

13. if we get 60 seats the pressures on Lieberman to stay in line...

if he starts acting like a repuke again, we pull his chairmanship and still have 60 seats

[Poiuyt]

16. Why would Lieberman be worried about pressure from the Democrats?

Reid et al won't do anything. Lieberman's been shitting on us for the past eight years and we're still rewarding him.

[onenote]

17. he has the same leverage (or lack thereof) either way.

He's going to vote for cloture on bills he supports and against it on bills he doesn't support whether he's in the caucus or not. That's equally true of other Democrats that sometimes have bolted on cloture votes, including the Nelsons, Landrieu, and Tim Johnson.