The Weicker Challenge.
I see that I myself mentioned the esteemed former Republican Senator from the great state of Connecticut October 10, 2005; March 15, 2005; and March 1, 2005. See if you spot the October 10th burst upward… the blog entry surrounded the ripple-news that Joseph Lieberman was invited and attended the National Review celebration to the great William Buckley. Weicker was not the main topic, but he was dragged alongside Lieberman. Undoubtedly if you were to graph Lieberman, his ‘q’ rating for the day would pop upward by the same percentage as Weicker, but on a larger scale.
I think that the point is not whether Weicker can pull it off but rather that he has started the ball rolling and that at this point what is realistic is up for grabs. That is, Joe is seen as unbeatable and so no politician wants to take him on. While principled Weicker is a politician who likes to win so he thinks that he has some chance. And by hinting at a run makes this a live political issue. Following from this several scenarios could develop. But first there will be a detour. Bush will appoint Joe to a cabinet post for several reasons. Governor Rell will pardon John Rowland and appoint him to the Senate. Just kidding of course but this is Connecticut. She’ll appoint herself and that would be a good political move.
In any event by the time November rolls around we’ll look back and see
that Senator Weicker has let the genie out of the bottle.
I had to link to the wikipedia article on Rowland to clue people in on the joke.
But anyway… thus Joseph Lieberman becomes a figure of the Bush Administration, instead of a “key Democratic Leader” — or, the thought crept in when hearing what was in Bush’s speech yesterday: the new Judith Miller. (Where Dick Cheney could go on Meet the Press and say ‘Look what’s on the Front Page of the New York Times’, Bush can now say “Look what Democratic Senator Joseph Lieberman said!”
It probably a better place for Mr. Lieberman to be, both for him and what he believes (I cannot say that he is any better or worse than Rumsfeld), and for the sake of a Democratic Party (one can only hope) uniting behind the scheduling of a withdrawal from Iraq, so that there may be some hope that the following calculi bear out:
#1: Nationalistic Insurgents see that the Americans aren’t occupying them, stop. (Here is the rub that Mr. Lieberman and Mr. Bush does not understand: there is not an exaustable supply of insurgents — a group they rename “terrorists”. Thus, as long as we’re there, we will be dying.)
#2: The al Qaeda contingent no longer has the support of these nationalistic insurgents, and we find out quickly, as suggested by various military top-brass on various talking head programs, that they are not natural allies.
See, Mr. Bush… I still have an optimistic bone in my mind that things might turn out okay in Iraq. I don’t know that the Tourism business will be booming in Iraq anytime soon, as suggested by his speech, but… maybe that project can be settled when tensions between the Sunnis and Shiites and Kurds settle down in the mid-term.
Getting back to the Weicker challenge: thus Lieberman can be brought out of office before 2006, so that a Democrat can challenge and win the Senate seat instead of a Republican governor appointing a Republican Senator.
And thus, the question “who owns Weicker” (he has ties with the WWE, so I guess you can expect kickbacks to Vince McMahn buried in an omnibus package when he becomes Senator) becomes moot. Weicker’s statement of interest in the Senate seat is begrudging… which is to say, he does not want to serve in the Senate, he just wants a serious anti-war challenger to bring the heat on Lieberman, and if it must be him — it must be him… but he hopes it’s someone else. Or so the statement that has caused the buzz for Weicker goes.
Ah well. I was going to thrust up a list of supposed “Endorsements” — the “Skull and Bones Baker’s Dozen”.