The American Spectator : The Spectacle Blog : Crist Would Be No Joe Lieberman

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The Spectacle Blog

Crist Would Be No Joe Lieberman

By W. James Antle, III on 4.21.10 @ 2:14PM

The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza does a good job of laying out how an independent Senate bid by Charlie Crist would be different from Joe Lieberman's in ways that make Crist less likely than Lieberman to succeed. I've hit this theme before, but Cillizza adds two practical problems for Crist: bolting the Republican Party would likely cost him much of his campaign team and his fundraising base.

When Lieberman went the independent route, he had Michael Bloomberg's proven campaign team right next door. He had his own national fundraising base with Jewish donors and people who had been attracted to his forays into national politics. Lieberman also saw the primary through, only lost it narrowly, had the tacit support of a Republican administration, and had no serious Republican opponent. That meant Lieberman could win an overwhelming majority of Republicans, a respectable majority of independents, and still hang on to about a third of Democrats. None of these situations will obtain for Charlie Crist.

View all comments (4) | Leave a comment

Margie| 4.21.10 @ 2:27PM

All the fandangling of the establishment types. They still don't get it that we're fed up and don't care about Crist. Rubio so has it in the bag and they are still wasting their time plotting. LOL.

Spicy Joker| 4.21.10 @ 11:42PM

Charlie Crist is the most vain, self-entitled, childish prima donna politician in quite a long time, and considering the recent revelations about John Edwards, that's saying something. Crist is going to lose the Republican primary (that is, if he doesn't drop out to run as an Independent) because his campaign absolutely stinks. But Crist isn't Lieberman, because unlike Lieberman, Crist would run as an Independent only to act as a spoiler and punish his erstwhile supporters. What an a-hole.

Mike| 4.22.10 @ 10:53AM

It was a disgrace that the National Republican party did not support Lieberman's Republican opponent in 2006. My Republican party supported the clown Lieberman as an independent only because he is pro-war. That was it. Otherwise he had one of the most liberal voting records in the Senate and many of his views were 180 degrees of the Republican mainstream.

That's when I knew the party was going to be cast out in 2006 and then later in 2008. We sold our souls for George Bush's idiotic war and we sold out fellow Republicans to support a clown like Lieberman.