A couple hundred words on the junior senator from CT

I'm watching the first NCAA semi-final, and I got to thinkin about the antics of JoJo the circus clown. In case you haven't been following, Lieberman has step by step been going back on his election promise to caucus with the democrats. First, after the inauguration, he stated that he was only in the democratic caucus because he had to choose one caucus or the other. And even then, only because they gave him the chmnship of governmental affairs and homeland security. Last week, he would not rule out a switch to the GOP. Now, the AP is consistently listing him as "I-CT" rather than the confused "ID-CT" (a change with which i of course agree). At the time of the inauguration, Joe was in fact the kingmaker - had he caucused with the GOP, the bastards would have been able to organized the senate. Based on Joe's lukewarmness on the dems (which results, i guess, in part from their lukewarmness towards him), many have opined that the GOP may in fact take back the senate for 22 months or so ala 2001 in reverse. But, rest assured, this can not happen...let me explain...

The situation today is critically different from when Jeffords defected 6 years ago. Every 2 years, each of the 2 houses passes an organizing resolution, defining the leadership and naming committee members. Generally, the OR states that the manner in which the senate is organized (ie who the leadership is), is permanent until the next congress is sworn in. However, in 2001, with the senate evenly split, this posed a problem. Because the senate is organized 17 days earlier than the vice president is sworn in, at the time of the organization, the tie-breaking senate vote was cast by Albert Gore, Jr for Tom Daschle. However, the GOP was able to get language into the OR that stated,

if at any time during the 107th Congress either party attains a majority, . . . the provisions of this resolution shall have no further effect . . . except that the committee chairmanships shall be held by the party which has attained a majority.

When Dick was installed as the president of the senate, they were able to pass a new OR, installing Lott as ML. However, for the 110th congress, Reid was of course smart enough to ensure that such a provision was not included. Therefore, no matter what happens with Lieberman (or for that matter Sen. Johnson, who has unfortunately not yet returned to the floor), the democrats will control the senate until at least january 3rd, 2009. Thus sending Joseph Lieberman (CFL-CT) to the dustbin of history, never to rank among the great statesmen of the early 21st century, such as say James Jeffords (I-VT).

Canvassing with Lamont campaign

So in the theory of adding a little bit more to the election than some cash and many hours boring anyone who will listen about the importance of the Illinois 6th (go tammy duckworth!), I took the train out to Stamford, and spent a day canvassing/phone banking for the Ned campaign. Those of you who know me best know that it takes a lot to get me outside of city lines...and even more to get me to the Nutmeg State. Here's the story of a rainy day in Connecticut...

I had been in touch with Ned's 4th CD volunteer coordination staff about at least helping out on election day. They responded immediately and enthusiastically, and also suggested I get out and do some canvassing pre-election if i could. I got in touch with the proper people at the Stamford office, drank 6 beers and caught the early train.

Unfortunately, it was raining when I got out there, so we would be phone banking rather than canvassing. Phone banking, for those not familiar, involves getting a list of names that are presumed to be friendly-ish, and calling the people on the list. Contrary to popular belief, the purpose of this is not really to try to persuade - it is really to try to identify a list of people who are going to vote for Ned, and should get a reminder to vote on election day. Cold calling is not a massively fun activity; out of 50 names, 30 don't pick up when they see "Democratic Headquarters" on their caller ID. Of the other 20, 10 refuse to answer. Of those 10, 8 will answer, but are just trying to get to you off the phone as quickly as possible. One of the other 2 will be a "leaning Joe", and that person will have some ridiculous story...such as they oppose bush, oppose the war but would not really consider voting for Ned. But as I was told...if they are gonna vote for Joe, there usually isn't anything you can do about it.

When the rain stopped for a few minutes, we did make an attempt at canvassing (same as phone banking, but knocking on doors)...unfortunately by the time a second downpour began, we only had spoken to 3 people (out of maybe 30 doors), all of whom were strong Joe supporters...one was even intentionally rude to us - i figure that inability to think about the upcoming election with people from the other camp is a hallmark of bush/lieberman supporter.

Morale at the HQ was very high among both the Ned and Diane campaigns (the Dem party shares an office in Stamford). They don't believe the polls (there are many reasons to take them with a grain of salt), and truly feel that their GOTV and ballot placement is worth 3-5 pts. Based on the people i met, these are all true progressives; speaking to them you really would think you are reading dKos. Seeing so many people in there on a Saturday showed me that this election is not over; that Ned still has a real shot going into the last week; that election will truly be decided by the support of the people, rather than the support of the big-money out of state GOP donors!