Dem angst escalates

Hill reports A group of Senate Democrats is growing increasingly angry about Sen. Joe Lieberman’s (D-Conn.) campaign tactics since he lost the Democratic primary last week.

Poor Dems. They really want to make a point that the party is moving hard left

If he continues to alienate his colleagues, Lieberman could be stripped of his seniority within the Democratic caucus should he defeat Democrat Ned Lamont in the general election this November, according to some senior Democratic aides.

If they are stupid enough to do that, maybe he will caucus with the Republicans, and bring a few more moderate Democrats with him <grin>

Blue Crab blogged This sideshow they complain about is of their own making. There has been a lot of disingenuous posturing about the entire Lamont candidacy, like having Screaming Howie Dean's brother involved. The floating of the seniority idea sounds like the Kos wing is flexing - or trying to flex - its muscles. They took a Democrat's scalp with Lamont's win. They spent all the effort and resources on what should have been a safe seat. Now they want to play enforcer.

And you know what? It also sounds like exactly what people have been warning about. The Democrats risk veering into national irrelevancy by being seen a a party that will not tolerate anything but lockstep.

OTB blogged The morning after Lamont’s win, Markos Moulitsas Zúniga outlined a five point plan that I considered “amazingly stupid.” Interestingly, the Democrats are now following the DailyKos playbook.

While I still think it unlikely that the Democrats will retake the Senate, there is some possibility of that happening. The best case scenarios, though, have the Democrats having a 51-49 lead, which would include the “independent” Lieberman. If they stripped him of his seniority, one would think the Republicans would woo him with an important chairmanship in exchange for caucusing with them, making it 50-50 with Vice President Cheney as the tiebreaker.