Joe Lieberman does not deserve to stay as the Chair of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security. It is not because he endorsed John McCain for President. Obama has said himself that he likes having people around him whose views differ from his. However, the divisive rhetoric that Lieberman spat on the campaign trail for months is simply not acceptable. He said that it is a good question to ask whether or not Obama is a Marxist and a socialist. He also spoke at the Republican National Convention where he said Obama would be "dangerous" if elected. It is these statements that show a spirit of uncooperation and he should not hold that high of a position if he cannot cooperate with Obama.
Lieberman does tend to vote with the democrats and therefore should be offered to caucus with them. There he will not have to work as much with Obama, just vote with him. He has said many times that if he is booted from his position as Chair that he will leave the democratic caucus. If he makes this decision, so be it. If he does, his time in the Senate is limited. He will surely lost his home state in his next election because Connecticut leans heavily democratic. The democrats also shouldn't need his vote. It is very unlikely that the Democrats will win Georgia and get the 59 (+Lieberman) majority in the Senate. Even if they somehow do, Lieberman will vote against the democrats on many key issues including Iraq.
It does send a good message that Obama wanted Lieberman to stay, but it will not pay off for him in the end. Lieberman should have been removed by the Democrats because he will do much more harm than help by continuing to lead the Committee on Homeland Security.
In 2000, Joe Lieberman was the democratic nominee for vice president. He was a prominent democratic senator from Connecticut and he even ran for the democratic nomination in 2004. However, in 2006, Lieberman lost his democratic primary in Connecticut to Ned Lemont due to the fact that Lieberman supported the war in Iraq. Unwilling to give up his Senate seat, Lieberman left the democratic party. He became an independent, still vowing to vote with the democrats. With the support of independents and some republicans, Lieberman managed to remain in the Senate. However, he next endorsed Sen. John McCain over Barack Obama for president. Not only did he endorse McCain, but he campaigned constantly with him. He said very negative things about Obama, including that it was "reasonable" for it to be questioned whether or not Obama was a socialist. Lieberman was considered a possible vice-presidential candidate for McCain even. He did not get it, but was given a keynote speaking role at the Republican National Convention:
After all of this, Lieberman still wants to caucus with the Democrats and keep his position as Chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee. Today he was allowed to keep the position as the Chair and he was allowed to caucus with the Democrats moving forward. One reason behind this is that the democrats still want a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. Without Lieberman, this would not be possible. The biggest reason, however, was probably that President-elect Obama said he wanted Lieberman to remain with the democrats. Now Lieberman is staying with the dems, not up for re-election until 2012. However, some of the blogs aren't taking this quietly.
Nate Silver at one of my new favorite blogs to read, FiveThirtyEight.com, wrote that it was Obama who kept Lieberman in the Senate. He says that a vote that ended up being a 30 point spread was previously expected to be a very close vote before Obama's announcement. He says that if one disagrees with Lieberman, they are now disagreeing with Obama.
Steve Benan at The Washington Monthly blogs that now Lieberman owes Obama now. He says that with this, Lieberman is now in Obama's debt, but that he could betray Obama sometime in the future again after he repays Obama by voting with him.
Over at Huffington Post, Bob Cesca said that Obama punished Lieberman more than he knows by not punishing him. He says Obama showed that he was a better man than Lieberman to the entire world by not holding grudges or getting involved in something petty.
The Daily Kos blog said that it will be much harder to get the change we need, as Obama campaigned for, with Lieberman still in the Senate. The blog says that with Lieberman still head of the Homeland Security Committee, it will be harder to get things done with his pro-Iraq views and many dissagreements with Obama.
Moving father left, the blog "Open Left" was very angry and said this would hurt withdrawl in Iraq and that Obama was wrong to keep him in.
Some of the farthest left blogs were the most angry by this decision. Many said that this was horrible for the American people and that Obama was acting on politics not on what was right. My Left Nutmeg said that "Lieberman wins, we lose."
Some blogs commended Obama for his decision, saying it showed true leadership. Other more liberal blogs criticized the decision. It is a very interesting topic and we will see how Obama's decision plays out come 2009.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Earlier tonight I began my volunteer work at the Special Olympics in Spring Valley. It had taken months for me to be able to join this organization. I had talked with Charlie, the head of the Olympics many times and was under the impression that it was a kids' league. However, when I walked in I was surprised to find only a few kids there and about 60 adults.
I got to meet Charlie finally and he handed me my work. I was to keep score for the the teams and record all of the statistics. About 3 times I was asked, "Hey, what team are you on," by an organizer who didn't know I was a volunteer. One even walked up to me and said, "Hey, you're Jake, right?" I said I was and then he brought me a jersey for a team. After most of the directors had either met me, or asked me about playing, I began my work. The sport was field hockey and there were 4 matches throughout the night.
I was placed next to these loud Brooklyn women and a man who was a player in the Special Olympics. The women complained about their husbands for most of the time. The man, meanwhile repeated three sentences maybe 40 times. "I'm waiting for J.P." He said. "Ah," I responded. "When do I play?" "You play third." "There is a luncheon on Saturday, right?" "I don't know, I just started here." "Hey do you know J.P.?" "No, I don't, I just started here." "Ok, because I'm waiting for J.P." We had this conversation throughout the night.
Though it was not as satisfying socially, the work aspect was very fun. The players were very enthusiastic about their teams and it was great watching them celebrate when they'd score. Some players had trouble playing. One kept walking off the floor. Some players, however, were great players despite whatever disability they had. I was hard at work for most of the night, but ended up getting along well with most of the players.
Though it began kind of badly, I ended up enjoying myself and am excited to return next week.
With the election now over for a week, the fate of the Senate is still unknown. The democrats have a clear majority of 57 seats to 40 seats. However, three races are still undecided. If the democrats win all three, they become filibuster-proof. There are currently recounts going on in Minnesota and Alaska, along with a runoff election in Georgia. The most strange election of the group seems to be that of Alaska where convicted felon Ted Stevens holds a narrow lead over Anchorage mayor Mark Begich. I became inspired to see what the blogosphere had to say about this after seeing this video.
Almost every blog agreed that something seemed wrong with this Senate race in Alaska. The voter turnout was much higher in Alaska's primaries in 2008 than in 2004. The early voting was also in record numbers. Yet somehow when the votes were counted for the general election, record lows were recorded despite Alaska having the third greatest amount of voters registered in their history. Also, with Governor Palin on the ticket in an election with such high stakes, and a divisive recently convicted felon on the ballot, record lows seemed very suspiscious. The whole situation in Alaska has generated a lot of suspicion from the blogs that I read.
At Huffington Post, Alaskan blogger Shannyn Moore said that the election in Alaska must have been stolen. Her article began, "Something stinks." She then talked about all of the facts above and also talked about how all polling had Mark Begich ahead by around 8 percent and that all of this could not just be a coincidence. She also noted that in a Congressional race, democrat Ethan Berkowitz was also ahead by 8 points in polling and now trails by 8 points in the results. She said that this appeared to be a horrible violation of democracy.
Over at Talking Points Memo, John Marshall said that he felt that Sarah Palin had rigged the election in favor of Stevens so that Palin could run for senate if Stevens is sent to prison. He clearly had a liberal bias, however he did bring up an interesting conspiracy theory.
A new site I've looked at called fivethirtyeight.com had 2 interesting entries from Nate Silver. Smith is a famous baseball probability blogger turned political probability blogger. In his first article Silver wrote that the odds were still with Begich because of all of the uncounted ballots (30,000) to win the election. In his second post, entitled "What in the Hell Happened in Alaska?" Silver said that he thought fraud was probably occurring. The polling from his site was 12-14 points off for the disputed Senate, Congressional, and even Presidential races in Alaska. Many votes are being deemed "questionable ballots," and Silver believes that these may very well be mostly democratic ballots.
Mary Pemberton at Real Clear Politics blogged about how Stevens would not even get in to the Senate if elected. She also talked about how many Alaskans may just genuinely have liked what Stevens has done in the Senate for 40 years, even if he is a convicted felon.
At Caffinated Politics, dekerivers said that the reason voting is so low is because no absentee ballots were counted until this week out of fear that people might vote twice as occurred in the primaries in Alaska. This is a counter idea to the many fraud allegations swirling.
Whether or not fraud has occurred is still unknown. The results of the election in Alaska are just as unclear. There are reasonable arguments from both sides of the fraud allegations. We will have to see in the coming weeks what unfolds here in Alaska.
Last night as the election concluded, Barack Obama won very convincingly. Almost immediately after Obama was declared the winner of the election, McCain had to speak to his supporters.
This must have been an incredibly hard moment for the Arizona senator, but his speech became one of the most talked about stories of the night. I looked to various blogs to see what they had to say about the speech. At Huffington Post, well known liberal Alec Baldwin blogged that he felt that McCain’s speech was “the most moving moment of the night for him.” He stated that McCain was in the hardest spot of the night, but pulled through. He also said that he “believed” McCain and that the “real” McCain that many democrats used to like of the past came back that night. Beth Fouhy at Yahoo News talked more about the content than the nature of McCain’s speech. She seized on the fact that he said that he would work with President Obama and about moving forward. It also talked about McCain’s call for unity in the country and him fully putting his support behind Barack Obama. Steven Hayes at Real Clear Politics felt that McCain’s speech brought back the “old John McCain,” just as Baldwin did. He called the speech magnificent and heartfelt. Many liberals such as Hayes had a similar opinion, some even saying that if all of McCain’s speeches were like his final one that McCain would be our president. In fact, of the 20 search pages I went through, I could not find one negative statement about McCain’s acceptance speech. All of the conservative blogs said they loved the speech, even if they still hated Obama. It was deemed to be one of the best moments of the night by many blogs and “healing” many of the struggles. His final speech was the most popular within the blogosphere of any all of his campaign.
Sadly at age 15 I am not allowed to vote. However, with this election being so important I wanted to contribute somehow to the political process. My mom and I decided to go to swing state Pennsylvania to volunteer as part of an Obama Get Out the Vote effort on election day. We found a group in Tarrytown who went down to Allentown, Pennsylvania every 4 years to campaign. The group of 10 consisted of my mom and I, our town's mayor, my neighbor, and a bunch of passionately liberal older women. I left for Allentown at 7 am and was quite tired. I slept the whole ride, waking up occasionally to the liberal rants of the older ladies mostly about Sarah Palin. Then we arrived at the Allentown. It was a very run down working class area. It was clearly hurt by the economy. However, Obama headquarters in Allentown was thriving. The headquarters was outside and everywhere I looked I saw people making phone calls for Obama and wearing “Obama ’08” pins. My group was divided up. My mom and I were put with the mayor, his daughter, and one of the passionate old ladies. We were given an assignment to ring doorbells of registered democrats on a list and ask four questions: Have you voted? If they had not, then: Do you plan on voting? If someone did then: Do you know where to vote? And finally: Do you need a ride to the polls? Our first 2 hours were very boring. Everyone was either not home or had already voted. Then, as we were going to lunch, things got interesting. A man walked up to us saying he was a former felon put wanted to turn his life around and wanted to vote. He was registered and we gave him all of the voting information that he needed. Next, a man walked up asking us if we spoke Spanish. The mayor’s daughter and I attempted to communicate with him. It ended up that he was a homeless man who had been denied being allowed to vote because he didn’t fill out an address on his registration. We drove him to the city hall and the mayor’s daughter waited in line with him to see what would happen. Then, as we went to lunch, we saw Ralph Nader campaigners. The older lady began to yell at the Nader supporters. They yelled back about how she should open her mind. Then I tried to talk to them more calmly. They started yelling at me because I had an Obama pin on. So I got into an argument with them as well. I said that this election was too important and that Nader is just running as a spoiler. They said that he should have won the election but wasn’t in the debates and that Obama and McCain were not really different. I was very angry at the fact that people felt this with the huge differences between Obama and McCain but I walked away, figuring that there was no convincing them of how I felt. After that lovely encounter, I campaigned a lot more. After 6 hours of campaigning, I successfully got out 6 people to vote. One person did not even know that the election was for the country, they thought it was just for Pennsylvania. We did not need to give any rides, but informed a bunch of people on where to vote. I had contributed more than I could have even if I was able to vote and felt very good about it. Last night, Allentown went for Obama by 15%, I was very happy with my contribution and of course overjoyed by the Obama victory in the election.
