The White House funneled millions of dollars through major Republican Party contributors to Sen. Joseph Lieberman’s primary campaign in a failed effort to ensure the support of the former Democrat for the Bush administration.
A senior GOP source said the money was part of Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove's strategy to maintain a Republican majority in the Senate in November. The source said Mr. Rove, together with Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman, directed leading pro-Bush contributors to donate millions of dollars to Mr. Lieberman's campaign for re-election in Connecticut in an attempt that he would be a "Republican-leaning" senator.
"Joe [Lieberman] took the money but said he would not play ball," the source said. "That doesn't mean that this was a wasted investment." ("GOP")
So he "would not play ball," but, according to the article, he did take the money. Republicans are still aggressively backing Lieberman. He's going to owe them big someday.
The hope here is that, if he does win in November, he'll remember who stuck by him following his loss to Lamont. Loyalty matters to Joe Lieberman. It isn't a wasted effort by the Republicans at all. Democrats worked on Jim Jeffords for years before seeing any results.
The question to ask: why did he take the money at all?
There's more commentary at MLN and The Moderate Voice.
Source
"GOP secretly channeled millions to Lieberman." Insight Magazine 5 September, 2006.
5 comments:
Aw,gee: What's a Connecticut Republican to do? Gamers don't want to put their money on the Republican candidate for governor: He's hovering around 2-10% in the polls. So the race, as you guys never tire of telling us, is between two Democrats, and the question is: Which of the two would be more acceptable to Republicans? Guess what the answer to that one might be. The Lamonters really should not, Nero like, be permitted to wash their hands of the problem they caused by hoisting Lamont into this petard. You guys broke the party; now you own it. It doesn't take a Rove to figure this one out. Where the hell is Turfgrrl?
Silly article, of course the kool aid drinkers are lapping it up.
First of all, if the strategy was in place, it didn't work as Ned won...and if Joe had so much $$$, why didn't he advertise more???
Unnamed sources are the genesis of this article from a generally unreputable magazine. Dumb.
This morning's "swift boat ads" demonstrate that Rove doesn't need to transfer funds directly to the Lieberman campaign. Any number of front groups are created with specific targets to attack; the candidate who benefits is as obvious as the funding source, but it's the elephant in the parlor to the MSM.
JohnieB in Hartford
Either Ned or Joe need to step aside for the good of the party. Having these two guys battle it out is going to cost us Congressional and State seats. Right now, this is a Republican dream come true.
Republican Dream Come True--
His name is Ned Lamont, and he used to vote Republican, is this a dream?
Or is it another masterful stroke of genius, Rovian genious.
Smart dems would have checked Ned's phone records, and noted a certain entry-K Rove.
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