Thursday, December 21, 2006

Lieberman Leaves Centrist Coalition

Founds Social Club

From Political Wire:
Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT) "has relinquished his position as co-chairman of the Senate Centrist Coalition, halting talks with co-chairwoman Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) over the future of the organization in favor of creating his own bipartisan group with Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN)," according to Roll Call."

Lieberman's group will be bringing senators together in social settings, according to a letter published in a Tennessee newspaper.
The purpose of the group is to create an opportunity for Senators to know one another better across party lines so that we can identify common interests and work on issues that are important to our country.

Snowe and Landrieu will be working on reaching out to "non-ideological" centrists, according to the Roll Call article. I assume that Lieberman is not one of these?

Sources
Centrist Split in the Senate. Political Wire. http://politicalwire.com/archives/2006/12/21/centrist_split_in_the_senate.html

Lieberman, Alexander Organize Bipartisan Members Group." The Chattanoogan 20 December, 2006.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

The story does not say Senators Snowe and Landrieu will be reaching out to "non-ideological" centrists. It says they will be reaching out to "more than just ideological centrists." (A fine distinction, but important to understand where Joe is coming from. Or maybe where he's headed...)

The Centrist Coalition that Senators Lieberman and Snowe co-chaired has been an issues-oriented coalition specifically for "ideological centrists."

Now members of the Centrist Coalition have decided to reach out to members from other ideological viewpoints. And Joe's response is to pick up his marbles to go play "bipartisan" with Lamar Alexander.

It appears that on Joe world, "bipartisan" means "only talking to people who agree with me."

Genghis Conn said...

Grumpy,

Yes, and that's just as dangerous as someone who is far to the left or far to the right. Blinders are blinders.

ctkeith said...

Do a little research folks. Joe Lieberman broke his word to the Centrist coalition on Social Security and none of this groups members trusted him after that.A couple even made statements to that effect.

Even in the Senate a persons word is suppose to mean something.Liebermans broken his so many times noone on either side of the aisle trust him to keep his anymore.

Anonymous said...

GC,

Couldn't agree with you more. Although I'm all for veering far to the left or far to the right on an issue by issue basis. (After all, it's no fun being too predictable.)

ctkeith said...

By the way,

The Centrist coalition stopped meeting after Joe Lieberman attended a pro Social Security event in W. Hartford sponsored by CCAG and said "Social Security is the most successful Government program in history and should not ever be privatized".

Joe even sang Happy Birthday to SS and helped serve cake to the many senior citizens and me at the event.

PS- all the members of the Centrist coalition agreed as one of the stipulations to join the group that they would "keep an open mind" on the presidents SS proposal and they would not make any public statements for or against the proposal.

Anonymous said...

A centrist split. Now that's funny.

Anonymous said...

Lieberman is the Best Who cares what you Liberals think anyway!!!

Anonymous said...

BTW Bluecoat.....Lamont is the biggest Sleaze bag of them all

Matt said...

Yes, and that's just as dangerous as someone who is far to the left or far to the right. Blinders are blinders.

GC, I'd love to hear a policy platform supported by an actual, contemporary American elected official that you consider to be "far left," which might be the product of ideological "blinders."

The top 2008 contender for the GOP advocates for the elimination of habeus corpus. Nearly
"http://www.atr.org/pledge/national/incumbents.html">the entire Republican party
has pledged to never raise taxes under any circumstances (including in wartime).

If you're going to tag the left with extremism, I want to hear what you've got.