YOU CANNOT KILL JOE, YOU CAN ONLY MAKE HIM STRONGER. The latest polling out of Connecticut shows Joe Lieberman beating Ned Lamont by 12 points, 53-41 percent. The "actual" Republican in the race, Alan Schlesinger, is being demolished, clocking in at a mere four percent. Even more telling, though, are the internals. Lieberman gets a full 75 percent of the Republican vote, making him, for all intents and purposes, the Republican nominee. Schlesinger, at this point, is little more than a Republican Green, quixotically proclaiming his superior allegiance to conservatism and doing little but holding down the margins of the "Independent Democrat" who's supplanted him. The question, of course, is whether Lieberman, in the event of a win, will dance with those that brought him. If given the opportunity to cast that deciding vote for majority leader, will he remain true to his new constituency and preserve the Republican majority? Will he try and screw over all those Democratic senators who abandoned him? And if he doesn't, what will he demand from the Democrats in return for his continued support? It would be bitter irony for the left if their successful challenge to Lieberman left him more powerful than he'd ever otherwise dreamed of being.
--Ezra Klein
