This could get ugly.
Lieberman Warns Democrats: I May Join GOP NewsMax.com Wires
Friday, Feb. 23, 2007
Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut fired a shot across the bow of the Senate's Democratic majority, warning them he may bolt the party and join the GOP if Congress votes to withhold funding for the war in Iraq.
The move would give Republicans control of the Senate, since Democrats hold the majority by one vote.
Lieberman, who calls himself an "independent Democrat," has been among the strongest supporters of the war on terror and President Bush's plan for a troop surge in Iraq.
"I have no desire to change parties," Lieberman said in an interview published Thursday on politico.com. "If that ever happens, it is because I feel the majority of Democrats have gone in a direction that I don't feel comfortable with."
Lieberman cited the upcoming showdown over new funding for the war could be a deciding factor that would lure him to the GOP. Several Democrats, led by Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy, have been agitating for a funding cut-off.
"I hope we don't get to that point," he said. "That's about all I will say on it today. That would hurt."
Lieberman's remarks echo earlier sentiments he expressed in an interview with Jeffrey Goldberg in the February edition of The New Yorker.
The Senator told Goldberg that his allegiance to the Democratic Party is based in part on sentiment and should not be considered eternal.
"A lot of Democrats are essentially pacifists and somewhat isolationists," he said, adding that he had problems with Sen. Ted Kennedy's proposal to deny President Bush funding for the troop surge, and with his fellow Connecticut Sen. Christopher Dodd's suggestion that Congress might cap the number of U.S. troops in Iraq.
Asked if he would switch parties if Democrats cut off funding for the war, Lieberman responded: "That would be stunning to me. And very hurtful. And I'd be deeply affected by it. Let's put it that way."
Though Lieberman has been loyal to his party, Senate Democrats are not reciprocating. The New Yorker reported that his Democratic colleagues "tend to indulge him, unless they are speaking to reporters off the record."
Lieberman is well aware that only five Senate Democrats campaigned for him in last year's general election, which he won as an independent over Democratic and Republican rivals, largely because GOP voters crossed party lines to support him.
Lieberman has already made clear that he will not necessarily support the next Democratic nominee for the White House.
One Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. Dodd, even campaigned for Lieberman's Democratic opponent Ned Lamont in the 2006 Senate race. Sen. Hillary Clinton, the party's frontrunner for 2008, actively fundraised for Lamont.
Lieberman once described Dodd as his "best friend" in the Senate, but when asked by Goldberg if that was still the case, Lieberman said only: "I have so many good friends in the Senate. John McCain is a very good friend."
In fact, most of Lieberman's closest friends in the Senate of late are Republicans, according to the New Yorker article.
Lieberman acknowledges that at times he feels isolated, as a liberal on social policy and a conservative on defense.
He told Goldberg that he was reading "America Alone" by conservative Mark Steyn, who argues that Europe is being overwhelmed culturally and demographically by Islam.
"The thing I quote most from it is the power of demographics, in Europe particularly," Lieberman said. "But the other part is a kind of confirmation of what I know and what I've read elsewhere, which is that Islamist extremism has an ideology, and it's expansionist . . . We Americans will have ultimate responsibility for stopping this expansionism."
Those feelings are related to Lieberman's reasons for standing by the President on Iraq, he said.
"Why do I trust President Bush in spite of the mistakes that were made, consequential mistakes? Because having watched him, having talked to him, I believe that he understands the life-and-death struggle we are in with the most deadly and unconventional enemy, Islamic extremism.
"And he has shown himself, notwithstanding all these mistakes, willing to go forward with what he believes is right for the security of the country, regardless of what it has done to his popularity."
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2007/2/22/203837.shtml?s=lh
