Well, the instant he said he would be running whether or not he got the party’s endorsement, he stopped being a member of the Democratic Party. This alone cost him my support. Not that my support mattered all that much to him. I wonder how many votes it cost him?

In other news: I’m going to be moving within shouting distance of you soon. We ought get together for dinner some time...

Let's do! Send us an e-mail when you get settled in, and we'll have you over.

Lieberman of course was faced with a nasty dilemma, since he had to prepare to go Independent before the primary. Messy.

I'm awfully mixed on this. I really think the voters should decide elections, not the conviction of the candidate, regardless of how emphatically he believes he's right on the issues. I believe Lieberman is right on the issues, but there comes a time when votes decide what course to follow.

However, this is just a primary election - he can leave his party at any time he chooses. Nonetheless, insofar as I catch a whiff of the rejection of election results in all of this, I highly resent him choosing to run as an independent. It's only when I convince myself that it's the democrats who left him, and not the general mass of citizens of Connecticut, that I feel better about it.

Basically, I want Lamont and those who agree with him to lose - but not as much as I want elections to decide who wins and loses...

I find it helpful to think of elections as things that work well when averaged over time. But any particular election is vulnerable to random fluctuations, and can emit short-lived virtual particles of almost any variety.

You know, that's a fantastic insight...just because voters are wise over the long haul doesn't mean they don't gain that wisdom by sometimes making awful choices!

Nonetheless, Lieberman signed on with the Democrats; used their support for decades now; agreed again to run within the Democratic party; and then, when the voters decided (unwisely, in my estimation) that they didn't like the job he's been doing, he said screw you, people of my party, I don't like your choice, so I'm going to circumvent it. I don't know - it's feels like breaking your word, breaking a contract...I just hate the smell of it...

Interesting. Perhaps I've been using a double-standard. How would I feel if a Republican did this? If Specter had lost in the primary, and then ran as an Independent?

I'd be disgusted, I'm sure. Perhaps I'm so accustomed to perfidy and absurdity among Dems that just expect nothing from them...

The respective candidates and ideologies can not be ignored. A better analogy might be, what if Pat Buchanan beat Arlen Spector in a primary and Spector decided to run as an Independent. I'd say, "Go Arlen Go!". I'd also be pretty disgusted that my party could elect Buchanan in the first place.

Mike - I think you're right. As I said, I'm mixed on this...I just hate the apparent urge to reject the decisions of the voters - for instance, the "stolen election" nonsense that's been a foundation stone for the left over the last six years, the appeals to lawsuits, threats to move to Canada, etc., etc. The Civil War was first and foremost a war to establish that in America, it doesn't matter how much you believe your point of view is accurate, you don't get to reject election results. I know this is just a primary, but insofar as it smells of that, it seriously bothers me.