Come to the Dark Side, Joe

Lieberman to Campaign With Republicans Today

By Jane Hamsher

Because nobody could have predicted it — Joe Lieberman will be campaigning with GOP candidates Jodi Rell and Rob Simmons today at the Groton sub base (the one that Holy Joe claims to have singlehandedly saved). Simmons, you’ll remember, is the GOP candidate running against Democrat Joe Courtney for one of those hotly contested Connecticut House seats. You know, the ones where the Democrat is supposed to be helped by Lieberman’s indy bid, right? At least according to the DCCC and the email that reader ems forwarded to us yesterday:

From: DCCC [mailto:dccc@DCCC.ORG]
Sent: Tuesday, August 22, 2006 10:09 AM
To: XXXXXXX
Subject: RE: Comments

We apologize for your frustration. It is actually very likely that this competitive race will actually help Congressional Democrats by making sure every Democrat is out at the polls. Rather than a bland race where Lieberman will surely win and no one will care, there is now a heated race that will bring every Democrat out to the polls, thus increasing the chances of a Democratic sweep of the Connecticut House seats.

If it’s in the bag like this, one has to wonder why Rahm Emmanuel will take to the state to campaign with Dianne Farrell today. Perhaps he too has heard that the foliage is lovely in Connecticut this time of year.

Or maybe the DCCC has come out of the ostrich tuck. I have no way of knowing what constellation of influence led them to a Come to Jesus moment, but ems has now forwarded this:

Mr xxx,

My name is Joseph from the Online department. I am one a several people that check the DCCC Inbox. I apologize for having sent this email. I had not realized that I had sent this email to you until I saw it on a blog this morning. I had written this draft intending to send it to our Online Editor, Jesse Lee, for approval and instead accidentally sent it to you. This is not the official policy of the DCCC and should not be taken as such. If you have any further questions email lee@dccc.org directly.

Thanks for your understanding and apologies for my mistake.

Joseph

Right-o. I’ve only had two beers and I’ll lrespect you in the morning too, honey. Promise.

You can contact the DSCC and let Chuck Schumer know how happy you are about this turn of events here.

Wow. What a knife in the back to DeStefano and the House candidates. He's a Democrat like Laval supported a Free France. Jesus, what a betrayal.

I can't wait until Joe's new friends forget to support him like they promise. Because that's coming.

I can see some war supporting Dems not supporting Lamont, but working for the House candidates. But this? And then supporting Rell? Well, you can forget union support for sure now. If I was running field for Lamont, I would do a weekend sign and lit drop to make the point about Lieberman's falling support.

This seems suicidal to me. He's just made the rest of the Connecticut Dems jump into the boat with Lamont, because Lieberman is going to hurt them all. Even if people wanted to remain neutral, or indifferent, they can't. Lieberman has turned on them all with this move.