There is mourning in liberal land. The Daily Kos crowd wanted Joe Lieberman out of the Democratic caucus but it ain’t gonna happen. Read below from The Connecticut Post:
Although enraged by his campaign attacks against Barack Obama, Senate Democrats will allow Sen. Joe Lieberman to remain chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid emerged from a closed-door caucus Tuesday morning and told a large crowd of Capitol reporters that Senate Democrats voted 42 to 13 against punishing Lieberman.
"Joe Lieberman is a Democrat and he's part of the caucus," said Reid.
The decision is almost certain to anger thousands of liberal Democrats who have signed petitions or called Senate leaders urging them to punish the Connecticut senator for his conduct during the presidential campaign.
Read more here.
The real victory for Lieberman is that he gets to keep his Homeland Security chairmanship. That committee is a big deal and Lieberman gave pseudo hints that if the Democrats stripped him of it he may bolt for the Republican Party.
It looks like Barack Obama exerted some pressure on Harry Reid and his Democratic colleagues to keep Lieberman in the party. It’s a smart political move by Obama. He’s going to need every Democratic vote he can get. The last thing he needs is Lieberman being a thorn in his side if he jumped ship.