Quinnipiac's out today with a new poll confirming results from one earlier survey that had been conducted by a Democratic firm: Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal is a heavy favorite to win the race for Sen. Chris Dodd's seat, in a much better position than Dodd would have been.
In a nod to the presence of World Wrestling Entertainment executive Linda McMahon in the race, Quinnipiac says: "Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal has 35 to 47-point leads over three Republican candidates for the 2010 U.S. Senate contest, thumping former wrestling executive Linda McMahon 64 – 23 percent, bruising businessman Peter Schiff 66 – 19 percent and smacking former U.S. Rep. Rob Simmons 62 – 27 percent."
Many Democrats, though, will be even happier to hear some other results from the same poll. It shows Connecticut residents losing faith in the state's other senator, independent Joe Lieberman. His approval rating is at a dismal 39 percent, 10 percentage points off what it was as recently as November, with 54 percent of respondents saying they disapprove of the job he's doing.
Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., got himself some press -- and some power -- with his stance on healthcare reform. But it doesn't seem like he got himself the love of his constituents.
Public Policy Polling, a Democratic firm, is out with the results of a survey in which it asked Connecticut voters about Lieberman. What they found was fairly stunning: Only 25 percent of respondents said they approve of the job he's been doing. 67 percent disapprove. Much of that comes from Democrats, who disapprove of him 81-14. But even independents and Republicans have turned against the senator. His disapproval with independents is at 61 percent, compared to 32 percent approval, and a plurality of Republicans -- 48 percent -- said he's doing a bad job, compared to 39 percent who said they approve.
Respondents were basically split on the Democrats' healthcare proposals -- 47 percent support them, 43 percent are opposed, with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.3 percentage points. Even so, Lieberman's stance manage to alienate a strong majority, 68 percent; only 19 percent said they agreed with how he handled the issue. Presumably the difference in the two answers is due to a damned-if-you-do situation; those who support reform are angry with him for being a roadblock, while those who oppose it are upset he eventually decided to vote in favor.
(Hat-tip to Political Wire.)
Following on the news that the man who attempted to bomb Northwest Flight 253 came by way of Yemen, and that an al-Qaida group based there has claimed responsibility, three senators had a request for President Obama. Sens. Lindsey Graham, Joe Lieberman and John McCain wrote to the president to express their concerns about the impending transfer of six Yemeni detainees from Guantánamo Bay.
"Given the security situation in Yemen and the failure of the Yemeni government to secure high-value prisoners in the past, we believe that any such transfers would be highly unwise and ill-considered. Recent events underscore why this is so," the three wrote.
"[W]e request an immediate halt to the transfer of all detainees to Yemen until the American people and the Congress can be assured of the security situation in that country. We must do everything in our power to ensure that these detainees do not pose a future threat to the United States. Until we are certain that released detainees will not return to the battlefield, all detainee transfers to Yemen should cease."
Now, I'll leave it to the reader to determine whether this is a good point on the part of Graham, Lieberman and McCain or whether it's a politically motivated call to close the barn door after the horses are miles away.
There is one piece of information that seems relevant to that determination, though: Turns out that the six detainees were actually repatriated about 10 days before the senators sent their letter to Obama. Apparently, no one on their staffs bothered to check on these sorts of details, much less talk to anyone in the administration, before trying to get some press for the request.
Plenty of people are annoyed by the antics of Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn. But what he does is limited to the Senate -- imagine if he were going around blocking everything anyone ever tried to do in real life? Well, the same folks who brought you a look at Michael Steele's outreach to "urban-suburban hip-hop settings" have come up with a video showing what that might be like. You can watch it below. (My favorite part: "We could try to reason with him, but, uh, that usually makes things worse.")
MoveOn claims to already have raised $1 million on the backs of this very creative and frankly hysterical "Lieberman Socks" ad:
I want a pony! Good stuff....
Me & Joe say NO to a "Public Option"
