Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Dana Milbank of the Washington Post actually ran the numbers and discovered – Surprise! – that Sen. Joe Lieberman is not polluted with conservativism: “His ideology has not changed one bit, as measured by vote ratings. The American Conservative Union scored his conservatism an eight out of 100 in 2008, the same as Maryland's Ben Cardin (Obama scored a more conservative 17). His lifetime conservative rating is 16, and over the past five years he's actually been a slightly more liberal 8.2. Ratings by the liberal Americans for Democratic Action tell a similar tale, and a University of California at San Diego ranking through the end of July found him to be the 28th most liberal member of the Senate this year, tied with that conservative icon, Daniel Akaka of Hawaii.” It may come as a shock both to the enemies of Lieberman and the friends of Obama – often, they are the same people – to find that Obama’s liberal ratings fall short of Lieberman’s. In a recent interview, Lieberm...