My letter to Senator Mark Pryor

Dear Senator Pryor,

I’m writing to urge you to endorse Democratic nominee Ned Lamont. I know you must be as anxious as I am for the Democrats to win a majority in the Senate this fall. You are an important voice in America, both because you are a Senator and because of your position in the DSCC. We need to move ahead into the midterm elections this fall as a united party, and to do that we need to support all of our candidates.

I know you like Joe Lieberman, and as a moderate Democrat you share a similar political philosophy with Joe. However, supporting Lieberman now means supporting a non-party candidate over a party candidate. This itself is divisive and hurts the party and our chances for winning a majority this fall. In addition, Lieberman will be forced to move even farther to the right and towards George W Bush now because, for the first time, he needs Republican votes to make up for Democratic votes he has lost. He may even decide to caucus with the Republicans at some point.

Over and over again, Joe Lieberman has shown his disregard for the Democratic Party. While some degree of bipartisanship and voting against the grain of the party is healthy, the manner in which Lieberman has gone about doing so is outrageous. For example, Lieberman loudly attacked fellow democrats for daring to voice opposition to Bush’s Iraq policy by claiming that “we undermine Presidential credibility at our nation’s peril.” His attacks on the caucus enable Republicans to portray mainstream Democratic positions as far-left and dangerous by giving a pseudo-bipartisanship to their propaganda. Republicans and their mainstream media counterparts then spread the meme that Democrats don’t stand for anything, that they all disagree on what to do and are therefore incompetent.

In addition, it is important as you know to energize the base for a midterm election. Lamont's candidacy does that. This boosts our chances for picking up those much-needed House seats. Lieberman’s candidacy gives depressed, disenchanted Republicans and conservatives a reason to go to the polls, where they’ll no doubt vote for the incumbent Republican reps for the House. Also, Lamont’s campaign helps to nationalize the election, while Lieberman’s does not. Nationalizing the election as a referendum on Bush and the Republican leadership is key to having a Democratic majority in 2007.

And if you really need any more reason to support Lamont over Lieberman, just watch Fox News and see how scared the Republicans are of a Lamont win. They're endlessly parroting their "good advice" to Democrats not to let him win. Bush, Cheney, Ann Coulter, Hannity, and others are all supportive of Lieberman. Joe's endless Republican support is crystal clear evidence that Republicans know a Lamont win would be terrible for them.