The Democrats’ hold on the majority in the U.S. Senate in January may be be tenuous at best. They have only a one-seat majority.
With the ongoing tension between Joe Lieberman and some Democrats, coupled with his refusal today on Meet the Press to rule out the possibility of switching his support to the Republican Senate caucus sometime in the future, that increases my concern about exactly how tenuous this Democratic majority might be.(more below)
It’s a little unsettling, at least for me, that the one person who may hold the key to the Democrats continuing to hold the majority in the Senate is Lieberman (though, to his credit, he is, for now, at least, sticking with his campaign pledge to caucus with the Democrats and, thus far being reasonably gracious to those Senate Democrats who supported Ted Lamont. Don’t get me wrong, am no great fan of Lieberman, but Lamont didn’t win, so we’re sort of stuck with what he have).
In any case, the purpose of this diary is to put forth the question of whether we think there are some Republicans that Senate Democrats might want to try to persuade to switch to the Democratic Party, as an insurance policy for holding the Senate at least through the next election cycle.
My question: Do you think there are any Republican Senators who might consider such a thing? If so, who?
Off the top of my head, the likeliest possibilities
(though none seem all that likely at this point) would be folks like Gordon Smith of Oregon, who will be facing a tough reelection in ’08, Norm Coleman of Minnesota, who will also likely be facing a tough re-election battle (though switching back to the Democratic Party after having already switched to the Republicans from that might make him look even more wishy-washy). Other possibilities, at least in terms of who Democrats might want to approach might include Susan Collins of Maine (Maine seems to appreciate independent-minded people over partisans) and, perhaps Chuck Grassley of Iowa (he’s at least tried to create an image of himself as being independent-minded in the past). Anyone else? Or is this just a rhetorical question, so unlikely to be of benefit as to not be worth the exercise of discussion further.
Just a thought, and just some questions.
To me, it seems the Democrats should be putting out some feelers, at least to Smith and Collins?
