Several outlets (including Roll Call) report that Joe Lieberman will meet with Harry Reid on Thursday to discuss Lieberman’s place in the next Congress. Speculation is rampant that Reid will strip Lieberman of his chairmanship:
This will be the first test of how Barack Obama and the Democrats plan to run Washington. Both Obama and the congressional leadership have promised bipartisanship and comity. Harry Reid said last night that the election results are ‘not a mandate for a political party or an ideology.” He’d seem quite the hypocrite if he said that at the same time he was planning to eject Lieberman from the conference. Beyond that, Democrats who were contemplating a 60-vote Senate majority 24 hours ago, have awakened to find that they may have as few as 56 seats. Do they really want to make it 55 — even before Obama decides whether to tap any Senators for administration posts? Given the challenges ahead, and considering the public relations hit they’ll take, the wiser course of action is to attempt to rebuild bridges with Lieberman. The primary constituency for ditching him is the Democratic netroots. Is Harry Reid more committed to them, or to the moderate course Democrats have promised?
