When candidates in Connecticut didn't have to deal with inconvenient things like elections:

In an interview, Lieberman sounded a note of nostalgia for the old days. "John Bailey genuinely believed that primaries were not only divisive but often didn't pass the ultimate test of finding the candidate who could win," he said. If Bailey were alive, his attitude would be, "We have an incumbent senator who is quite popular in the state; we have an opportunity to elect three Democratic congressional challengers; we have a very tough race for governor. Why would we want to challenge an incumbent senator who could lead the other candidates to victory?"

It's amazing how much this man whines about having to make his case to the voters of Connecticut. You'd think he was the first incumbent ever to face a primary challenge.

The Broder article contains some other great bits, such as Lieberman talking about facing a primary challenge "from the left":

"I didn't know who the challenger would be, but I felt there was a very good possibility this would happen," he said. "I told people at my fundraisers last year there could well be a challenge from the left of the party...

This, of course, on the same day he released a painfully bad commercial calling Ned Lamont a Republican.

And while he may stay in the party until the day of the debate on July 6th, it certainly sounds like this is a man planning on bolting soon thereafter if things don't turn around for him:

He says he knows of no effort to gather signatures now. But he also says, "I want to put my whole record before the whole voting population of Connecticut" -- clearly implying an independent run if he loses to Lamont in August.

Poor Joe. He's lost every real campaign he's had to run since 1988... first 2000, then 2004. Now he's going to cut and run from a race in 2006 where he had all of the advantages in the world.

He's just not up to the fight anymore.

No wonder the old days are starting to look so good to him.

(Cross-posted from LamontBlog.)