Vice President Lieberman?

In a column at FoxNews.com Martin Frost argues that if somehow President Bush could replace Vice President Cheney with Senator Joe Lieberman it would give the White House certain opportunities. He describes a scenario through which this would allow the Republicans to regain control of the Senate. He also says that, depending on how the Democrats react to Lieberman's nomination, it could tip enough of the Jewish vote in 2008 to the Republicans to allow them to retain the Presidency.

To me a more interesting wrinkle is the possibility that this would induce Lieberman to run for President in 2008 as an independent. He ran as an independent in Connecticut and won. He had to run as an independent because the Democrats nominated a more liberal candidate. As a moderate independent candidate for President he would get a lot of votes but probably wouldn't win. I believe that he would pull more votes from the Democrats than the Republicans, thus helping the Republicans retain the Presidency.

Of course, for this scenario to play out correctly the Republicans have to come up with a good candidate. They haven't done so yet. If they don't come up with a better candidate Lieberman might win -- but that would be OK with me.

On second thought there is more to this than the manipulative aspects. It could give the country a real choice as to what they want in a President. If Lieberman runs as a moderate independent it might entice the Democrats to nominate a left-wing liberal and the Republicans to nominate a right-wing conservative. Actually this likely is wishful thinking on my part; we might end up with three moderates to choose from. But then that wouldn't be all bad if it keeps candidates like Barack Hussein Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton off the tickets.

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