Look Out Ned, Bubba's Comin'

Bill Clinton, seeing a friend in need, is riding to the rescue of Sen. Joe Lieberman:

U.S. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman is rolling out the big gun in his increasingly close primary battle with Greenwich Democrat Ned Lamont.

Former President Bill Clinton is slated to campaign on behalf of the three-term incumbent Monday in Waterbury, Lieberman's campaign spokeswoman said today.

"We are thrilled to have President Clinton come to the state to campaign for Senator Lieberman," the spokeswoman, Marion Steinfels, said. "It is not only a big day for our campaign, but it is a big day for Waterbury and Connecticut."

[...]

Clinton and Lieberman have known each other since Clinton worked on Lieberman's first campaign for state Senate in 1970, when Clinton attended Yale University in New Haven, she said.

She also noted that Lieberman was the first senator from outside of the South to endorse Clinton in his 1992 presidential campaign.

Lieberman famously broke with Clinton in 1998 when he took the Senate floor to condemn the president's marital infidelity as "immoral" and denounce his "premeditated" deception. The speech was widely interpreted as Lieberman's stepping-stone to the Democrats' vice presidential nomination two years later.

Clinton, in a recent speech at the Aspen Institute conference, defended Lieberman and his staunch support for the war in Iraq. He questioned why antiwar Democrats are seeking to oust a fellow Democrat, saying that instead of seeking to retire Republicans they were pursuing "the nuttiest strategy I ever heard in my life."

You have to admire loyalty in someone, and Clinton is loyal to those who have been loyal to him. One point that I don't see discussed much about this story is that it points to a bit of a gulf between Clinton and his wife. Campaigning for Lieberman is a direct slap at the nutroots who are promoting Ned Lamont, and many other potential 2008 presidential candidates (like Gore and Kerry) have gone out of their way to appease that crowd, as has Hillary. The nutroots are sure to remember this when it comes time for Hillary to run for president. (In fact, they're already upset.)

Bill Clinton is awfully popular among rank-and-file Democrats, and I think his campaign trip to Lieberman's side could switch the "Joe-mentum" and push the primary back to Lieberman.