STRANGE BEDFELLOWS-- REPUBLICANS FOR LIEBERMAN (NOT SO STRANGE); PROGRESSIVES FOR CASEY (VERY STRANGE)

I love MoveOn.org/ It's an organization I've supported and contributed to and it's an organization I take seriously. When they raised the anti-Lieberman banner a few months ago I responded at once and when Ned Lamont jumped into that race last week I was one of the first bloggers to interview him, write a story on him and set up an ACT BLUE page to raise money for him. It doesn't surprise me one bit to have learned today that 2 big-time Republican hacks and lobbyists, Craig Fuller and H.P. Goldfield, hosted a fund-raising dinner for Lieberman a couple nights ago at Goldfield's Washington home, a home that is often used to raise money for people named Bush. Nor does it surprise me that most of the dinner's host committee were, in fact, lobbyists.

But what did surprise me was when my pal Matt from Pomboville pointed out which reactionary Democrat MoveOn.org has endorsed and is actively raising money for. Right now MoveOn has 6 people up on their 2006 Endorsed page. I was surprised enough to find neither Ciro Rodriguez nor Francine Busby, two progressives with special elections coming right up. But then I was appalled at what I did see up: Bob Casey a somewhat reactionary Democrat who gratuitously announced he would have not only been the 20th Democrat to have voted for the cloture bill Move On so vigorously opposed, but that he also would have voted to confirm Alito! While MoveOn is urging us to help put an end to the disgraceful political career of Joe Lieberman-- a wonderful goal-- they are also complicit in creating the next Senator Lieberman. Now, you may say, we must get rid of Rick Santorum (R-Opus Dei)-- I certainly do-- and that even if Casey is a reactionary Democrat, he's still a Democrat. (Yawn.) But that's an argument for after the primary, not an argument to prematurely endorse a miserable candidate when progressives have a potentially great candidate, Chuck Pennacchio, who we should be doing all we can to bolster in the face of heavy-handed DSCC interference (whose goal is to make a Casey v Santorum race look inevitable).

MoveOn went out of its way to make sure its members knew how crucial the Alito votes were. (Aside from Casey, they also endorse both Sherrod Brown and Paul Hackett of Ohio, the correct thing to do in my eyes too; Nick Lampson, a Democrat poised to help with some well-deserved DeLay petard hoistin' down in Texas; and two cloture supporting senators, Robert Byrd and Bill Nelson. How did they leave out Ben?) I'll be examining everything that comes my way from MoveOn.org a lot more carefully from now on.