Open Thread: Left of Center Edition

For example, it seems that Joe Lieberman is losing his Connecticut base. According to a poll by Quinnipiac.

Sen. Joseph Lieberman gets a 45 - 43 percent approval, down from 52 - 35 percent March 27 and his lowest score ever. "Sen. Lieberman's approval rating has dropped below 50 percent for the first time in 14 years of polling, with nearly two-thirds of Democrats giving him low marks, probably because he is campaigning for Sen. John McCain," Dr. Schwartz said.

Whereas the attempt to smear Sen. Dodd has so far not succeeded signficantly, although his approval rate has fallen a bit.

Connecticut voters approve 51 - 34 percent of the job Sen. Christopher Dodd is doing, his lowest net approval rating ever, with a higher disapproval than his 51 - 28 percent score March 27. And 51 percent say they "definitely" or "probably" will vote to reelect him, while 39 percent say they "probably" or "definitely" won't vote for him.

Yes, Obama is courting the center which worry some, but IMO he needs to do just that in order to win this election. : : : I was really interested in an article on by Juliana Barbassa about Obama's sister, Obama's Sister Becomes Asian American-Surrogate. We like to use a short hand, Asian voters, Latinos, Blacks, but face it folks, we are becoming a really mixed-race country. Of course we all know that most so-called "blacks" are inter-racial as are Latinos who do not suffer from race prejudice to the extent that it has afflicted the U.S. And so on. Maya Soetoro-Ng and Obama share the same mother but her father was Indonesian and her husband is a Chinese-Canadian. To me the Obama family is emblematic of a profound change taking place in America, from the country I grew up in. There is not way that Obama as president will be another version of the same-old same old. How can it? This country is facing a profound shakeup as the economic crisis deepens. His presidency like that of Lincoln and Roosevelt comes at a point of national crisis and I see no reason not to hope that he will be rise to the occasion with a broad base of popular support to sustain him as he takes on the enormous problems facing the next president. : : : And lately I have been meeting Obama staffers and interns, between 200 and 300 of whom have been sent to Virginia to help local volunteers. They are really something else. They are not swooning cultists but hard working kids with impressive personal stories. Kids who have been involved with community work before they came anywhere near the campaign and who are deeply connected to social issues such as universal health care, access to affordable education, and transforming the situation of kids born into ghettoes ...