On Sunday night, over 500 protestors gathered in front of Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman's Stamford home and held a candlelight vigil to convince the Senator to rescind his promise to join the Republican filibuster of any healthcare proposals including the "public option."  Among the protestors were leaders of Stamford's Unitarian, Baptist, Muslim, and Jewish faiths, as well as the enterprising Mayor of Stamford, Dan Malloy, who recently announced he is running for Governor.

According to David Gibson at Politics Daily:

Rabbi Ron Fish of Congregation Beth El in Norwalk said he normally avoids political discussions but said Lieberman's stand against health care reform left him no choice.

"I feel passionately about the subject of health care," he explained. "I've avoided entering too closely into the conversation because I fear that when we clergy speak in political terms, we quite often do a disservice to politics and religion. But when Senator Lieberman spoke about his conscience impelling him to stop even a vote on this . . . crucial instance of hope, my conscience could not allow me to be silent."

"The moral imperative for our time is clear. Anyone whose guide in public policy is conscience, anyone who argues that faith and religious traditions should direct our actions, such a person must stand for universal health care in America," Fish said, reading from a letter signed by more than 70 other clergy. "It happens we are all also citizens of Connecticut. That fact leads us to ask you, Senator Lieberman, what is it that you stand for?"

Indeed, what does Senator Lieberman stand for?  Lieberman has been in the national spotlight for much of his Senate career, but especially recently for his staunch support of the Iraq War and 2006 break with Democrats.  In 2006, neophyte Ned Lamont defeated Lieberman in the Connecticut Senatorial Democratic Primary.  Instead of being a good Democrat and conceding to Lamont, Lieberman ran as an independent and captured a cross-section of moderates to defeat Lamont and regain his seat in the Senate.  Since then, he has generally allied with Democrats, but supported John McCain's bid for President in 2008 - allegedly being considered for McCain's running mate - and spoke at the Republican National Convention in favor of McCain that same year.  Lieberman describes his experience thus far as an independent as "liberating." 

Recently, Lieberman has pledged to ally himself with Senate Republicans and vote against cloture on the recently passed House healthcare bill.  Senate Democrats need sixty votes to block a filibuster, and, if Lieberman follows through on his pledge to ally with Republicans, it will leave them one vote short.  Lieberman describes his position in a recent interview with Chris Wallace: 

Well, there’s some good things in the House-passed plan. I think we ought to do health care reform this year to deal with the two great problems that President Obama and others have talked about. There are unsustainable continuing increases in the cost of health care; we’ve got to stop that. And there are millions of Americans who don’t have health insurance.

But I’m afraid our colleagues in the House added a lot onto that that subtract from the genuine purposes of health care reform, and one was to create a public option plan. A public option plan is unnecessary. It has been put forward, I’m convinced, by people who really want the government to take over all of health insurance. They’ve got a right to do that; I think that would be wrong.

But worse than that, we have a problem even greater than the health insurance problems, and that is a debt — $12 trillion today, projected to be $21 trillion in 10 years.

Studies from the Congressional Budget Office and Medpac suggest the House-passed bill would actually save the government money starting next year, so, either Lieberman doesn't believe the studies or has other reasons for opposing the "public option" besides cost.  Without going into too much detail, there are plenty of valid arguments against the public option as envisioned by Harry Reid.  It is not as open-and-shut as many pundits on the left might suggest.  The current bill barely passed the Democratic-controlled House by 220-215, and only one Republican, Joseph Cao (R-LA), supported it.  Both sides are being monolithic. 

Many in the press speculate that Lieberman's choice to ally with Republicans on healthcare is effective political suicide, or liken his decision to the actions of Olympia Snowe or Zell Miller.  There is speculation that Lieberman is being paid off by insurance companies and that he'll lose his fragile chairmanship of the Homeland Security Committee, which he was barely allowed to keep by a Democratic-controlled Senate after his support for McCain in 2008.  It seems that Lieberman's insubordination is costing him both crucial support from the establishment and from voters.  According to Politico:

Richard Blumenthal, (Connecticut) attorney general, said he’s getting more encouragement from Democrats in Connecticut to consider a challenge to Lieberman in 2012. A February Quinnipiac poll found that Blumenthal would beat Lieberman by a 28-point margin. 

A September Research 2000 poll found that Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell would defeat both Blumenthal and Lieberman in a potential three-way 2012 matchup; the same poll found that 68 percent of the state’s voters support the public option.

It seems Senator Lieberman is in dire straits, yet I believe his position is strong.  As an independent, Lieberman can broker an agreement between both sides in the Senate and allow both monolithic Democrats and monolithic Republicans to save face, by, for example, compromising on the triggers or adding tort reform - a Republican cause - to the Senate healthcare bill.  While it will be a tremendous sacrifice for Democrats, who have already sacrificed much of their original vision, the public option will most likely have to be neutered in order to pass the senate.  If Lieberman paints himself in the process not as a force of retardation, but as a force of compromise, it will endear him to his moderate base and give him the flexibility to continue running as an independent.  Otherwise, Lieberman's use of his position as the sixtieth member of the Democratic Caucus looks like political muscle-flexing and the tyranny of Democracy: it shows both Republicans and Democrats how important he is.  Like Lieberman or not, someone with an independent mind is good for this country.  Healthcare costs Americans 2.2 trillion dollars annually and is growing.  While the public option as conceived by Harry Reid would possibly end this trend, it would definitely polarize the country.  Perhaps, for the time being, it would make sense to agree to just patch the holes in the hull before we escape the storm of two wars and a recession.  We can wait to make full repairs once we've found a safe harbor.