Dumb State Laws Kept Joe Lieberman From Running As Republican VP Nominee

Here is a Hot Scoop via our nation's secret spy network, CSPAN: one of the main guys from John McCain's VP vetting committee spilled salacious details on how and why Joe Lieberman did not get to be John McCain's Sarah Palin.

Remember when Joe Lieberman gave his speech at the Republican National Convention, and it was supposed to be so awesome because here was a Democrat "speaking truth to power" or whatever but then it turned out that Republicans despised him as much as Democrats did? Your editor was nursing a delicious Boddington's at the Liffey and watching the television screens as Lieberman gummed his way through his "Barack Obama is a fine young man" speech and no joke, you could feel theicy chillemanating from the convention floor a block away.

So, number one, John McCain could not make Lieberman his running mate because he and Lindsey Graham were the only two Republicans on the planet who actually liked Vinegar Joe.

But number two, according to A.B. Culvahouse, was the fact that many states wouldn't allow it.

"Five states have sore loser statutes...[making] it very difficult for someone who's not a member of the Republcian party to become the vice presidential nominee if they only switch parties to become a Republican shortly before the convention,' Culvahouse said in public remarks at the Republican National Lawyers Association annual meeting aired on C-SPAN.

Institutional antisemitism is just so ugly.

Rather than risk a Supreme Court case over Lieberman's eligibility to run as VP, McCain instead went with the unknown hillbilly glamazon Sarah Palin and, as we all remember so fondly, got elected in a landslide.

 Why McCain-Lieberman wasn't an option (legally speaking) [Jonathan Martin on Ben Smith's Blog]