Joe Lieberman's camp is reportedly less than happy with columnist Robert Novak's return to print. As mentioned in an earlier post, Novak reported Wednesday that Lieberman, on the advice of one Republican friend, has warned John McCain not to choose him as his running mate for fear of causing division within the Republican Party and hurting the Arizona senator's chances for winning the presidency. Lieberman's people, however, are saying that report is untrue.
Politico's Jonathan Martin has a source he says has "stat[ed] categorically that the Connecticut senator has not contacted his Arizona colleague to say any such thing ... One person familiar with the situation said the Republican cited by Novak as having 'prevailed on Lieberman to tell McCain that a McCain-Lieberman ticket would be a disaster for all concerned' was the source for the column and appeared to be 'pushing an agenda.'"
Presumably, the agenda referred to in that quote is to make it difficult for McCain to pick Lieberman. Many Republicans would oppose such a ticket -- while Lieberman may have swung far to the right on foreign policy, on domestic policy he remains to the left of the Republican Party generally, especially on abortion rights.
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