According to TheHill.com, Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman is willing to play a starring role at the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to be held Sept. 1 - 4, 2008.  Lieberman, whose support for presumptive Republican Presidential nominee John McCain has been steadfast over the last few months, is ready to speak to the assembled delegates before a prime-time national audience, if RNC officials so desire.

“If Sen. McCain, who I support so strongly, asked me to do it, if he thinks it will help him, I will,” Lieberman said in a brief interview.

Sen. Lieberman faces the possibility of retribution from his Senate Democratic colleagues if he does, in fact, speak at the Republican National Convention - especially if GOP retirements and the poor generic GOP/DEM ballot spell significant gains for the Senate Democratic Caucus in November.  Here at home, Sen. Lieberman seems to already be a man liberated from the bonds of Party politics, having won his 2006 re-election with the support of moderate Democrats, unaffiliated voters, and many Republicans.

A Lieberman keynote address at the Republican National Convention wouldn’t be the first time that a Democratic Senator addressed GOP national delegates.  In 2004, Georgia Sen. Zell Miller gave a famous (or infamous, depending on your view) keynote address to the Convention.  The pendulum does swing both ways, as Republican Presidential namesake Ron Reagan addressed the Democratic National Convention in Boston the same year.

In other Convention news, they named the official blog of the 2008 Convention - Grand Ol’ Blog.  You can get regular updates on the status of the Convention via the handy new blog.

MSNBC’s First Read has a very interesting quote from Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman about Sen. Barack Obama.

NAPOLITANO: Hey Sen. Lieberman, you know Barack Obama, is he a Marxist as Bill Kristol says might be the case in today’s New York Times? Is he an elitist like your colleague Hillary Clinton says he is?

LIEBERMAN: Well, you know, I must say that’s a good question. I know him now for a little more than three years since he came into the Senate and he’s obviously very smart and he’s a good guy. I will tell ya that during this campaign, I’ve learned some things about him, about the kind of environment from which he came ideologically. And I wouldn’t…I’d hesitate to say he’s a Marxist, but he’s got some positions that are far to the left of me and I think mainstream America.

Not much you can add to that.

As the rain/sleet/snow continues to come down today, speculation is growing on the Internet about whom the presumptive Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain, will pick as his running mate for the fall campaign.  Blogger Rob Bluey has generated a list of 24 potential picks with some brief analysis. One of Connecticut’s leaders made it on the list:

Joe Lieberman: Picking McCain’s friend Joe Lieberman, an independent with strong foreign policy credentials, but who is weak everywhere else from a conservative point of view, would do even more damage to McCain with conservatives while burnishing his appeal to independents. Given how much trouble McCain is having with winning over conservatives, selecting Lieberman would be a particularly bad move, but you know, we are talking about “Maverick” John McCain here.

In the grand scheme of things that would absolutely inflame the Ned Lamont wing of the Democratic Party in Connecticut, putting Joe on the Republican ticket for Vice President would have to be near the top of the list, I would think.

Marc Ambinder of The Atlantic is reporting that Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman will travel to New Hampshire tomorrow to announce his endorsement of Arizona Senator John McCain for President.  Senator Lieberman has been much maligned by his Party for his hawkish views on the War in Iraq, but praised by many Republicans for his principled stand.

The move is, despite the initial shock value of it as a political event, rather predictable when viewed through the prism of recent history - Sen. McCain and Sen. Lieberman have been the nucleus of a very small team of Senators whose approach to the War in Iraq hasn’t been mangled by the shifting political winds.  While those vying for the opportunity to bear the Democratic standard in 2008 have steadily moved toward a more strident anti-war position, Lieberman has stood solidly for his principles.  Even the sting of losing the 2006 Democrat nomination for the U.S. Senate did not bow the Senator’s resolve.

At the same time, Senator John McCain has paid a heavy price for his stalwart commitment to the Iraq War, and his continued advocacy for additional troops and resources brought upon him the ire of the liberal media establishment early in the GOP nominating process.  Crucial early fundraising dollars stopped flowing toward McCain’s Presidential bid, forcing the campaign into a now infamous July purge from which his campaign never seemed to recover.

In the last few weeks though, almost imperceptibly on account of the much-hyped ‘Huckaboom’, Senator McCain’s mojo seems to be coming back.  The New Hampshire Union Leader, a key conservative endorsement in New Hampshire endorsed the Arizonan’s bid two weeks ago.  The Des Moines Register, Iowa’s most influential daily, also saw fit to endorse Sen. McCain today despite McCain’s principled stand against ethanol subsidies and lackluster effort in the Hawkeye State.

Together, Senators Lieberman and McCain - whose destinies both seemed to peak in the 2000 Presidential election cycle, seem to have bound themselves together in the most unlikely of alliances in hopes that these men of principle, though perhaps past their prime, may yet rally the nation together in pursuit of the type of leadership that America deserves.