But McCain-Lieberman, Thompson-Lieberman, Romney-Lieberman, Huckabee-Lieberman–those sound like winning tickets to us [bold mine-DL]. It’s true, given the behavior of the congressional Democrats, the GOP nominee might well win with a more conventional running mate. But why settle for a victory if you can have a realignment? ~Bill Kristol

This seems unhinged to me.  Realignment?  Because of Joe Lieberman?  In the context of a presidential election, realignment implies a landslide with 40+ states lining up behind a ticket, a dramatic, sudden shift in the balance of power from one party to another.  1932, 1968, 1980 are often given as the elections where major realignments occurred, which involved the building of broad electoral coalitions.  What Kristol proposes is that nominating Lieberman would create the conditions for such a massive victory for the Republicans, when the woes of the latter are closely tied to the foreign policy decisions that constitute the chief reason why Kristol admires Lieberman and thinks he should be a VP nominee.  In short, the very things that make Lieberman attractive to interventionists in the GOP are the things that make the rest of us want to run screaming from the room.  Adding Lieberman to a ticket that already included a candidate who blathers about “Islamofascism” or takes an ueber-hawkish line on Iran would be the closest thing to a deliberate act of self-destruction by a party that we would have ever seen.