Flip Mode Squad

I talked about the possibility of this happening back last month given Charlie Crist's independent bid for Senate in Florida, but if the Republicans get close enough in the Senate and the Dems only have 49 seats, what will Crist and Lieberman do?  Yggy runs the simulation:

It occurred to me today that there’s at least some chance that in January of 2011 the US Senate will have 49 Democrats, Joe Lieberman, Charlie Crist, and 49 Republicans. Which is to say that Lieberman & Crist could form a two-man caucus, hold the balance of power, and drive organization of the Senate. Crist could leapfrog seniority and chair a committee. And if it looked like that might happen, mightn’t it make sense for Northeastern moderate Republicans (Snowe, Collins, Brown, Castle) and Southern moderate Democrats (Landrieu, Pryor, Hagan) to join their rebellion against the two party system? After all, Duverger’s Law predicts that we should only have two parties in any given place but it might make sense for those to be different parties in the different regions. 

It's possible.  A new "Gang of Ten" or whatever would end up completely controlling the Senate.  Crist and Lieberman, especially, would end up controlling everything.  Whoever made them the best deal would get control of the Senate.  It would be a madhouse...and nothing would get passed, period.

That would suit the Republicans just fine, I'm thinking.