I saw Joe Lieberman on "Meet the Press" Sunday, and the TV show listed him as "Joe Lieberman, I/D-Conn."
That's right — I/D, for independent Democrat. He won the election as an independent but will caucus with the Democrats.
From the
transcript:
Sen. Lieberman: I was elected as an independent, I was elected, I believe, because I said to my constituents in Connecticut, “I’m, I’m as fed up with the partisanship in Washington as you are. I promise you I will put progress and, and patriotism ahead of partisanship and polarization.” So I’m going to—I am now an Independent Democrat, capital I, capital D. Matter of fact, the secretary of the Senate called my office and asked, “How do you want to be identified” and, and that’s it. Independent Democrat.
MR. RUSSERT: So you’ll be Senator Joe Lieberman, I/D, Connecticut.
SEN. LIEBERMAN: Yeah, we checked with history and actually in the late ‘70s Senator Harry Byrd of Virginia listed himself as an Independent Democrat. You got to go back to the mid-19th century to find the last Independent Democrat.
So is the slash appropriate? A hyphen might seem to make more sense, but it looks awkward: I-D-Conn. Andy Bechtel at
The Editor's Desk is suggesting "ID" with no separating punctuation.
Thoughts?
Labels: style