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August 09, 2006
Connecticut According To Me
Predictably, the pundits were out in full force today, one day after Joe Lieberman was rejected by the people of Connecticut and then decided that he was entitled to a Senate seat anyway. Here's my analysis of the Lamont's victory and its meaning.
1. Anti-incumbency was a major factor. Tuesday's results reflected anti-incumbency as much as anti-Lieberman sentiment. The Republican-fed "Democrats eating their young" theme was assigned early on, and it's all anyone wanted to talk about today; but there was something else in play: dissatisfaction with the status quo. Perhaps the biggest message yesterday wasn't that Democrats are unhappy with the war; it was that the public is sick of the way things have been run in the last couple of years, and they're in the mood to hold people accountable.
That's not what the Republicans and their lackeys in the media want you to hear. But it just might be the case.
In Michigan, for example, Republican incumbent Joe Schwartz lost to uber-conservative challenger Tim Walberg in the congressional primary in the state's 7th district. Walberg is a pastor who ran on a hard right, social conservative platform. Are we to believe that the voters of Grand Rapids, Michigan -- who have been sending moderate Republicans to Congress since the days that Gerald Ford represented the area -- suddenly tacked to the loony, dangerous right and embraced the Dobson/Robertson/Bauer agenda? Rejected a half-century's worth of their moderate belief system in favor of an extremist Christian agenda? Or rather, were the voters of Grand Rapids doing the same thing as Connecticut's voters were doing yesterday: sending a message? Telling us that they're not happy with how the country's been run lately?
Schwartz was endorsed by Bush, John McCain... even the NRA. If Michigan's Repubiican voters rejected that candidate as not right-wing enough, then whose party, exactly, is tacking to the extreme end of the spectrum?
You won't hear the conservative-controlled media talk about this... they'd rather bury Democratic chances and use Lamont's win as an excuse to marginalize the party -- just as the Republicans want them to. But in the deep dark places that conservatives don't like to talk about at parties, they might just realize that they're in serious spit.
2. Lieberman's loss was Lieberman's loss. Alarmists and apologists were all over the place mourning Lieberman's loss today as if he'd been the party standard-bearer who was suddenly and unforseeably rejected. The fact is, Lieberman had drifted away from the Democratic Party for years -- he couldn't even muster 10% of the vote in a New England state in the 2004 primaries and was forced out after New Hampshire. He'd been bedding with Bush for the last three years. And what you heard over and over when it was Connecticut voters and not Washington pundits who were talking was that Joe Lieberman had been perceived as placing himself over his constituency since at least 2000, when he simultaneously ran for Vice-President and Senator, refusing to relinquish his Senate seat while claiming to be dedicated to winning the national election.
Despite the Republican-fueled rush to depict this election within the paint-by-numbers lines of "Democrats moving too far left," the result may well have simply been the result of LIeberman's tone deaf-ness toward his own state. As Newsweek's Jonathan Darman wrote today,
[Lieberman said] "We’ve seen two presidents, President Clinton and now President Bush, who’ve been the targets of just the worst vituperation and I’d call it hatred from people in our country." Lieberman sounded, sincerely, like the mystified moderate, the man who longed for the old civility in the halls of Congress. But what came across most powerfully was his stunning indifference to the countless Democrats who are outraged about Bush’s policies. Lieberman didn't realize then, and still doesn't today, that to many mainstream Democrats, it is offensive to even mention their vaunted past president in the same sentence as the current incumbent.
If you represent Connecticut, and especially when you're campaigning as a Democrat, and you don't realize the depth and intensity of the hatred that most Democrats feel toward this adminsitration and towards George W Bush as an individual human being, then you clearly either haven't been paying attention or don't want to. Which is your prerogative. But then don't be surprised when the people hold you accountable.
3. Whatever damage is being done to the Democratic party is being done by Lieberman himself. Wow, did you hear all the whining and worrying we heard from Lieberman apologists today about the damage to the Democratic party that's been done? I'll agree with them on one point: there is damage being done to the party. But it's not Lamont or his supporters doing that damage; it's "I Just Want To Be In Office" Joe.
Tell me, what's more damning: a conservative Republican -- whose national party has lost face, credibility, and the will of the people over the last three years -- arguing that Lamont is a single-issue candidate whose supporters are dragging the party too far to the left? Or a "Democratic" (in name, anyway) Senator making the same argument as he refuses to accept the judgement of the people?
Joe Lieberman is doing more damage to Lamont and the national Democratic party than the RNC could ever dream of doing. Which some would argue was his plan all along, while others would say that Joe doesn't care who or what he tramples, just as long as he gets to be in office somewhere. Either way, it stinks like fetid cheese.
4. Ken Mehlman needs to shut the hell up. While campaigning in Ohio, Republican Party Chairman Ken Mehlman said the vote reflected "an unfortunate embrace of isolationism, defeatism and a 'blame America first' attitude by national Democratic leaders at a time when retreating from the world is particularly dangerous."
You know, I am sick and forkin' tired of being called un-American just because I do not mindlessly accept conservative thought and bleat my approval for everything they do. Really, really sick of it. (Anyone know if Kenny-boy Mehlman served in the military at all, or does he just like to shoot his mouth off about how much other Americans don't like America? I served, you little bitch-ass punk. Did you? If not, then shut the hell up about how much more you love America than me.)
First of all, Mehlman's an idiot, and a misleading and dissembling one at that. National Democratic leaders -- from Bill Clinton to Nancy Pelosi to Harry Reid to Barbara Boxer to Charles Schumer -- all supported Lieberman. The national party was trying desperately to help him hold on. So how can you say that the result reflects the attitude of "national Democratic leaders," you Newspeak-spewing bufffoon?
The conservo-media wants you to believe that the 'negative' tone of politics these days is all wild-eyed lefties hating on Bush. (Guess you're supposed to forget about how savagely they went after Clinton throughout his presidency.) But the truth is, they shouldn't be surprised. They started it. It's people like Mehlman, who automatically assigns "anti-America" motives to anyone who doesn't agree with him, who poisoned the tone of American politics.
Democrats have been demonized since the mid-80s by Limbaugh, Gingirch, DeLay, the Christian right, and other conservative leaders. or 20 years or more now, being a "liberal" has virutally been equated with being Benedict Arnold, OJ Simpson, the Rosenbergs, and Aldrich Ames all at once. 20 years of being called the enemy simply for believing differently engenders a lot of anger ... much of it justified. Republicans feigning shock and outrage at the tone of the national discourse is a joke; the only surprise is that it took Democrats and liberals this long to fight back, to fight ire with ire. I'm sorry, but I am in no mood to play nice with a sadistic group of schollyard bullies who've been calling me un-American for my entire adult life (proudly registed as a Democrat since 1986)... these are the guys who painted Max Cleland -- who lost three limbs in Vietnam serving his country -- as a coward, and had the nerve to attack John Kerry's service while their own leadership had either gone AWOL or never bothered to serve at all.
So Mehlman? I got two words for ya. You should ask Dick Cheney what they are.
5.Michael Moore needs to shut the hell up. Yawn... he opened his mouth again, and stupidity came out.
Virtiolic gadflies have their role and place; Newt Gingrich used to be one, and then one day he was Speaker. But the difference is, Gingrich focused on putting his party into power. Moore focuses on the same idiotic ideological purity that the extremist Christian right would insist upon for our nation. Lieberman deserved to lose, yes... but not merely for his support of the war. He was too close to Bush, and was too Republican to be a Democrat. (The nail in the coffin? My father, a staunch conservative with views opposite mine in almost every way, today on the phone bemoaned Lieberman's loss and called him "a straight shooter." If my dad likes him, there ain't nothin' Democratic about the man.)
Emptyheaded blathering, bleating and saber-rattling aimed inward is idiotic; if Moore were even capable of making good on his threats to go after every Democrat who supported the war, he'd succeed merely in snatching defeat from the jaws of victory in November. The public hates George W, Michael... they know he lied, they know he's utterly incompetent, and they are ready to reject him, his party, and his platform. So why would you piss into that wind? For what -- ideological purity?
At his best, Moore can be witty, satirical, and a devastatingly biting social critic. Farenheit 9/11 was a great piece of work. But he's begun to believe his own press clippings, and the ideologues who bleat their approval at his every word. And he's ceased being an asset. Now, he's just an ass.
