Fasten your seat belts and put on your safety helmets. We’re all in for a bumpy political ride….
The defeat of Connecticut Joe Lieberman at the hands of anti-war challenger Ned Lamont — and at the keyboards of Democratic left bloggers and activists who worked for Lamont — is bound to have a series of political implications. And some of them quickly.
In coming days analysts in publications, on radio, television and weblogs will list a batch of them and some may be contradictory.
But take all analyses (even what follows here) with a huge chunk of salt. Remember that seven months ago Lamont was said to not have a chance. Those articles, pronouncements and blog posts won’t be quoted today.
The conventional wisdom has now been been rendered inoperative.
Here are a few thoughts:
- Democratic voters in Connecticut sent the Democratic party establishment, President George Bush and — to be sure — Joe Lieberman a strong and angry message. They want a more assertive brand of partisanship. And they also indicated that bipartisanship has a limit: it’s unacceptable if it’s perceived to be cooperating with and “enabling” the political enemy or bashing your own side. Bush’s kissing Lieberman was the kiss of death among many Democratic voters, as was Lieberman’s lecture to Democrats about the need to support the Commander in Chief. Problem: this Commander in chief was perceived to be mega-partisan.
- Joe Lieberman is finished as a national Democratic political candidate. The trend in the party is not towards his approach. His decision to run as an independent will forever make him persona non grata with a big chunk of the Democratic party.
- Don’t count Joe Lieberman out. He did not lose by a landslide. If he runs as an independent and get substantial independent and Republican support he has a good chance of winning….if last night’s vote tallies hold. Some polls had suggested Lieberman is more popular among Republicans than Democrats .
- Lamont must broaden his appeal if he wants to win in the general election. He can’t win if he doesn’t expand his support beyond the segments of his party that supported him, anti-war Democrats and Democrats whose prime priority was to send Bush a strong message.
- The Democratic party leadership will be under pressure to support Lamont. If they don’t, their nonsupport will be painted as writing off an entire segment of the party.
- Republicans may want Lieberman in the general election but will they ignore from their own candidate — who may agree with them on many more issues than Lieberman does? Will they be comfortable with Lieberman’s assertion that he would be in Congress as an independent but caucus with the Democrats? And will Lieberman continue to say that if Lamont and Democrats who support him conduct a bare-knuckles campaign against him?
- Lieberman’s defeat (in the count released at this writing) is not by a landslide. So there may be uneasiness among many Democratic politicos on the war issue and how to handle the party’s increasingly assertive left. But it may not quite be Fear and Trembling…but perhaps a bit of shock and awe, since 7 months ago Lamont was a long shot.
- The “netroots” — dubbed the “nutroots” by some conservative bloggers — cannot be dismissed as a laughing matter today. The liberal blogs were credited with putting Howard Dean on the political map in 2004 but that feat seemed to lack a major component: turning Internet financial, moral and organizational support into a winning campaign. Dean flamed out as well as screamed out in the primaries. THIS time, there was a win. So it is no longer accurate to say these blogs raise money and only emit political hot air. A candidate they supported and worked for won. Look for the power and influence of these blogs to INCREASE within the Democratic party now.
- A key unanswered (and vital) question is how many Democrats who don’t agree with Lamont are turned off and feel read out of the Democratic party. Is Lieberman’s defeat and Lamont’s victory a harbinger of a new direction for the Democratic party with many parts of the party on the same page — or the beginning of a self-defeating split that will cause the Democrats to grab defeat from the jaws of victory in November? People are split on this question; and their answer usually gives an indicator of who they wanted to win in this race.
TIME has a piece “The Unmaking of a Senator: How Bloggers Pulled It Off” that reads in part:
As much as it was a repudiation of his support for the Iraq War, Joe Lieberman’s loss Tuesday in the Senate primary also signaled the ascendancy of a legitimate new power center in the Democratic party, the Netroots.
The much-hyped Internet activists of the Howard Dean presidential campaign, liberal blogs like Daily Kos and activist groups like MoveOn.org had generated lots of buzz, but few results at the ballot box until now. But in Tuesday’s Senate Democratic primary in Connecticut, the bloggers didn’t just get a win, but a victory no one could have expected even four months ago. Joe Lieberman wasn’t just a three-term Connecticut Senator, he was only a few thousand votes from being the vice-president in a Democratic administration six years ago. And despite almost the entire Democratic establishment supporting his run against a virtually unknown businessman named Ned Lamont, including former President Clinton campaigning for him in Connecticut, the bloggers and Connecticut voters have for all intents and purposes kicked Joe Lieberman out of the Democratic Party.
Even Lamont admitted that while he decided to enter the race himself, the blogs had long been hoping someone in Connecticut would take on Lieberman, and their support was crucial early in getting the word of his candidacy out. Markos Moulitas of Daily Kos appeared in one of his early ads, former blogger and Internet organizer Tim Tagaris left his job at the Democratic National Committee to work on Lamont’s campaign and bloggers from the site mydd.com headed up to Connecticut over the last several days to call voters and encourage them to support Lamont. And MoveOn.org strongly supported Lamont despite pleas from Democratic leaders not to.
Washington insiders from both parties have long been muttering that George W Bush’s Republican party is going to lose ground in elections in November.
The only question, they say, is how much ground. Enough to lose control of one or both houses of Congress?
They may have had the beginnings of an answer on Tuesday night, but the scalp that was claimed was not Republican – it was Democrat Joe Lieberman.
His support for the Iraq war was a major factor in his loss, experts say.
Mr Lieberman’s opponent, political novice Ned Lamont – who was unknown six months ago – campaigned hard on an anti-war platform and became the first man in decades to beat an incumbent senator in a primary race.
Although Mr Lamont’s margin of victory was narrow, this was a shock loss for the Connecticut centrist who ran for vice-president only six years ago.
The Washington Post’s analysis notes that Lamont avoided some of hte mistakes of Dean’s Internet-supported campaign:
Almost no one saw it coming.
Six months ago, Ned Lamont’s name recognition was, within the margin of error, zero. He made campaign fliers on a copy machine. In a race against a Democratic senator with a national reputation, the political novice had two main things in his favor: substantial personal wealth and a potent issue.
From Day One, the man who became Connecticut’s Democratic nominee for the Senate on Tuesday stuck to a simple message: The war in Iraq was wrong and Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman was wrong to continue supporting it. But while Lamont’s success has been widely attributed to the rising power of the antiwar movement and liberal Internet bloggers, the 52-year-old upstart from Greenwich became a political giant-killer by blending both new- and old-style politics. He tapped the Net roots to promote his cause — but the grass roots to win over voters.
With its strong Internet presence and gung-ho supporters, Lamont’s campaign soon came to resemble Howard Dean’s bid for the Democratic presidential nomination two years ago. But there are key differences. Despite the national implications of Lamont’s candidacy, his campaign retained a distinctly local flavor, staffed by veteran state operatives and a homegrown volunteer corps. As the hype grew, the campaign stuck to the basics. It focused on building a file of likely voters, organizing a turnout effort and circulating Lamont at events, including small gatherings in living rooms.
In the general campaign Lamont’s money will come in handy but he needs more than just one potent issue. The conventional wisdom probably is that Lieberman will win the general election since he can get GOP and independent voters.
But we all know about totally trusting the conventional wisdom today, don’t we?
Read our co-blogger Michael Stickings’s take on the vote HERE.
THIS STORY HAS GENERATED MUCH COMMENT ON WEBLOGS. HERE IS A CROSS SECTION OF POLITICALLY DIVERSE OPINION ON THE PRIMARY OUTCOME (These are EXCERPTS so please go to these links and read the entire posts):
—Daily Kos notes Democratic bigwigs are already positioning themselves to align themselves with Lamont’s campaign. Among them: Hillary Clinton.
—Glenn Reynolds aka InstaPundit has a roundup. He also points to the Time Magazine piece linked above that says the Netroots have come of age and writes:“I think that’s right. The big question now is, can they win a general election the same way.”
—Andrew Sullivan:
Hawkish Democrats, like Clinton, have managed to maintain support for the war against Islamist terror, while criticizing the president’s staggering ineptness. Lieberman seemed unable to do this. He appeared more interested in becoming Rumsfeld’s successor than in getting re-elected in blue-state Connecticut. And it’s worth recalling: many Republicans have been more critical of the Bush administration’s war decisions than Lieberman. Lieberman is to George Will’s and Bill Buckley’s and Chuck Hagel’s and Bill Kristol’s right on this. His position that any criticism of a president is inappropriate in wartime is also simply Hewittian in its proneness. At least that’s my instant response to his political demise as a Democrat. I’m not crying any tears. Do you know anyone who is?
—The Hotline says Senator Chris Dodd has been asked by Democratic elites to try to get Lieberman to drop his independent bid. (Tip from Kos above).
—Flopping Aces:”It was a good night tonight electionwise. Ned Lamont beat Lieberman, one of the last sane Democrats in Congress, which will make it that much more easier for the Republicans to keep power in both houses…..I find it quite humorous how these kooks don’t see the damage they are doing to their party. Can anyone say McGovern?”
—Thomasfortenberry:”Old Joe has declared himself independent now that he’s lost (so much for party loyalty, eight?) and still running for reelection…Sometimes, like with viruses and vampires, terrible things keep coming back. As a friend of mine is fond of saying, I think now is the time to put a stake in its heart. Maybe break of the tip. Just to be sure nothing rises from the grave.”
—Ezra Klein:”If this gets spun in the next few days as a microscopic margin so infinitesimal as to be mere statistical error, try and keep in mind the towering mandate the media agreed Bush had after his three — not four — percent win over Kerry. Lamont beat that spread by a point. I’d love, in fact, to see if Lieberman made any comments about the president’s mandate in the days directly following the 2004 election. If he bought into the hype then…”
—Ed Morrisey:
The race finished much closer than anyone expected. Lieberman certainly didn’t get his votes from the Left, and a general election promises a more moderate electorate for a re-election bid. In fact, it would not surprise me at all if the tenor of the campaign over the last few days didn’t convince Lieberman to fight Lamont all the way to November, regardless of the outcome of this race.
As I posted earlier, this is the nightmare scenario for the Democrats. An outright Lieberman victory or a real butt-kicking by Lamont would have settled Connecticut, allowing the party and the media to focus on other, more important races. No one seriously thinks that Alan Schlesinger will win Lieberman’s seat for the GOP in November, after all, and Democratic energy will get wasted in a three-way race. Yet that’s exactly what Democrats face, and the media will be only too happy to follow this race and the split it will generate in the ranks of party leadership and big-money donors.
The earthquake shook about 11:15pm Eastern time — tsunami warnings are up for the AM. Our bet is that all the Ds in office will be running to make Ned their new best friend — with the excuse that they had to back the convention nominee, but they really loved Ned all along, and maybe he can immunize them on the war. Word on the street is — is there a prominent D who would even be seen with Lieberman now? Too late for him to become R candidate, but if the Rs can kick their candidate, Schlesinger, they can cross-endorse Lieberman, and he would be on the line with a very popular incumbent R governor.
No matter how good and decent a human being Lieberman may be, he is still a lefty and I certainly don’t think a win for Lieberman would be anything for Republicans to celebrate. But Lamont’s win is reason enough for us to be happy. There is no better way to define where the Democrats stand on issues of national defense and security than to have a whole bunch of Democratic presidential wannabes like Hillary Clinton line up to support this leftist fringe wacko as she said she would if he won. If I were hippie-dippy-lefty Lamont, I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for Hillary’s enthusiastic support. We all know a Clinton’s word isn’t exactly as good as gold. In fact, a Clinton’s word is about as good as a pile of stinky brown stuff that is a byproduct of digestion.
Rick Jacobs in The Huffington Post:
Joe Lieberman has every right to run as independent. Those are the rules. And we as donors and grassroots leaders and patriots have every right to say to any and all Democrats, “you will support the nominee. If you do not, do not ever again ask for a dime for the DSCC or the DCCC or the DNC or for yourself. We cannot give money to institutions that carry the name Democrat but act as oligarchs.�
This race is not just about Connecticut. It is about every Democrat this year standing up and demanding change, demanding leadership. This race is not just about the war, it is about believing again in an America that “can do.� Nancy Reagan had it half right. To the club of the elite, just say no. To the Democrats who are truly democrats, proudly and defiantly say yes.
—A Blog For All:”Todays craziness is only the latest in the most vile campaign I’ve seen in a long time. Lamont backers have portrayed Lieberman in blackface, had him engaging in sexual acts, and engaged in all kinds of nastiness, including antisemitic rantings. That’s who backs Lamont, and if you’re worried about the future of Democrats in Connecticut, you’ve got real reason to be.”
—Americablog’s John Aravosis has a detailed post that asks Democrats to being doing certain things to battle Lieberman:”
He is a disloyal Republican partisan. He now openly defies the will of the Democratic voters, and would rather risk our party’s future, our chance to take back the Congress in the fall, in order to coddle his increasingly-conservative ego. Fine, Lieberman wants a fight with Democrats, he’s got one…”
—Riehl World View:
To tell the truth, I only had one real worry about Lieberman, that if he lost he wouldn’t run as an Independent. He made the announcement tonight – he’s running. As far as I’m concerned that’s potentially the best scenario given that CT is such a Liberal state.
The Dem base threw Lieberman out of the party. If he wins the general election over Lamont – not a given, but very possible, that demonstrates how out of touch the Democrat base is with the population as a whole. I’ve also always found Lieberman to be a principled guy. So, I’m pleased to see him still in the game.
—Ron Beasley urges readers to “let the DC Democrats know they will be punished if they support Lieberman and don’t support Lamont.”
—The Talk Arena:”The Democrats have melted down. The only real silver lining here is that Princess Cyn in GA got SPANKED. Lieberman lost, but he’ll win the general election if he chooses to run that way. Will be caucus with the Dem’s ? With the slew that said “we’ll support ya, but we choose party over peopleâ€?. Doesn’t that say something about these people ?”
—Firedoglake:”We’re gonna bring the fight to Joe. In the mean time, here’s what YOU can do. Go here and write to Harry Reid. Now that Joe isn’t a Democrat, he needs to be stripped of all his committee memberships. And remember that the Democratic party has to get behind the winner of the Democratic primary.”
—Outside the Beltway’s Greg Tinti on Lieberman’s concession speech:”I thought it was pretty good but, then again, I am a wingnut. It does, however, certainly foreshadow Lieberman’s upcoming strategy to position himself as the guy that will represent all of Connecticut rather than just left-wing Democrats.”
—My DD’s Matt Stoller (who is in CT):
Joe Lieberman is disappointed he lost. Apparently it’s bad for America. Senior Republicans are considering supporting Lieberman financially. Here’s the thing, though. Lieberman can’t concede at this point, or his support will completely melt away. Over the next few days, he’ll be getting a sense of just who is moving to Lamont, and that might get him to reconsider his decision. He’s incredibly angry, and it’s quite possible that he’ll essentially run as a Republican.
—The Baltimore Reporter:”And the Democratic party has just warped into the anti-war party. This also means there is no room for moderation inside the Democratic party, or any other opinion except the radical left. Free speech just died guys, because if you don’t stick with the message of surrender, appeasement, and defeat, Move-On and the other America haters will drive you out. Any working with the other side of the aisle is gone too….Defeat is now the mantra of the Democratic party. And if we follow it, we will one day loose our country.”
—The Heretik:“All the wankers who are calling for saving a bipartisan Lieberman from Lefty McCarthy and the Losers have locked real Democrats out of any discussion of issues foreign and domestic for the last six years. Now that there is a whisper that Bush may be wrong on um everything and Lieberman wrong on so many things that count, we find again the people who might win are actually the losers. (We are told so.) They have always been so. And they always will be. (We are told so.)”
—Dean Esmay:
The hatebloggers are ecstatic tonight: Joe Lieberman has narrowly lost to their pet poodle, Ned Lamont. It’s fascinating to watch, as in their incoherent, spitting hatred, they’ve managed a win for a guy who even today cannot tell you what his exact position is on Iraq except that he’s “anti-war.” The man has no other clear positions on anything. But hey, at least he’s a multimillionaire.
My suspicion is that Joe’s independent run for his seat will succeed, simply because Lamont’s victory is so narrow and because sane Democrats aren’t even paying attention yet–but will come November.
Joe running as an independent may pick up some GOP support.. Sounds fitting, but it won’t fly. This is simply the best example of sour grapes I’ve ever witnessed from a grown man. Lieberman just can’t swallow his pride. He’s too egotistical to admit when he’s wrong. It’s just plain stubbornness. Remind you of anyone?
So what is he going to do? Push on, even though the Democratic primary voters didn’t want him to represent them. He’s turning his back on the election outcome and the way we choose our representatives. What does Joe think he knows that the voters don’t? This is how he got in this mess in the first place.
—Red State has a long, detailed post. A small part of it 4 U:
Apart from Ned Lamont, the big winner tonight was John McCain. Although he is more of a conservative than people give him credit for, his maverick personality and high-profile forays towards the land of political moderation will allow him to crowd the center in his Presidential run should he win the Republican nomination. At the same time, if Lieberman Democrats find themselves drummed out of their own party, they will gravitate towards McCain. Meanwhile, if conservatives and right-of-center libertarians who believe in American engagement in international affairs see the Democratic Party drift towards the Left, they won’t care about their past serious disagreements with McCain over various issues and will latch on to his candidacy as the only way to keep the Republic safe from what they perceive as the deleterious foreign policy platform of the Lamont crowd…
Basically, this whole dynamic resembles nothing more than the ostracism suffered by the Scoop Jackson Democrats in the 1970’s. That ostracism brought about the Reagan Democrats and the leader who lent his name to their demographic. A victory by Senator Lieberman as an Independent in the general election will do little to stop this dynamic from playing itself out. At the end of the day, movement Democrats have told the Lieberman Democrats that the latter are no longer welcome at the table. The Lieberman Democrats cannot be expected to take this lying down, and they won’t. The result of this clash will likely look hauntingly similar to the clash over the Scoop Jackson Democrats in the 1970’s. In politics, there is rarely anything new under the sun, after all.
—The Left Coaster’s Duckman:”Lieberman decried the excessive partisanship that Ned Lamont will bring to DC if he wins in November, that’s why he, Joe Lieberman, is going to attack Lamont relentlessly from now til then. As if the Democrats will welcome him with open arms for attacking the Democrats own nominee.”
—Say Anything:
From a purely political standpoing, Lieberman was the Democrats’ last hope for relevance in the post-9/11 world. As horrified conservative watch their Republicans approve of massive new entitlements (prescription drugs) and propose big hikes the minimum wage in an election year, the only thing keeping November 2006 from being an out-and-out bloodbath for the right is the insistence by Democrats to move their party ever further to the left on national security. If the idea of putting Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid in charge of the war on terror didn’t make a large cross-section of Americans want to hide in their basements and cry the Republicans would be in some serious hot water. As it stands now – breathless prognosticating from talking heads aside – the worst the GOP can hope for is losing a couple of seats in the House/Senate.
—Tom Watson has a must read post. Here’s just the intro:
Let me get this straight. More than 2,500 American troops lay dead in a lost war for a country that never was and is now embroiled in a civil war to decide which fanatics keep which parts of which cities. A Democratic Senator leads the charge for that war, embraces a failed Republican President, defends its failure on FoxNews and elsewhere, provides political cover, wins the support of the Neo-Con press, and inspires the College Republicans to campaign for him. But Ned Lamont’s wrestling match with Joe Lieberman today in Connecticut is about an extremist wing of the party cleansing a “moderate” from its midst.
When it comes it U.S. foreign policy, Joe Lieberman is as moderate as William Kristol and Anne Coulter. He’s a radical right-winger, hard-core extremist/interventionist neo-conservative – and if the likes of fraidy-cat Lanny Davis and formerly progressive publisher Martin Peretz don’t like that vicious name-calling from this lefty blogger, too damned bad.
—GOP Bloggers’ Mark Noonan:”So much for 2006 – for the future, it looks even bleaker for the Democrats. Their Party is now divided – certainly 85% or more of Democrats don’t like President Bush, but President Bush won’t be on the ballot in the future. In order to win, Democrats will have to come up with a unified message – the vote in Connecticut today indicates that this is an impossible task. The Democrats disagree on the future of their Party, and with the left of the Party taking ever more extreme positions, no agreement on such a future is possible.”
—The Peking Duck:
I used to admire and respect Joe Lieberman, but I no longer can. I gave up on him as I watched the televised Abu Ghraib hearings two years ago and saw him bend over backwards to write off the abuse and torture at American hands as no big deal. Well, it was a big deal. And those who complain that the Iraq War is “the only reason” Lieberman’s party abandoned him today had better understand that the Iraq War is the defining event of our times, right up there with September 11, only far more awful in terms of lives lost and long-term costs for our nation.
I’ve never seen anything quite like the beating “liberal bloggers” took this week from voices in the mainstream media for attacking Lieberman. I’m sorry, but Lieberman let us down and cozied up to the worst president ever. This was his choice. I had no patience for some of the sillier expressions of our disgust with Lieberman – the blackface, the unflattering PhotoShopping, the merciless taunting, the unnecessarily vulgar comments on some of the liberal blogs (though God knows these pale beside what LGF commenters wrote about John Kerry in 2004). But if ever there was a reason or a time to lose one’s temper and blast a politician, this was it. Staying the course in Iraq equals death.
—Tammy Bruce:”Even after years of watching my party decline, I have refused to abandon it, even if it means remaining as an example of what being a Democrat used to mean, and the difference between Classical Liberal politics versus today’s stink of leftist tripe. I would expect Joe to remain a Democrat, but a win for him on November as an Independent will mean this entire nation wins. All in all, the November election is shaping up to be even more important than we could have imagined.”
—The Gun Toting Liberal applauds the defeats of Rep. Cynthia McKinney and Lieberman:”Now this is going to begin to sound quite familiar to all of you who frequent this blog: out with them because of the fact that they have both participated in utter TREASON by cohorting with the horrid Republicrats in both Congress and the Senate quite long enough. They have helped to hijack this country via a bloodless coup by spending all of their time in the Halls of Congress playing “politicsâ€? when We, the People have been screaming for representation and a return to the American Dream and a return of the once powerful American middle class. To hell with them BOTH for what they’ve done, and to hell with all of their useless cronies.”
—Seixon:”The Lamont nomination is going to divide the Democrats because they’re going to have to choose between DailyKos or an electable candidate that the voters of Connecticut want to represent them. A choice between blind ideology and reality. There is little reason to believe that Lamont will be able to win in November against Lieberman. Kos wants Lieberman to do what he wants, and not give the voters of Connecticut what they want. Party over the people.”
—Citizen Smash aka The Indepundit:
The election in Connecticut was close: Lieberman lost to a well-funded challenger, by a little under four percentage points. This would indicate that the Democratic party is strongly divided between the centrist DLC, and the more radical “people-power” base. It remains to be seen how this will play out in the general election, but they only have a few months to pull it back together.
A positive sign for the Dems: many prominent politicians are predictably rallying around the winner of the primary, and urging Lieberman to abandon his independent quest to keep his Senate seat.
Meanwhile, in Georgia, Madwoman Cynthia McKinney is crushed by challenger Hank Johnson. I blame the hair.
—The Glittering Eye has a MUST READ analysis that should be read in full. A tiny part:
My first reaction to last night’s results with Lieberman, McKinney, and Schwarz all defeated was that there was an anti-incumbency movement at work. But on reconsideration I’ve decided that, as James Joyner notes, the results are more clearly explained by issues specific to each individual campaign than some general movement against incumbents.
The Lieberman primary defeat is without doubt due to Lieberman’s failure to be more partisan and, as such, it’s yet another movement in the direction we’ve seen over the last 30 years. Once upon a time there were right-leaning Democrats and left-leaning Republicans holding higher office but those are becoming increasingly scarce. That tends to leave those, like me, who are less interested in partisanship and ideology without a comfortable home.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.