It’s clear that if Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman runs as expected as an independent after being defeated yesterday in the primary by anti-war challenger Ned Lamont he icannot count on continued support of some key Democratic party elites.
Democratic Leader Harry Reid and DSCC Chair Chuck Schumer have issued this short but blunt statement:
“The Democratic voters of Connecticut have spoken and chosen Ned Lamont as their nominee. Both we and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) fully support Mr. Lamont’s candidacy. Congratulations to Ned on his victory and on a race well run.“Joe Lieberman has been an effective Democratic Senator for Connecticut and for America. But the perception was that he was too close to George Bush and this election was, in many respects, a referendum on the President more than anything else. The results bode well for Democratic victories in November and our efforts to take the country in a new direction.�
This statement isn’t sugar-coated in terms of how they view the election results: the party has its eye on the main prize. Lieberman may also face some official party shunning in the Senate if he’s out there campaigning and blasting the Democratic party. If Reid, Schumer and the party elite are going to argue that it’s time for a “new direction,” Lieberman will be campaigning counter to their gameplan. And if Lieberman veers to closely to their gameplan, he could lose some of the GOP support that he’s going to need to win.
TMV thanks Political Wire for the tip.
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Politics is a pragmatic business of shifting loyalties-so this does not come as much of a surprise. Lamont clearly represents the mood of Connecticut’s Democratic Party more than Lieberman, who seems to care more about his own fate than the fate of the Party.
The most important thing now is that
the Democrats come together in a show of unity and try to minimize the distraction this race is causing. I see Lieberman’s actions as self-serving, as he knows how important it is for the Democrats to win back at least one house in November. I hope all Democrats unite in support of the primary’s winner and their party.
Oh come on. Lieberman is gone, history, kaput. End of story.
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Lieberman only lost by 11,000 votes, but it might as well have been 11 million. He came on strong at the end when he campaigned as if winning the primary actually mattered– something he seemed to insist was not the case early on, relying on hypothetical polls taken BEFORE he LOST THE PRIMARY. His bet hedging here will have cost him the hand; had he run a conventional campaign, simply running on his experience, record, popularity, etc., he’d probably have pulled it out. Instead, he lashed out.
As it is, he closed from as many as ten points down in the polls to 3 or 4 per cent, but a miss is as good as a mile in this case.
Strange, really. Lieberman could have relied on statements he made in ’02 and ’03 skeptical of the war. When it became clear from polling that the voters were far more skeptical of the Bushmen than he was, he decided to say f*** the voters. Well, they returned the sentiment. The independent run will last until the early polling shows that Joe will be behind. And then it will end, with a wimper.
Hasta LueJoe, baby.
I think the moment was Ned Lamont’s who was able to capitalize on the voter’s discontent with Bush and conflate it with Lieberman’s voting record supporting Bush’s initiatives. He came from obscurity 6 months ago to victory over a well-respected, entrenched incumbent. Democracy is still alive and kicking!
If we want to talk about the importance of winning back a house of congress, shouldn’t the Democratic Net-Roots Deus-Ex-Machina have focused its ire and energies on weak GOP incumbents, not a well respected and, previously, safe Senator who votes with his party 9 times out of 10?
Connecticut has 3 of 5 US House seats controlled by Republicans… that’s right, folks, 60% of the state’s house delegation is controlled by the sharply minority party. Simmons is safe, and Shays will probably keep his seat, too. Johnson is also probably going to win re-election, but by a smaller margin. Three moderate republicans who are INCREASING the difficulty of re-taking the house have been made safer because of the energy that was not invested in their opponents.
CittizenQ is absolutely right, and this is a point I have been making about this race for months: attacking ANY Democratic incumbent, even a perceived apostate, does smack of taking eyes off the prize.
Certainly, Shays has at times stated that he perceived himself in trouble, whether he is or not. But no question that an ongoing intramural high profile contest between Dems will only help CT’s GOP House members.
And indeed, it will help all GOP incumbents everywhere, as the “net roots” etc. will focus on this one, a “hold” instead of potentially takeable “pick=ups” whether in CT or elsewhere.
CitizzenQ:
As I understand the Dem ‘netroots’ (now distinct as the GOP seems to be trying to start up their own version), while ending GOP dominance is a big goal, as important is ending the poisonous inluence of handlers/consultants and arrogant incumbency; piercing the DC bubble and returning some measure of power to the people. Thus, the title of the Kos &Armstrong’s book, Crashing the Gate.
In my understanding, Lieberman commited 3 sins to be ‘excommunicated':
1) A perceptible slide to the hard right on some issues, further right than a handful of Republicans
2) Enabling the Administration’s controversial/illegal policies, often at the expense of his own party
3) Arrogance and Self-entitlement (as TTD put it, “he decided to say f*** the voters”)
Perhaps he did vote Dem and CT priorities and policies 90% of the time, but apparently that 1 in 10 bad stands was enough, or the 10% he blew were votes that mattered to his voters. CT Dems voted and democratically selected who they think will best represents them, and it isn’t Joe Lieberman anymore.
It is telling that the GOP (which just ejected one of its own moderates) and its more vocal and controversial mouthpieces were among his most strident supporters. And now the Administration is apparently offering Joe a hand up.
One would thing that in a political atmosphere that has become so toxically partisan in the last 5 years, it would be intuitively obvious that whatever the GOP, RNC, and their various pundits think would be good for the Democratic party would, in objective reality, likely be bad. Apparently not.
Don,
You’re assuming that the outpouring of support for Joe by the GOP has been done out of the goodness of their heart without any utlerior motives. That’s a leap I’m certainly not willing to take.
I certainly have sympathies for the theory that power corrupts and incumbency shouldn’t be a guarantee. I’m just saying that, when you’re in the minority, it is certainly more prudent to focus on the other guy’s incumbents.
As for the 3 deadly sins:
1) Lieberman stayed right on one issue while his party moved left.
2) See point #1
3) Giving the FU to the Kos and Co, yes (but you have to admit, Joe didn’t start it). Voters in general, no. Having a political disagreement isn’t an FU, and insisting on an election where more than 40% of the electorate is eligible isn’t exactly an FU.
CQ, if the one issue he stayed right is the Iraq War, I agree to a point: Saddam had to go. That said, the justifications put forth by the administration have covered a shifting range of reasons that go from just weak to outright lies. Worse, the execution has been horrid while painting a rosy picture that ignored any reality in favor of political gain on the home front.
Any nobility in the venture has long since been overshadowed by the fact that the US is now stuck there between 2 (or 3) factions whose interests are not pro-US. Meanwhile, the Taliban in Afghanistan, far from dead, is flourishing; the situations in the Sudan and in Somalia are growing worse; and that’s not even considering the disaster Lebanon is becoming, for Israel and the Lebanese.
When a majority of polled Americans consistently poll against the Administration’s handling of the Iraq war, and fact of the war itself, in increasing numbers, sooner or later it’s going to bite a pro-war candidate in the ass.
As for #3, attacks on Joe and his record started before the primary, but it was his record that prompted those attacks. Not only did he not address many partisan and controversial, if not illegal policies of the ruling party, he supported them, often attacking his own party’s members in the process. Partisanship? Sure, but let’s not forget who’s nurtured the partisan divide by pandering to their extreme base.
Further, he sat on the sidelines of the primary campaign until he realized the danger he was in; only then did he get active. Lamont fought hard from day one. How that read to the unprecedented 50% of CT Dems who turned out to vote in a mid-term primary we now know.
At no point do I assume noble intentions on the part of (Neo)Conservatives/Republicans. GOP support for Lieberman has been (and continues to be) for their biggest cheerleader and enabler in an ineffective opposition. As for supporting Joe’s independent run (to the point of throwing their own candidate under a bus), it’s not the first time they’d intervene to split the vote; their just doing it plain sight and spinning it so it sounds good.
That they’re spinning as furiously as they are is a sign in itself: of shock, either from the fact that their prize useful fool lost, or from the startling effectiveness of the left’s GOTV efforts. Either way they’ve got a real fight on their hands and with this RNC, it’s going to get dirty.