Do you need yet another sign that politics is enormously fluid and that all the conventional wisdom that’s out there can be changed in a flash — all the news stories, blog posts and political prognostication can be outdated within days or hours. If you do, then read this from Hotline On Call:
At a briefing for the Washington, D.C. political press corps today, DSCC chair Chuck Schumer was in a mood to marvel and brag. Last night, with the victory of Jim Webb, Democrats finally found their eighth competitive Senate contest. (Chuck always wanted eight; Dems need to win at least six and keep hold of the roughly four Dem-held seats that are vulnerable.)
Pointing to the victories of Webb, a Reagan Democrat with a flair for non-traditional Democratic positions, and Jon Tester, who spent half as much as his primary challenger in Montana, Schumer said that party activists had turned to pragmatism and were less inclined to hold candidates to litmus tests.
Schumer said the Dem primary voters want winners and are focused one electability. He couldn’t resist adding even “in 2008,” which pricked the ears of reporters who thought he was sending a message about the relative electability of Hillary Clinton. (He wasn’t, apparently.)
“Electability” is another word for building coalitions, appealing to a wide variety of voters…unless of course it’s a Karl Rove style “mobilization election” where a party moves heaven and earth to get its sympathizers and partisans to the polls via use of hot-button issues and intricate get-out-the-vote (or supress the vote) operations on election day. MORE:
Schumer said that the DSCC “fully supports” Sen. Joe Lieberman in his primary bid, and he refused to rule out continuing that support if Lieberman were to run as an independent.
There were degrees of independence, Schumer said. “You can run as an independent, you can run as an independent Democrat who pledges to vote for Harry Reid as Majority Leader.”
Schumer said he had neither sought nor recieved assurances from Lieberman that an independent bid would not ensue if Ned Lamont tightened the noose.
There’s another factor Schumer may be keeping in mind that you don’t see in many news stories or on many blogs: Connecticut (where yours truly is from) has had politicians who ran as independents before. Most notably Lowell Wiecker, who went to the Senate as a Republican, got a lot of GOP noses out of joint due to him taking an early position against Richard Nixon during Watergate…and who was eventually defeated by a man named Joe Lieberman. Weicker later ran as an independent for governor and won.
It’s a fascinating time for the Democratic party (and political junkies). On one hand you have some members of the party trying to re-attract the Reagan Democrats (who in some ways were old Scoop Jackson Democrats). On the other, you have some on the progressive wing who want to reshape the party by edging out people such as Lieberman. Yet, there is a common thread: opposition to the war has become a litmus test for being a true Democrat, for many. This delicate sorting out of party definition is coming at a perilous time — when Republicans are all too willing to try and define the Democrats for them.
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.