Lieberman Loses
Joe Lieberman’s loss in the primary election is well deserved. Granted he has a progressive record historically, but his willingness to be an out front face of supposed Democratic moderate policy on the invasion and occupation of Iraq put a target on him, and Connecticut Democratic voters struck the target and fired Lieberman. His late campaign zeal in fighting the Democratic challenger showed a capability he failed to bring to the 2000 campaign in general and his VP debate with Cheney in particular.
Lieberman was an odd and mistaken choice in 2000, which was quickly shown by his excessively gushy and overtly religious speech of acceptance of the VP nomination. That he values his own ego more than the voice of Connecticut Democrats is shown by his immediate filing for the general election as an independent. Hopefully the only votes Lieberman will draw in November will come from moderate Republicans and independent voters who would usually not vote for a Democrat anyway.
Lieberman’s position on the middle east seemed very similar to that of Bush and the neo-cons. Most voters reject that position and the dumping of the veteran Lieberman with all his Senatorial seniority shows voters are finally willing to get off the drowning war horses even if they are in midstream.
posted by Tom Blake | 12:25 PM
4 Comments:
Tom,
I'm sure you expect a comment from me on this diatribe. Joe Lieberman was striving to save the dying Democratic Party. His stance on the Iraq invasion was stupid and wrong, and if the Democratic Party had any life in it, it would be right he should be put out to pasture for it. But it doesn't, and he did his best to save his party. So now I see him as a martyr.
Lieberman was not the odd and mistaken choice in 2000. It was a great choice. He could have been the moral face of the Democratic Party, a fresh look after Clinton, but he and that image was not needed because Gore made an odd and mistaken choice in not using the most effective politician since Reagan, Bill Clinton.
I'd say that his decision to file as an independent shows two things: 1. He believes in his own message. He knows the history of other independents in this country. They have all been losers. Knowing he will most likely be another loser is not taking an ego trip. He feels passionately about what is happening to his party. 2. The Democratic Party is dead and maybe he can start a new opposition party.
Tom, you keep talking about most voters. Take a look around. Most voters across the country (not just in Seattle) voted for Bush, voted for a Republican Congress, voted for Republican state legislatures, support religious candidates even when they see that some have been frauds. The campaign slogans in Arizona are competitions around who is the most conservative.
We need liberal (progressive is the PC word today) leaders like Joe Lieberman who appeal to today's voters. Gore and Kerry coudn't do it. And if Hillary were to run, we will see the biggest landslide since McGovern.
John from Phoenix
John,
You are canonizing Lieberman for being stupid and wrong in one breath and then saying the Democrats who voted to put him out to pasture were wrong to do so because they are in a dead party. Lieberman was not supporting the Bush policy in the middle east and running for yet another term in the Senate in order to save the Democratic party. He was running largely for his ego, which has suffered since the failure of the Gore-Lieberman ticket, his dismal performance in the 2004 Presidential nomination run and his embrace of Bush foreign policy. He cares more about holding office than changing the Democrats, which is why he is running as an independent.
Lieberman actually has a chance to win as an independent, because his defeat was narrow and some Republicans may vote for him as an independent. He is running to win, not for a principled loss. He has no third party illusions, having learned in the 2004 primary campaign what little personal appeal he and his message have outside Connecticut.
You portray Lieberman as a moral candidate in 2000, but then say lack of campaigning by the immoral Clinton is what lost the election. In the 1980 election the voters also went with the lesser moral choice, Reagan, the divorced former Hollywood actor and corporate shill for GE, over the solidly married former naval officer and independent farmer/businessman. In 1996, they chose pot smoking draft dodging Clinton over arch conservative wounded veteran Dole.
The false conservatism of people like Bush is on the decline. Bush lost the popular vote in 2000 and barely squeaked by as a war President in 2004, needing a voter disenfranchisement campaign in Ohio, as he needed the one in Florida in 2000. Democrats actually held the majority of State legislatures from 1952-2002, with Republicans only having a slight lead since then. Religious zealot Ralph Reed could not even win the recent Republican primary in Georgia. Arizona may be prime conservative turf, but you do have a popular Democratic governor and a supposedly maverick moderate US Senator. The polls are all showing a significant swing toward the Democrats for Congress in November.
I don’t see Hilary being the 2008 Democratic candidate, but it will be interesting to see how she does on the campaign trail. I certainly expect she would do better than Lieberman did in 2004. The Democrats need to pick a person without an easy negative target. Gore was targeted as prissy, Kerry stiff, Edwards inexperienced and Lieberman was so inconsequential as not to need a target, though anti-Semitism may have been the unspoken one.
Tom,
Hindsight is not so clear as advertised. Gore lost not using Clinton. It would be fun to rerun the campaign with him using Clinton. We just don't know.
I think people are getting fed up with Bush and his low IQ. I don't think people are ready to swing to liberalism as defined by Roosevelt and others in the 30's and 40's and practiced through the administrations of LBJ. That's why I think Joe Lieberman has a chance as a Democratic candidate, but it would really be amazing if an independent candidate won. He is smart enough to know that so why is he running? The real reason I think he is running is because it is so much fun. He has been campaigning for years, and now he will have fun running a whole new kind of campaign.
Hillary will be a force in the next race, but I don't think she will be the main one.
John from Phoenix
I agree hindsight can be overrated, Clinton could have helped Gore, people are fed up with Bush, Bush has a low IQ, it would be amazing if an independent won a major race, Lieberman is smart and usually has fun campaigning and Hilary will be a force in 2008.
I disagree that people are not ready for a return to progressive liberalism. They are ready, but they just don’t realize their readiness, and progressive liberal candidates have not been doing a good job of helping the realization, primarily because of the effectiveness of the reactionary right in framing the political discourse to fool the public. I hope to publish an article on this subject today.
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