Chickens coming home to roost
Senator and former Vice-Presidential candidate, Joe Lieberman, has lost the Democratic primary in Connecticut to anti-war candidate Ned Lamont. Lamont won with just under 52% of the vote, in what amounts to a stunning victory for the party's liberal wing and the "netroots" such as the Daily Kos, who went in to bat hard, fundraising and campaigning on his behalf.
Lieberman had been a pro-Bush DINO (Democrat In Name Only), supporting the Iraq War and attacking Democratic critics of Bush, saying that:
"It is time for Democrats who distrust President Bush to acknowledge that he will be Commander-in-Chief for three more critical years, and that in matters of war, we undermine Presidential credibility at our nation’s peril."
Well, now the Democratic voters of Connecticut have told him what they thought of that display of political bankruptcy.
I don't know anything much about Ned Lamont's views on matters other than the war, but his victory is a warning signal to the Democratic establishment that their grassroots supporters are no longer prepared to put up with cosy Beltway politicians who are serially returned to Congress without ever standing up for the issues that ordinary people care about.
There are more Democratic incumbents facing challengers over the coming months. Lamont's win shows that it's game on.
Lieberman had been a pro-Bush DINO (Democrat In Name Only), supporting the Iraq War and attacking Democratic critics of Bush, saying that:
"It is time for Democrats who distrust President Bush to acknowledge that he will be Commander-in-Chief for three more critical years, and that in matters of war, we undermine Presidential credibility at our nation’s peril."
Well, now the Democratic voters of Connecticut have told him what they thought of that display of political bankruptcy.
I don't know anything much about Ned Lamont's views on matters other than the war, but his victory is a warning signal to the Democratic establishment that their grassroots supporters are no longer prepared to put up with cosy Beltway politicians who are serially returned to Congress without ever standing up for the issues that ordinary people care about.
There are more Democratic incumbents facing challengers over the coming months. Lamont's win shows that it's game on.
posted by voltaires_priest at
1:43 AM
5 Comments:
'Game on' for what? Another two years of pretending that the Democrats can be a left alternative in US politics, followed by another disappointment as they either fail to win because they fight on the Republicans' home turf (Kerry) or they do win and then show their true colours (Clinton)? How often does this have to happen?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5258582.stm
Link above looks at the impact on the Republicans.
Bruce; you endorsed a fudge position of effective abstention in 2004 rather than a critical vote for Kerry, which would have opened a space on the left for a more progressive polity to grow. The same is happening here.
There's a reason why Seattle etc happened under a Democratic president, it's because that's how political dynamics work. While people are concentrating on "getting rid of the GOP" (or the DINO, or the Tories over here), they don't explore further possibilities.
It is also, on another level, simply true, that a Kerry presidency would have been better than a Bush one, from all sorts of perspectives.
The Democratic Party always has a lesser evil to vote for.
Kerry said if he was president, Hezbollah would have been wiped out by now. He accuses Bush of being soft on Zionism.
"He accuses Bush of being soft on Zionism"
Really?
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