8/22/2006
Today, the Washington Post reports that “Critics of Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman’s independent run to keep his job attacked on two fronts Monday, with one group asking an elections official to throw him out of the Democratic Party and a former rival calling on state officials to keep his name off the November ballot.” Lieberman staffers are calling such moves ‘dirty politics,’ of course.
But is it unreasonable to ask election officials to throw Senator Lieberman out of the Democratic Party, or is it merely dangerous to make such a request? Henry Lowendorf, of “The New Haven Peace Council,” underscored the fact that “[t]here was an open vote, and he was voted out. He joined a different party.”
True enough. Though there are several Democrats in Washington who have openly declared their support for Senator Lieberman, he did lose in his party’s state primary race and could technically be thrown out of the party if he chooses to run against the official Democratic candidate. But what if Senator Lieberman is expelled from his party and goes on to win in November? Having been summarily rejected by his party, would he be as inclined to caucus with them in the future?
Which is likely why John Orman, a Fairfield University polisci professor who gave up on his challenge to Lieberman last year, filed a complaint on Monday asking that Lieberman’s name not be included on the state ballot. The Post notes that Orman has accused Senator Lieberman of creating “a fake political party.” “He’s doing anything he can to get his name on the ballot.”
Certainly he is. And as long as it is legal, why should anyone have a problem with this? It seems to me that Mr. Orman himself was doing anything he could to get his name on the ballot not that long ago. Unfortunately, he raised about $1000.00 to Lieberman’s $3.8 million in the same period of time.
Which underscores the fact that Lamont’s ability to launch his campaign was due in major part to his ability to utilize his personal fortune to fund his campaign. For all the fervor anti-war activists bring to the table, rarely are there funds attached.
As I noted in a recent post, Lieberman will, at the very least be able to match Lamont in dollar-for-dollar campaign spending. But with Lieberman still in the race, Lamont must now run to the center and shed the one-dimensional stigma he gained as the “anti-war” candidate. Lamont won the Democratic primary with only 15% of the voting population in Connecticut, but did so narrowly, and recent polls show Lieberman with a 12 point lead among likely voters.
At this point, Connecticut voters know Lamont as well as they do Lieberman, so a 12 point spread will not be easy to erase. And the senator is almost certain to receive a significant level of support from Connecticut Republicans who are well aware of the fact that their candidate has no chance of winning in the upcoming election.
Meanwhile, CBS News notes that Senator Lieberman has been retooling his campaign for the upcoming election. A recent statement from the senator notes that his new hires are “not just among the best in their respective businesses, but they bring a deep knowledge of Connecticut from across the political spectrum, which will be essential to our effort to build a broad coalition of Democrats, Republicans, and independents.”
CBS News outlines the Senators recent campaign changes and quotes Lamont’s campaign spokeswoman, Liz Dupont-Diehl who asks “[t]hese new appointments beg the question: Who is the real Joe Lieberman?” But such comments serve only to underscore the political naivete of Lamont and his staff.
Politicians often make such staff changes, or shuffle staff around to bring in new players with critical areas of expertise. Senator Kerry and Howard Dean did much the same during their primary and general election campaigns in 2003 and 2004.
In light of recent poll results –and silly comments from a certain campaign spokeswoman– Lamont would be well advised to consider some of his own staff changes. Speaking of Lamont, some recent changes in his rhetoric beg the question: Who is the real Ned Lamont.
Here’s a relevant example as noted by James Taranto of Opinionjournal.com:
“When it comes to universal health care for everybody in this country as a basic right, that’s a principle of the Democratic Party that Sen. Lieberman has never quite embraced. He’s come up with tax incentives for businesses to see if they might be a little more inclined to insure their people. So he generally has not embraced a lot of the Democratic goals and certainly the Democratic methods to achieving where we want to go.”–Ned Lamont, in an interview with yours truly [James Taranto], The Wall Street Journal, May 13
” I believe in an employer-based health-care system that covers everyone, and providing tax benefits to small businesses so they can provide insurance without risking bankruptcy.”–Ned Lamont, op-ed piece, The Wall Street Journal, Aug. 16
Unfortunately, rhetoric changes like this will likely not fool voters. Especially in light of the fact that Mr. Lamont’s press coverage has left no doubt in anyone’s mind that his is the anti-war candidacy. Despite what Democrats continue to believe, an anti-war stance will not, in and of itself, win elections.
Which is exactly why anti-war activists are now going to plan B; voter disenfranchisement. If you can’t beat em, deny em access to the democratic process. That won’t work either.
8/21/2006
Dean Barnett who posts to Hugh Hewitt’s blog noted this very funny comment from a Boston Globe reader:
Then we also saw the abrupt imposition of the biggest indignity yet on the traveling public: The new rules prohibiting air travelers from taking any liquids of any sort on board, not even water. The rules were imposed in the most humiliating way possible, in order to make all of us feel helpless. In a scene reminiscent of something from Nazi Germany, law-abiding travelers who showed no signs of being potential terrorists had their toothpaste and bottled water seized without warning and without any compensation.
Of course, this rant is baloney. True, you can’t take toothpaste, gel, makeup, and other such things with you as a carry-on item, but if you pack all of these items into a bag and check that back in to the airline, then you’ll have no problems.
I’m thinking that Mr. Horrigan, the man who sent this comment into the Boston Globe, has not really had to do any travelling since the new rules went into place. Otherwise he would know this. At the same time, I wonder if Mr. Horrigan would be ranting about the “Nazi-like” security at the airlines if a plane with someone he loved had been blown up 30,000 feet over the Atlantic Ocean?
I think it more likely that he and other liberal hotheads would be screaming for the President’s impeachment. Of course, even before Mr. Horrigan comments on the new airline security rules, he comments on the “timing” of the foiled terrorist plot. Perhaps I should start a new post and call it “Life Imitates The Viewpointjournal.com.” Here is what I said we would see before long from the loony left:
“Well, just as the grassroots/netroots movement asserts itself against the Iraq war, we have this so-called ‘terrorist plot’ which is uncovered! Hmmm…”
And here is what Mr. Horrigan wrote in his letter to the Boston Globe:
“The timing of the latest terrorism scare seems too good (or too bad) to be true. On Tuesday, Aug. 8, an anti war challenger, Ned Lamont, defeats a pro war incumbent, Joe Lieberman, in the Connecticut Democratic Primary. The next day, Vice President Cheney sneers that Lamont’s victory was a victory for the “Al Qaeda types.” Wednesday night, we are suddenly greeted by a lurid tale of the biggest terrorist plot in history.”
Fairly close, don’t you think? Of course, anyone with common sense could see this coming.
What I find frustrating is this; if something good happens, and we stop the next 9/11, then those who hate the President will call the timing “suspicious” and whine about the imposition of new rules to protect us all. If, however, something bad happens and people die, then the haters will gleefully talk of the President’s “failed policies” and call for his immediate impeachment.
Where is there any perspective in all of this?
8/14/2006
As James Taranto points out in Best of The Web Today, Democrats are starting to pressure Lieberman to step back:
Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, wants Sen. Joe Lieberman to give up his independent re-election bid. Reuters reports Dean is casting it as a matter of party loyalty:
“I know how hard this is for Joe, and he is a good person, but the truth is I lost one of these races and I got behind my party’s nominee and I think that is what you have to do if you want to help this country,” Dean, former governor of Vermont, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “The way to help this country is to limit Republican power.”
Our favorite Democratic weathervane, blogger Josh Marshall, also is piling on Lieberman. Although Marshall claims he “didn’t have a horse” in the primary, he says, “I think all Democrats, all progressives, liberals, whatever, should support the Democratic candidate. And that’s Ned Lamont.”
But wait a minute, where were all these loyalist Democrats when Senator Lieberman was fighting for his political life during the Democratic primary? If memory serves, many were loathe to come to his aid because they were afraid of offending the angry left that was so actively working to undermine one of their most loyal and respected members.
So, they held back during the primary, the Senator lost, and now they want him to show the kind of loyalty that they were unwilling to show? Someone will need to explain to me how that even makes sense.
Not only did Lieberman see less support during his primary, those who did show up to support him were treated in a manner that was, to say the least, less than courteous:
WASHINGTON–My brief and unhappy experience with the hate and vitriol of bloggers on the liberal side of the aisle comes from the last several months I spent campaigning for a longtime friend, Joe Lieberman.
This kind of scary hatred, my dad used to tell me, comes only from the right wing–in his day from people such as the late Sen. Joseph McCarthy, with his tirades against “communists and their fellow travelers.” The word “McCarthyism” became a red flag for liberals, signifying the far right’s fascistic tactics of labeling anyone a “communist” or “socialist” who favored an active federal government to help the middle class and the poor, and to level the playing field…
Now, in the closing days of the Lieberman primary campaign, I have reluctantly concluded that I was wrong. The far right does not have a monopoly on bigotry and hatred and sanctimony…
One Sunday morning on C-Span I debated Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel on the Lieberman versus Lamont race. Afterwards I received a series of emails–many of them in ALL CAPS (which often suggests the hyper-frenetic state of these extremist haters)–that were of the same stripe as the blog posts, and filled with the same level of personal hate.
In case you were wondering who wrote this, the article was penned by Lanny Davis. As you may remember, Davis once served in the role of special counsel to President Clinton from 1996 to 1998.
As for Lieberman’s peers in Congress — Senators Kerry and Clinton for example — most of them offered their best wishes from afar, all the while reminding angry left bloggers that they would “support the winning candidate.” I guess you could say they were with him in spirit, right up to the point where he lost. Then not so much after that.
Now that the election is over, all of the Senator’s “loyal” — but distant — friends back in Washington are urging him to “do the right thing.” In other words, Senator Lieberman is being asked to do as party leaders say, not as they do.
Yup, that sounds like the DNC to me!
But not so fast! Lieberman warned his party back in July that, if he lost the primary, he would continue on as an independent. It should have been apparent then to DNC leaders that a potential disaster was brewing. And, while Senator Lieberman has assured the DNC that, if he wins, he will continue to caucus with Democrats, there is no longer any guarantee is there?
And if DNC leaders, in realizing this, go whole hog to defeat the Senator, and he wins anyway, well, that could spell utter disaster were Lieberman to decide, for instance, that the GOP would be a nice place to visit… permanently!
All this in a year when Democrats seem to have their best chance since their 1994 route of regaining power. Now one man with consistent values, Joseph I Lieberman, could be the nail in the coffin of their hopes and ambitions for 2006.
An MSNBC piece, posted the other day, had this to say:
WASHINGTON - Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut will be able to raise the funds necessary to mount a campaign to keep his Senate seat, both Democratic and Republican donors say.
Having lost last week’s Democratic primary to Ned Lamont, Lieberman is running as an independent against Lamont and Republican Alan Schlesinger.
Lamont, a Greenwich, Conn. businessman who self-financed about two-thirds of his campaign, ran against Lieberman’s support for the Iraq war, his refusal to use a filibuster to block a vote on Supreme Court Justice Sam Alito and a number of other issues.
Wait a minute. Did we just hear that there were a number of issues which brought about the Lamont victory? From everything I had heard and read in the press, it was all about Iraq, not a Senate filibuster or anything else. Now, suddenly, MSNBC tells us that it isn’t all about Iraq?
Here is the first paragraph of an article written by the same journalist — Tom Curry — who penned the quote above:
If Sen. Joe Lieberman loses next Tuesday’s Democratic Senate primary in Connecticut, will his political obituary read “another casualty of the Iraq war”?
Does this sound like a a multi-issue election platform to you?
But here is a quote from Mr. Curry’s August 14 article which I believe gets to the heart of the problem for Lamont and underscores Senator Lieberman’s significant advantage in the run up to the November election:
One Democrat who gave $1,000 to Lieberman’s primary campaign, Washington attorney Heather Podesta, said Monday, when asked whether she’d chip in for his independent bid, “I’d rather not talk abut my political giving and what my plans are.”
But quite willing to speak was Bruce Bialosky, a leading Republican donor in California, who said he will raise more than $10,000 for Lieberman.
On Tuesday night, once Lamont had defeated Lieberman, Bialosky sent an e-mail to the 2,000 people on his political list “expressing my despair over Lieberman’s loss in the primary” and making it clear he’d raise money for Lieberman’s independent bid. “I’ve never seen such a tremendous response” from his list, Bialosky said.
“This is not an issue of partisanship. This is a great American,” he said. “There are certain times when we have to cross party lines. Sen. Lieberman has clarity on the most important issue of our time. His opponent doesn’t have a clue.”
Agreed!
Ultimately, if the election is all about failed Republican leadership over issues such as the Iraq war, Democrats have a very good chance of winning. The fact is, many conservatives have the same questions.
But if the vote focuses on the issue of staying in Iraq and finishing our work there or pulling out precipitously with no heed to the short and long-term consequences, the Democrats are likely to lose yet again.
As Lamont has said in repeated speeches, “Do we want to keep fighting in Iraq or do we want to start bringing the troops home?” Said another way, should voters support the “bring them home” party or do we finish the job in Iraq?
Most people, despite being told by some that Iraq has nothing to do with terrorism, know that Iraq is an important front in the war on terror. Even Howard Dean has admitted this, albeit by admitting that, at least now — but not in the past mind you — there are terrorists in Iraq fighting to disrupt the newly formed democratic government there.
We read reports every day of terrorist activities in Iraq. And we celebrated with the Iraqis a month ago when al Zarqawi, the leader of “al Qaeda in Iraq” no less, was killed by a well-aimed US bomb. So, trying to tell us that Iraq has nothing to do with the war on terror is nothing less than ridiculous. Terrorists are there, and they are in Lebanon, and in Palestine, and in the UK, and here, God help us, in the US too.
They are everywhere and they’ll kill us any way they can. An assertion which was ironically born out shortly after Lieberman lost his primary, when UK and US intelligence agencies foiled a massive terror plot which would have killed almost as many people as were killed on 9/11/2001. This time, however, the good guys won and the bad guys went to jail.
So, if voters take the time to think through this debate and weigh the consequences of retreat, Republicans will win. If they instead focus their attention on Republican failures, then Democrats have a good chance of winning.
Regardless of what happens in the larger election, however, Lieberman will win his seat back in November. The very fact that the MSM has focused so heavily upon Lieberman’s race works to the Senators advantage. Now, moderates and conservatives all over the country will know the stakes and, as was so well illustrated by Bruce Bialosky’s quote in the recent curry article, they are far more likely to support him.
Will Lamont enjoy a similar surge in support from the anti-war left? Not likely. They threw everything they had, it seemed, into the primary. Even then, Lamont had to use 4 million of his own money to eke out a win.
Candidate Lamont had his day in the sun. Now it’s Senator Lieberman’s turn. And Lieberman will win.
8/11/2006
I was thinking it might take a few days for the loony left to begin forwarding their conspiracy theories, but what do I know? James Taranto, who publishes one of my favorite daily columns, Best of The Web Today noted the comment excerpted below from Josh Marshall’s Talking Points memo website, which came on the same day as the attacks!
As I’ve written before, I have next to no confidence that this administration won’t pump exaggerated or bogus terror plots for short term political advantage. Especially as we move toward an election they seem likely to lose. But when the Brits completely shut down their major international airport (though now the shutdown seems to be easing) I’m quite ready to believe they found something very real.
Rove and his crew of course will stop at no end of bamboozlement and terror manipulation for political ends though. And the timing, well . . .
Sounds very much like the way I said it would sound, doesn’t it?
On the Democratic Underground today, WillyT posted this question:
Just now watching the western edition of NBC Nightly News. Campbell Brown refers to the “Terrorist plot that has Americans shaken.”
Just wondering.
I’m curiously NOT shaken.
Matter of fact, because of the ineptitude of the current administration, and the current leadership in congress, I, (and I’m sure many of you) saw this coming miles away!
Here are a few responses:
MrSlayer: “Not at all. I’m pissed off That they have to politicize this absolute nothing story and inconvenience everyone to try and score some terror points. It’s disgusting and disgraceful.”
SmokingJacket: “Five years ago I said, “Just watch out for all the foiled plots we’re going to see now.” Can’t have another 9-11, because that would mean they failed to protect us, so the alternative is lots of foiled plots. I don’t know if they’re real or not, but I do know they serve the administration’s agenda: keep us all scared of terrists [sic].”
MODemocrat: No, I’m not shaken; Bush & Cheney scare me more. It’s hard to work up too much interest in something that the republicans are using to up their ante in their contributions to the republican party. Terror talk is all they have; and it’s so downright funny whenever I get this mental picture of the pretend Crawford cowboy. and the fat old vice president, hiding out, except for going to their money raising rallies; and then try to trick us into believing they are ‘PROTECTING US’, and I laugh out loud. I’d feel safer being guarded by my terrier dog.”
[Actually, I feel pretty safe being guarded by my terrier as well, but not on a plane flying over the ocean somewhere between London and New York.]
kmlewis: “more shaken by fact i would be ‘relieved’ of my lip balm per the new regulations. i can’t go 10 minutes without having to apply a layer, seriously. i am so addicted. i told the bf that we aren’t flying anytime soon and he just [rolled his eyes].”
[Sounds to me like Ms. Lewis’ boyfriend has the right of it.]
Of course, if UK and US intelligence agencies had failed to foil this plot and it had been successfully carried out, we wouldn’t be hearing these crackpots whine and moan over the “timing” of it all. Instead, we would be hearing calls for immediate impeachment over yet another failure by the Bush Administration to protect the homeland.
It’s a case of “damned if you do, damned if you don’t.” If the administration does the right thing, it’s a political ploy. If they ever fail to foil a major plot, it will be yet another sign of a weak and incompetent administration.
One response to the DU post makes this very point, in so many words:
Lastlaughin08: No. Not surprised, since we’ve poked the beehive over and over. Courtesy of GWB and his big stick.
Which leads to another dilemma for those on the left. If we do nothing, as we did before 9/11, we encourage terrorists to attack us. If we do something, then we are “poking the beehive” and stirring up more terrorist activity.
Similarly, if we stay in Iraq, we stir up more terrorist activity. But if we leave, won’t al Qaeda simply declare victory and use it as a marketing tool to bring in more terrorists than ever before?
Last night I was in a pub with some people from my company. We had just completed a day of training and I was getting to know some people from other offices after a dinner we all attended. The subject of the foiled plot came up, of course, and a discussion ensued over the Bush Administration. It was actually a very calm debate, and towards the end, one of our group said, basically, “why can’t we just leave them alone and they leave us alone? Why do we have to go hunt them down and stir up more trouble?”
Unfortunately, that is the way many Americans feel. They don’t understand the implications of simply walking away from Iraq and letting that country succeed or die on it’s own. FDR would have understood, but it seems like most of today’s Democrats, including party leaders in Washington, have now completely abandoned the long and honorable legacy of their party as a tough-minded defender of freedom across the globe.
And those in the DNC who do understand and appreciate the history and legacy of their party, like Joe Leiberman, are no longer welcome in that party. It’s very sad and, as those Dems will find out in November, a very bad move for their party.
Filed under: Culture , General , Media , Politics
Well, Democrats either picked a really bad time to become the “anti-war-at-all-costs” party or as conspiracy theorists will likely soon claim, “there’s something fishy about the timing of all this!” I’m just waiting for that to happen. Later today I’ll begin surfing DemocraticUnderground.org and other left-leaning sites to see what I can find.
Here’s what I expect to see from these kooks:
“Well, just as the grassroots/netroots movement asserts itself against the Iraq war, we have this so-called ‘terrorist plot’ which is uncovered! Hmmm…
Rather convenient that the plot includes both US and UK airlines and citizens don’t you think? And now, all of a sudden, it’s the only thing you see and hear on the news. Sounds to me like the Bush/Blair team is up to their old tricks! Distract, distort, and deflect!”
I know that some of the hard left kooks are already thinking along these lines. It can’t be much longer before you’ll see these theories posted on all the lefty sites. I wonder when Kos will dive into the fray. Once he does, then I’ll consider the whole topic to be “mainstreamed” for the left.
