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.