Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Two Thoughts on Lieberman

Anticipating possible defeat in Connecticut's Democratic primary, Joe Lieberman has formed an independent party, Connecticut for Lieberman. Two thoughts:

1) Republicans are instinctively sympathetic to Lieberman as a Democrat who demonstrates that one can remain faithful to liberal principles at home while supporting the country's war effort abroad. That said, it might prove something less than an unmitigated catastrophe for the Republic, the war, and (ahem) the GOP if Lieberman were to lose. His defeat would hand Republicans a vivid symbol of what the Democratic party is evolving into: It's too left-wing, too defeatist, too antiwar even to tolerate its own vice presidential nominee of six years ago! Even the George McGovern Democrats never mounted a primary challenge to Hubert Humphrey! 2006 will be a tough year for Republican incumbents. But the Democrats are doing their best to level the playing field by presenting themselves as the party of amnesty for illegal aliens and surrender to jihadists in Iraq. Can Rick Santorum use that talking point? I bet he can.

2) And how about this point: If Lamont does win the primary - and if he somehow prevails in the Senate race - America will be treated to the fascinating spectacle of a Senate in which the five far and away wealthiest members are all Democrats: John Kerry, Herbert Kohl, Jay Rockefeller, Ned Lamont, and Dianne Feinstein. More striking still, all of the five except Kohl will owe their wealth wholly or largely to marriage or inheritance. It will put kind of a different face to Democratic claims to speak for the ordinary guy and gal, won't it?

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A reader's take:

I think a defeat of Joe Lieberman in a Democratic Party primary is a clarifying event. The major political parties should have different approaches to the fighting issues in our democracy. A significant percentage of our nation's population wants to cut-and-run from Iraq. I think one of our nation's political parties should be clearly supporting this position so that the American people can intentionally elect a majority of Congress that is opposed to the Iraqi war if the majority so chooses. I think a defeat for Mr. Lieberman will be bad news for maintenance of the Iraqi war, the Democratic party, and for the country as a whole but it will be good news for the GOP because, notwithstanding President Bush's very poor leadership, I think a majority of the population currently does not wish to lose this war. Fair elections between candidates who have adverse views on the important issues of the day give a legitimacy to policies that are later adopted by the victor that nothing else can give.

                                                     -Christopher D. Scott

07/11 09:03 AM