Ruth Marcus on the Lieberman race

I've already weighed in heavily over the past few days on the Lieberman race, so I won't be commenting that much more on it other than to comment on the commentary itself.  So much of what has been written about this race has been inaccurate.  An exception was a piece Ruth Marcus had in the Post today.  

In the piece she hits both sides with inconvenient truths.  For the Lieberman world, she makes it clear that the opposition and concern she felt while in Connecticut was something Connecticut voters themselves feel, not something cooked up by outside bloggers or Lamont.  

The Lieberman campaign seems still to be struggling to figure out exactly what happened up there.  But the math is pretty simple.  A third of the country opposed the Iraq war when it happened in 2003.  That means that perhaps as much as half of all Connecticut voters opposed the war when it happened; and this certainly means that more than half of all Democratic primary voters opposed the war three years ago.  And things have dramatically worsened since then. 

For the last three years Senator Lieberman has made his steadfast support of our troubled occupation perhaps his signature issue.  He just wasn't that he stood by the President.  He criticized other Democrats who did not share his view.  

So, he firmly identifies himself as a national spokesman on perhaps the most salient issue of the day; his position is deeply unpopular at home with all voters, particularly Democrats; rather than acknowledging the concerns of voters, and working to accomodate them somehow, he begins his campaign with an ad saying that we will have to agree to disagree on this one; and then gets insulted and angry that people aren't looking beyond this one issue to the totality of his career. 

But don't candidates lose all the time for being on the wrong side of a single, powerful issue?Don't people lose over voting for a tax increase, being anti-choice, even for just being a Democrat? Isn't this part of the game? And aren't all elections about the what you will do for the voters, not what you've done? Ask Winston Churchill, or Al Gore Sr. 

The righteous indignation of Senator Lieberman on the ability of Democrats to challenge him for his public stance on the war is a little much to take.  On this issue, whether he is right or not (and that certainly is not clear), he is wildly out of touch with his constituency back home.  But in her piece today Marcus also points out that the national community of internet activists, bloggers and moveon seemed to have become overly obsessed by this race, and that I agree with.  With so many critical races around the country for Senate, House, Governor and beyond, why is the one battle, over a safe seat, so important?  Much has been written about why the amount of energy put into defeating Lieberman has been worth it.  I think most of it is unconvincing. 

I agree that the way Lieberman scolded his fellow Democrats over the Iraq war, and then last week started collecting signatures for an independent run, have been two extraordinary mistakes - big enough mistakes to prevent him returning to as a Senator.   But given the limited resources we has as a movement, I also believe the amount of national effort going to be oust him is also an unfortunate occurrence.  I wish the passion, the energy, the time, the effort going to oust Joe had been directed in many other places.   But we are way beyond that now. 

Comments

London SEO by London SEO (not verified)