An Antiwar Campaign That Takes a Page From the G.O.P. Playbook

[cal04]

JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN’S DEFEAT in the Senate Democratic primary in Connecticut is a reminder that intramural contests are often the most bruising in our two-party system, and can leave the party involved vulnerable to attacks from the opposition.

Indeed, those who feared that Senator Lieberman’s defeat would be exploited by Republicans eager to portray his opponent, Ned Lamont, as a stand-in for an entire party “soft” on terrorism, were vindicated, almost instantly, in the days following the vote.

More tellingly, the campaign offers an intriguing twist in the history of insurgency that has shaped the identities of both parties over the last several decades. Some commentators have portrayed the bloggers who led the charge against Senator Lieberman as the ideological descendants of the left-wing Democrats who nearly brought the party to its knees in the 1960’s and 70’s. But in strategic terms they resemble more closely the “movement conservatives” who transformed the Republican Party from 1955 to 1980, when it rose to dominate American politics.

Like the current Democratic insurgency, the conservative movement was driven by activists who combined journalism with partisanship. Just as today’s insurgents often post their analyses and self-described “rants” on Web sites like Daily Kos, so the conservative rebels of an earlier day poured forth their opinions in the National Review, the biweekly magazine founded in 1955 by the 29-year-old William F. Buckley Jr.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/13/weekinreview/13tanen.html?ex=1156132800&en=3a2a9bfd5f596ceb&ei=5040&partner=MOREOVERNEWS

[bluestateguy]

1. Yep, those damn liberal Democrats from the 1960's and 1970's.

Civil rights for black people was a bad idea. It was too extreme. So was gender equality, environmentalism and consumer protection.

Democrats should have been more "moderate" on those issues.

[silverojo]

2. Too bad about the hippies, though

They enabled the Repukes to put an ugly face on the Democratic party forever. Any time they wanted to sway the opinion of the washed public, all they had to do was invoke the image of scummy hippies protesting in the streets, and BOOM--instant conservative approval.

I hated the hippies' music, lifestyle, and look...but what I hate most is the damage they did to my party's image. :(

[Zorro]

4. You've bought into the Republican stereotype of hippies

First promoted by the godfather of this current Republican administration (Richard Nixon) and his felonious Veep Spiro Agnew, the hippie counterculture stereotype has served as a convenient image to marginalize an significant element of the population that strongly disagreed with government policies. If you were of draft age at that time, you were politically impotent; you could be drafted into the military at age 18, but couldn't vote until you were 21.

I won't attempt to convince you to embrace the hippie movement, but frankly at that time didn't give a rat's ass about seeking approval from ignorant conservative fuckwads. And I still don't.

So if you're going to hate some segment of society, hate the Republicans that have promoted a distorted stereotype of a group that has been proven to be on the right side of history.

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. Wow - 14 uses of "insurgent" or "insurgency" to describe Lamont support

or, occasionally, the 60s equivalents, in that one article. Given the association of that word with armed rebels, especially currently in Iraq, I'd question that use of language as 'fair'.