Prior to Ned Lamont's victory over
Joe Lieberman in Tuesday's Connecticut Democratic primary, yesterday's "big story" was that Lieberman's campaign Web site and e-mail system had been hit, in their words, by a denial of service attack. The truth, which painted a far less rosy picture of the incumbent, was one of low bandwidth and bargain-basement hosting fees. But the claim, which gained traction thanks to the stenographers in the establishment media, does far more to characterize Lieberman than it does those who opposed him. Denial of service, therefore, is as much a theme of the senator's recent time in office as it is a lame excuse for what happened to his online infrastructure.
Lieberman's loss - Connecticut's win - comes as much from his overwhelming, persistent denial of service to the state's citizens than it does any particular issue, even the war. Denial of a voice in Washington for the will of his constituents. Denial of a Democrat who will speak truth to power. Denial of a representative who works for those who elected him. To say that Tuesday's outcome hinged only on the war is to miss the forest for the trees. And while the media will no doubt continue to paint the primary as a referendum on the war, on Democratic "centrism" or on the power of the progressive Netroots, a far simpler message can be distilled from Lamont's victory:
Politicians who deny their constituents service will suffer at the ballot box.Sure, Lieberman was an embarrassment as a Democrat. He was a far-too-willing accomplice to the Republican Party, giving both it and President Bush the cover they needed to drive America off of a cliff. In the face of all that's gone wrong since Bush took office, Lieberman found time to single out ...
his own party. His support for Bush's ham-fisted foreign policy - especially the war - drove the final wedge between himself and the voters he has largely ignored since 1994. What's more, when he found himself challenged by a Democrat proud of being a Democrat, Lieberman was nothing short of petulant, his body language asking:
How dare a nobody like Lamont challenge a three-term incumbent? Lieberman, as Lamont surged thanks to motivated Connecticut voters and a people-powered insurgency, ran a mistake-filled,
dishonest,
insulting campaign. Not only that, but he took out an
insurance policy against democracy by pledging to run as an independent should he lose. He claimed to stand with his party 90 percent of the time, ignoring the fact that the 10 percent represents the most important issue of our time. He also claimed not to be a friend of the administration, ignoring the fact that it was his actions that led us, in part, to where we are today. And now that Lieberman
has lost and
has vowed to stay in the race, America is seeing what the rest of us have seen for some time, that he represents a mindset that, if we're to progress as a nation, must be swept out of politics.
That mindset, of course, is that politicians can ignore the will of the people and not fear the repercussions. That only those inside the Beltway
can set the acceptable conventional wisdom. That "the people" are a
nameless, faceless mob and not those with the
motivation to affect change, the
power to do so and the
willingness to use that power. That shifting to the right to avoid Republican challenges isn't an electoral suicide mission. That helping prop up the rotting carcass of the Republican Party while stabbing your own party in the back isn't a strategy less popular than the president himself. This mindset, thanks to an informed, inspired electorate, is dying. And Tuesday was only the first nail in its coffin.
At the end of the day, Lamont's victory is about far more than a victory for an insurgent campaign, for the anti-war movement, for the Democratic wing of the Democratic party or for the progressive Netroots. Not only that, but it's also not even about Lieberman, his support for this president or his willingness to abandon his party. No, it's about something more, something substantial. It's about the inconvenient truth that
the people matter, that politicians who undermine their agreement to represent the people do so, to paraphrase Lieberman, at their own peril. Further, that Democrats who undermine their party do so at their own peril. Tuesday wasn't simply a defeat for Lieberman. It was a defeat for false moderation, for the politics of right-wing accommodation, for the spiral of acquiescence that caused a one-time vice presidential nominee to become a pariah within his own party. Tuesday also wasn't simply a victory for Lamont. It was a victory for principles, for responsive politics, for the people. Lieberman wasn't the first. And he won't be the last.
Don't deny us service.
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