What Are the Lieberman Foes For?

[im10ashus]

By MATT BAI
Note: This article will appear in the August 20 issue of the magazine.

A few days before Joe Lieberman, who was very nearly vice president of the United States, was effectively vanquished from his party by Ned Lamont, an affable cable executive who once played a minor role in governing the town of Greenwich, Conn., I happened to talk with Jeffrey Bell. A political consultant who is as cordial a man as you will find in Washington, Bell isn't as famous as some of his fellow Republicans, but he owns a storied place in the history of the conservative movement. A young aide to Ronald Reagan during his 1976 insurgency, Bell went on to challenge a sitting Republican senator, Clifford Case of New Jersey, in 1978. He stunned the political world by winning that race. And though he lost handily to the basketball legend Bill Bradley in the general election, just two years later Reagan ascended to the White House. If anyone was in a position, then, to assess the significance of the Connecticut rebellion, it was Bell, whose small but noteworthy victory over his party's confused establishment presaged a historic political realignment. ''It's tempting for us to underrate Dailykos and Moveon.org,'' Bell told me, referring to the Web pioneers who launched Lamont's improbable campaign. ''It's easy for us to say these guys are nuts. But the truth is, they're on the rise, and I think they're very impressive.''

There are, in fact, some compelling parallels between this moment in Democratic politics and the one that saw the ideological cleansing of the Republican ranks three decades ago. In ''Reagan's Revolution,'' an inside account of Reagan's failed 1976 campaign, Craig Shirley notes that aides to President Gerald Ford warned that they were ''in real danger of being outorganized by a small number of highly motivated right-wing nuts.'' Those so-called nuts, meanwhile, waged war on the then widely held belief that ''if they were to succeed, Republicans had to be 'pragmatic,' they had to 'broaden the base' and they had to 'compromise.' Otherwise, they would always be in the minority.'' The very same things might be written now, substituting the words ''left'' and ''Democratic'' for ''right'' and ''Republican.'' And like those bygone Republican leaders, establishment Democrats exhibit a surprisingly shallow understanding of the uprising that now threatens to engulf them.

In the aftermath of the primary, Democrats settled on the idea that Lieberman fell because of his support for the Iraq war. This was technically true, in the same way that a 95-year-old man might technically be said to die from pneumonia; there were, to say the least, underlying causes. The war was a galvanizing issue, but Lieberman's loss was just the first major victory for a larger grass-roots movement. While that movement is identified with young, online activists, it is populated largely by exasperated and ideologically disappointed baby boomers. These are the liberals who quietly seethed as Bill Clinton worked with Republicans to reform welfare and pass free-trade agreements. After the ''stolen'' election of 2000 and the subsequent loss of House and Senate seats in 2004, these Democrats felt duped. If triangulation wasn't a winning strategy, they asked, why were they ever asked to tolerate it in the first place? The Web gave them a place to share their frustrations, and Howard Dean gave them an icon.

Iraq has energized these older lapsed liberals; for a generation that got into politics marching against Vietnam, an antiwar movement is comfortable space. But it was the yearning for a more confrontational brand of opposition on all fronts, for something resembling the black-and-white moral choices of the 1960's, that more broadly animated Lamont's insurgency. Connecticut's primary showdown (which now appears to be headed for a sequel in November) marked an emphatic repudiation not just of the war but also of Clinton's ''third way'' governing philosophy - a philosophy not unlike the Republican ethos of ''compromise'' and ''pragmatism'' that so infuriated Reagan conservatives.

cont'd...

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/11/magazine/20wwln_lede.html

[LincolnMcGrath]

1. My favorite line!

...."This was technically true, in the same way that a 95-year-old man might technically be said to die from pneumonia; there were, to say the least, underlying causes."

[im10ashus]

2. I love that they are starting to recognize the power of the blogosphere.

About damn time. B-)

[DURHAM D]

3. Thanks for posting - good read.

I was dismayed yesterday while watching the various Sunday shows when they were trying to determine if the Lamont win was more like 1) what happened after Goldwater lost and it energized the Repubs to start organizing better or 2) more like the anti-war movement taking over the Dems during Vietnam.

I was yelling at my tv - about the third possibility. This (what they refer to as the netroots movement in order to diminish the size and depth of the movement) is more like the more recent take over of the Repugs by the Christian Taliban. Only difference - in our case we are the good guys.

[Greyhound]

5. Just for historical accuracy, the anti-war movement never took over

The Democratic Party, they tried but were beaten down (literally) by the establishment Democrats (roughly equivalent to the DLC or its day) through the usual under-handed, back room deals and abuse of power.

[DURHAM D]

7. I know that but the talking heads don't. It was their setup

not mine.

[SoCalDem]

11. That's WHY Bobby was killed...

Has Bobby Kennedy won in '68 (and he would have), the anti-war folks would have been very prominent. He was the "youth-candidate" and the powers that be crucshed our dreams when he was murdered..

[Greyhound]

12. You got it. Why most people refuse to see that there is only one

party running this country, when it is right there in front of them, is beyond me. :crazy: :mad: :grr: :banghead:

[leveymg]

4. This means, prepare to get and stay in power the next 20 years.

If history repeats itself, which it can. :7 :kick: PASTE DINO SMILEY HERE

[Tyler Durden]

6. They're againgst THE PIG BUSH and his minions...

I really thought that was perfectly obvious.

OOPS. Needed title edit.

[bvar22]

8. Good Article.

"But even with legions of outraged conservatives at his back, Reagan would not have taken over his party in 1980 - let alone the White House - had he not articulated an affirmative and bold argument against his party's status quo, vowing to devolve the federal government and roll back détente with the Soviets. Passion and fury started the revolution, but it took a leader with larger vision to finish the job."

The Democratic Party MUST NOT overlook the last paragraph!
What are WE for?
Here is a good start!

"In recent polls by the Pew Research Group, the Opinion Research Corporation, the Wall Street Journal, and CBS News, the American majority has made clear how it feels. Look at how the majority feels about some of the issues that you'd think would be gospel to a real Democratic party:

1. 65 percent (of ALL Americans, Democrats AND Republicans) say the government should guarantee health insurance for everyone -- even if it means raising taxes.

2. 86 percent favor raising the minimum wage (including 79 percent of selfdescribed "social conservatives").

3. 60 percent favor repealing either all of Bush's tax cuts or at least those cuts that went to the rich.

4. 66 percent would reduce the deficit not by cutting domestic spending but by reducing Pentagon spending or raising taxes.

5. 77 percent believe the country should do "whatever it takes" to protect the environment.

6. 87 percent think big oil corporations are gouging consumers, and 80 percent (including 76 percent of Republicans) would support a windfall profits tax on the oil giants if the revenues went for more research on alternative fuels.

7. 69 percent agree that corporate offshoring of jobs is bad for the U.S. economy (78 percent of "disaffected" voters think this), and only 22% believe offshoring is good because "it keeps costs down.""


http://alternet.org/wiretap/29788/

The Democratic Party is a BIG TENT, but there is NO ROOM for those
who advance the agenda of THE RICH (Corporate Owners) at the EXPENSE of LABOR and the POOR.

[im10ashus]

9. That's a great cross-reference to this article.

Thanks for posting! :yourock:

[bvar22]

10. Minor error in this article:

The author, MATT BAI, states that:
"...Lieberman's loss was just the first major victory for a larger grass-roots movement."

The FIRST victory for the grass roots was the promotion of Howard Dean to the CHAIR of the DNC against all the inertia of the Beltway Establishment. This was the first REAL repudiation of the DLC.

:dem:

[eridani]

13. And don't forget the Jon Tester win in Montana

That was the second; Lamont is the third.