Interpreting a Lamont Win and Lieberman Loss-- Who Else Wins and Loses?
By Rob Kall
What does a Lieberman defeat mean for other candidates and the Democratic party?
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With the Connecticut senate primary in a few days, the pundits are all over the place interpreting what a Lieberman loss will mean, with most saying the Democratic party will become more antiwar and move further to the left.
Maybe. Maybe not. Lieberman has been one of the worst of the DINOs, Democrats in name only, and coming from a strong blue state, he's had no good excuse.
While the mainstream media may be saying his loss is about his war stance, I think its about his zealous centrism, his DLC-to-the max failure to stand up to Bush, to Republicans in solidarity with fellow Democrats.
The real reason Lieberman is being fired is because his "employers," the people of Connecticut, want someone who will represent THEM and not some DC beltway insiders and lobbyists. Lieberman has earned the enmity of the liberal blogosphere because he reminds us too much of Zell Miller-- a Democrat who went to the dark side, who ended up totally rejecting the Democratic party, going a bit nuts in the process, culminating in his hate Democrats speech at the 2004 RNC convention.
Lieberman tipped his hand, showed he was ready to sell out the Democratic party when he declared he'd run as an independent-- no loyalty there.
WaPo writer Dan Balz says,
"Although there are reasons beyond Lieberman's strong support for the war and what critics say is his accommodating stance toward Bush that have put him in trouble, the results will be read largely through the prism of what they say about Iraq and Bush's popularity."
But he skirts around the most important reason. The people of Connecticut are rejecting all the leaders of the Democratic party who are backing Lieberman. They are rejecting the weak, indecisive fearful inability of the Democratic party to commit to tough stands-- on the war, on Alito's appointment, on Bush's authorization of spying on Americans....
Lamont has taken a stand. Lamont's a bit different than most of the Democrats. He's a successful businessman who makes decisions that affect him, his business, his assets, his employees. We need more decisive leaders with the guts to take stands.
Lamont will, rather than owing the Democratic senate leadership, come to the senate as a relative independent. He'll be primed to become the leader many had hoped Obama would have been. Too bad Obama drew Lieberman for his freshman mentor. Actually, he didn't "draw" Lieberman. He was probably very intentionally appointed the most conservative Northern Democrat as one more way to neutralize his independence and left leanings. Expect Lamont to be assigned a conservative Democratic mentor too. He should make it clear, before he is elected, that he won't accept one. He should pick his own mentor. The hell with letting the leaders who tried to sabotage his campaign appoint one for him.
A Lamont win sends a message to the Democratic party that they and their leaders backed the wrong man, the wrong policy. The big question is, will they learn something from this? Will they change their ways?
One thing it should do is strengthen the position of those Democrats who have been independent, who have rejected the calls for Centrism that the Clintons have echoed again and again. Russ Feingold should come out stronger.
Lieberman has been an enabler. He has, by his chumminess with Bush, with Sean Hannity and too many Republicans enabled Bush, Cheney and the right wing cabal to dangerously degrade our constitutional rights. This fall, the failure to be a reality based leader will cost many politicians their jobs. The failure to stand up for the values of America and the constitution will cost political jobs.
Americans are looking for strong, honest leadership with integrity. Joe Lieberman thinks he's a good guy, an honest man. But his collusion with the "enemy" on the other side of the aisle doesn't fit with what is needed for the Democratic party's future. His hewing to the center, at the price of party loyalty has made him a traitor to Democratic unity and to defense of constitutional rights too many times.
Democrats need to stick together. They need to focus on the "to" in "to"gether and clearly define a direction.
The answer should not just be to get out of Iraq. The answer should be make good decisions based on reality, not extreme right wing theories. Democrats need to come out as being willing to fight, but preferring to work things out, preferring building roads, schools, hospitals and space stations rather than handing money over to Halliburton, the US military and its dead-end projects with failed planning.
Then there's the elephant in the room. Lieberman is being rejected because he's acted too much like a REPUBLICAN. Tens of thousands of Connecticut voters have switched their voter registration from Independent to Democrat so they can vote AGAINST Joe Lieberman. This is a clear sign that the people are very angry and fed up with REPUBLICAN policies. It's a sign the Republicans are in big trouble in two months. It will take a massive distraction to save them and tens of millions of voters already believe the Bush administration would stoop to any means to create that distraction.
The Democrats need show real leadership. THe need to state a plan with a beginning, a middle and an end-- an idea that the Republicans just don't get. Americans desperately want that now. The Democratic candidate who can elucidate a plan that goes beyond the first two steps will be filling a huge hole in the American psyche. The plan doesn't have to that bold or creative. It just has to be thought through. Joe Lieberman got pretty far being a nice guy, a good man, with integrity. But these are challenging times and that is not enough. We need leaders who are willing to take tough stands. Those politicians who show the stuff they are made of-- who are all the good things Joe is, plus more-- they are the ones who will benefit from Lieberman's fall.
This article would be incomplete without observing that the Senators who interfered in this race need to get with the new program. Personally, I'd like to see two new senators from New York. Jonathan Tasini is running against Hillary. He'd be a superb new addition to the Democratic leadership.
Authors Bio:
Rob Kall is an award winning journalist, inventor, software architect,
connector and visionary. His work and his writing have been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, ABC, the HuffingtonPost, Success, Discover and other media.
He's given talks and workshops to Fortune
500 execs and national medical and psychological organizations, and pioneered
first-of-their-kind conferences in Positive Psychology, Brain Science and
Story. He hosts some of the world's smartest, most interesting and powerful
people on his Bottom Up Radio Show,
and founded and publishes one of the top Google- ranked progressive news and
opinion sites, OpEdNews.com
more detailed bio:
Rob Kall has spent his adult life as an awakener and empowerer-- first in the field of biofeedback, inventing products, developing software and a music recording label, MuPsych, within the company he founded in 1978-- Futurehealth, and founding, organizing and running 3 conferences: Winter Brain, on Neurofeedback and consciousness, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology (a pioneer in the field of Positive Psychology, first presenting workshops on it in 1985) and Storycon Summit Meeting on the Art Science and Application of Story-- each the first of their kind. Then, when he found the process of raising people's consciousness and empowering them to take more control of their lives one person at a time was too slow, he founded Opednews.com-- which has been the top search result on Google for the terms liberal news and progressive opinion for several years. Rob began his Bottom-up Radio show, broadcast on WNJC 1360 AM to Metro Philly, also available on iTunes, covering the transition of our culture, business and world from predominantly Top-down (hierarchical, centralized, authoritarian, patriarchal, big) to bottom-up (egalitarian, local, interdependent, grassroots, archetypal feminine and small.) Recent long-term projects include a book, Bottom-up-- The Connection Revolution, debillionairizing the planet and the Psychopathy Defense and Optimization Project.
To watch Rob having a lively conversation with John Conyers, then Chair of the House Judiciary committee, click here. Watch Rob speaking on Bottom up economics at the Occupy G8 Economic Summit, here.