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Democrats Implode

7 August 2006

Many have written in recent days about the hotly contested Senate race between Joe Lieberman and Ned Lamont. Lieberman, the three term Democrat senator from Vermont, has a 90% plus Democrat voting record. But he’s been a vocal supporter of President Bush on the war in Iraq and for the Democrat core faithful that is an unforgivable sin. Enter Lamont, a business man with no public record but a small personal fortune, who has taken the lead in the race thanks in no small part to liberal bloggers.

For his part Lieberman has said that if he loses on Tuesday it means there is no room in the Democrat party for a pro national security candidate. For certain it means the Democrat claims on moderates and centrists is over. MoveOn.org and the liberal blogs will have taken over the Democrat party.

On one of the web sites I frequent a shrieking liberal harped that Lieberman’s problem was far deeper than the war in Iraq and claimed that I and others were either stupid or lying if we didn’t agree. But listen to the liberal talking heads all day and there is nary a word about anything else except for his support for Bush in the war. The left has decided that an example needed to be made of someone and Lieberman seemed tailor made.

That Lamont has the support of liberals is quite telling. Lamont has no issue except the war and he seems to lack a basic understanding on that subject. Martin Peretz, editor in chief of the liberal New Republic, had this to say about Lamont in today’s Wall Street Journal:

Now Mr. Lamont’s views are also not camouflaged. They are just simpleminded. Here, for instance, is his take on what should be done about Iran’s nuclear-weapons venture: “We should work diplomatically and aggressively to give them reasons why they don’t need to build a bomb, to give them incentives. We have to engage in very aggressive diplomacy. I’d like to bring in allies when we can. I’d like to use carrots as well as sticks to see if we can change the nature of the debate.” Oh, I see. He thinks the problem is that they do not understand, and so we should explain things to them, and then they will do the right thing. It is a fortunate world that Mr. Lamont lives in, but it is not the real one. Anyway, this sort of plying is precisely what has been going on for years, and to no good effect. Mr. Lamont continues that “Lieberman is the one who keeps talking about keeping the military option on the table.” And what is so plainly wrong with that? Would Mahmoud Ahmadinejad be more agreeable if he thought that we had disposed of the military option in favor of more country club behavior?

Peretz worries that the Democrat party is becoming the peacenik party of the late sixties. A single issue party with little understanding of the world in which we live and little chance of carrying a national debate. Peretz has good reason to worry and conservatives have reason to rejoice.

My moonbat detractor, mentioned above, tried to skewer me because I didn’t know anything about the Republican candidate in Vermont. I freely admitted that I did not but found humor in the fact that the Democrat’s actions gave the Republican candidate a shot, albeit a very long shot, in the race in November should Lieberman choose to run as an independent, something he has said he would do. What my moonbat detractor failed to mention was the weak candidate she is endorsing. Lamont has almost no understanding of geopolitics or politics in general. He’s allowed whacked out bloggers to control his campaign resulting in the Lieberman blackface ad that went up. Lamont quickly tried to distance himself from the bloggers but had little success in the attempt. Considering that Lamont has his own blog his claim that he knows nothing about the blogs rings hollow. In fact, Lamont’s campaign has had numerous meetings with two outspoken liberal bloggers and one even gave him a ride.

All this indicates that the Democrat candidate opposing Lieberman was irrelevant. Any candidate would do. So long as someone would run against Lieberman they would get the support of the liberal left.

Lamont managed to establish a double digit lead over Lieberman but that appears to be changing. With less than 24 hours until the polls open Lieberman has closed the gap to within the margin of error. There’s not much time left and who knows what the outcome will be on Tuesday. But it is safe to say that if Lieberman loses tomorrow and runs as an independent as promised he will win reelection. The big loser will be the Democrat party. And Lamont’s political career will be over before it begins.

One way or another The Democrat party will have to come to grips with the extreme left within its ranks. In 2004 the ultra liberal organizations like MoveOn.org exercised tremendous control of the that party. That resulted in Howard Dean being elected to lead the party. Clearly the extreme left is in control now but can Democrats win with such a strategy? I think they cannot. My impulse is to agree with many on the right and rejoice at the self destruction going on in the Democrat party. Peretz believes this is “a dream come true for Karl Rove” and I agree with him. Having seen, however, how Republicans in Congress have gone on such a spending spree without real opposition, I have come to believe that a viable opposition party is necessary to a functioning republic. If the Democrat party can’t pull itself out of its spiral into irrelevancy, a new party will be needed to take up the slack. Who that might be is a question for another post.