"Because it's not about the war. Or moderation. Or ideology at all. It's about partisanship. The lines are brightly drawn, but in unexpected places. [...] You can vote with Republicans, but you can't undermine Democrats. You can be a hawk, but you can't deride doves. The politics here are tribal, and Lieberman's developed too severe a crush on the neighboring chieftain to participate."I missed the debate between Ned Lamont and Joe Lieberman, but many of the comments from it amounted to "Why did Lieberman attack Lamont so strongly but was so kind to Dick Cheney when they debated in 2000?" The times are six years different, so there are reasons for the difference, but one of the largest reasons is that Joe Lieberman has already written off the majority of the Democratic voters in Connecticut. He was working to attract the Republican voters he needs in order to win as an independent after he loses the Democratic Primary to Lamont.
Digby says about the Lieberman-Lamont debate:
"Last night Lieberman did it again, chastizing Lamont and his supporters for ruining the Democratic party. When's the last time you heard a Republican candidate attack his own voters?"Joe sees that as a tactical political gambit which he feels that his experience and super intelligence will allow him to pull off and win reelection again. Many of us in the blogosphere see that as treason to the Democratic Party. Lieberman has gone over to the Republicans, but is running for office in a marginally Democratic state. Lieberman also showed that he has gone over when he led off the Republican side of the Senate argument about holding the course in Iraq. He was way too obviously happy to be there with all those Republican Senators. Like he belonged there with the guys who are running the show in the Senate.
I don't think that Lieberman is out of touch really. He is just out of touch with the Democratic voters. He is trying to sell his 18 years experience in the Senate as a plus for the voters of Connecticut - and it might be. But it isn't an advantage for the Democratic voters of Connecticut. Think about it. There are three marginal Republican house members running in Connecticut in November. If Lamont runs as an Independent, then the Democratic contenders for those three House seats can expect a lot of the otherwise Democratic funding to dry up and shift to Lieberman. So there is a good chance that Lieberman, if he loses the Democratic Primary to Lamont, will take down the chance the Democratic Party has of winning back control the House.
This is not the position of a member of the Democratic Party tribe. If it were to mean the difference between being likely to take back Democratic control of the House or reelecting Joe Lieberman to the Senate, then Joe should do the right thing for the party and fall on his sword. That is what a member of the tribe would do.
A bit of Congressional history here. Lieberman came up in the Senate in his first two terms when the distinctions between the two parties were not nearly as strong as it is now. Working across the aisle was considered good form, especially when it was working for the nation. That's what it means to have bipartisan cred. That has changed because the Republican Party wanted it changed. The Republican leadership in both houses no longer allow such independence in Republicans.
Lieberman doesn't recognize the change. Under the older system, the Congressional leadership of both houses would create bills that the moderates of both parties could vote for. Then they would work from the middle to get enought bipartisan votes to pass their legislation. With the Republicans in control of both houses of Congress, however, they now fashion the most extreme right-wing bills possible, then move from the far right to pick off a few moderates to pass such extremist leglislation. Instead of being the targets for whom the legislation is fashioned, the moderates become the least objectionable left wingers who can be bribed, cajolled, or otherwise enticed to abandon all morality and party loyality and join in with the extremist right-wingers to pass truly odious legislation. In the Senate Joe Lieberman is working hard to be that Democrat who abandons party to join with power.
Steve left an excellent comment to Ezra Klein's posting describing the history of that change. While there were difficulties between the two parties after the 2000 elections, when 9/11 occurred the Democrats rallied behind the Bush administration wholeheartedly to defend America. The result was that in 2002 the Republicans kicked them in the teeth for their efforts. The race against Max Cleveland calling his patriotism into question was one example and the anti-union poison pill they placed in the legislation creating the Department of Homeland Security so that Democrats had to vote against it was another. As steve said:
"Many liberals saw these tactics as a repudiation of the de facto partisan truce which had existed since 9/11, and things have never been the same since.Although there is also a lot of difference of opinion on policy issues between the liberal Democrats and the Republicans, that really is not why Lieberman has become Senatora non Grata. Lieberman simply acts like he is too good to belong to the Democratic Party or even associate with them any more than he has to. I understand that Lieberman rarely even left Washington D.C. to return to Connecticut until he realized he was going to have to actually run for reelection to the Senate. All the powerful people are in D.C., and most of them right now are Republicans. That's where he wants to be.
[The theft of the 2004 Presidential election has added greatly to the Democratic anger. - Editor.]
Many Democratic voters are deeply, deeply frustrated with those few politicians, like Lieberman, who don't understand what they see as the new world order, and want to play nice and accumulate bipartisan cred even as the Republicans kick them in the teeth at every opportunity.
Things truly could have been different after 9/11, and different in a way that most Americans would favor, if not for a Republican leadership that cared more about consolidating political power than moving forward as a unified country. It's a tragedy."
His attitude shows, even on TV. That's what's really wrong with him. It really is a tribal thing rather than a policy thing. Essentially, Joe Lieberman dislikes belonging to the Democratic Party. It is now just a necessary habit for him if he is going to associate with the D.C. power elites he prefers to rub shoulders with, hug, or kiss.
Here is a discussion on the debate from Jane Hamsher at FireDogLake with some excellent quotes from Jim VandeHei of the Washington Post, in an online chat today reporting on the event.
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