While station-surfing on the way to work a week or so ago, I caught a portion of a Sean Hannity re-run (what can I say? I'm a masochist) which featured him excoriating a liberal caller on the issue of Senator Lieberman. Hannity labeled the caller as "hateful" and sternly reminded him that Lieberman has a solid 90% record of voting with Congressional Democrats.
Now, the 90% figure has been bandied about (and in some instances ridiculed) here on Daily Kos. Like many of the rest of you, I'm not sure that it's accurate; there have been plenty of things that I've disagreed with Joe on beyond his blind acceptance of the Bush Doctrine and the war in Iraq (judicial nominees, video game and music censorship, and his speech denouncing President Clinton come to mind, to name a few.)
But you know what? I'm willing to stipulate that 90%. And the next time somebody throws this lame argument at you, you should stipulate it as well, and then throw it back in their face. More below the fold.
Consider a hypothetical situation involving a Republican presidential candidate trying to secure that party's nomination. This candidate is extremely hawkish on foreign policy, he's big on tax cuts, he goes trap shooting with the NRA leadership on a weekly basis, he views environmental regulations as a roadblock to business -- in short, he endorses the Republican party platform down to the very last word.
With one exception.
He's staunchly and immovably pro-choice. He thinks that abortion is not the business of the government, and promises to veto any bill that restricts abortion rights the moment it hits his desk.
Screw 90%. This hypothetical candidate endorses a full ninety-nine percent of the Republican party platform -- except for, you know, the abortion thing. Does Sean Hannity (or anybody else, for that matter) honestly believe that this hypothetical candidate has a snowball's chance in hell of getting the Republican nomination?
Of course he wouldn't. In reality, he'd be lucky to be politely booed out of the convention hall, and this demonstrates how disingenuous the entire "90% Joe" argument is. The phrase "single-issue voter" has been a part of our political vernacular for a long time now. Typically, single-issue voters have rallied around causes like gun control, taxation, and (especially) abortion.
What we've discovered in the election cycle of 2006 is that the war in Iraq has created a lot of new Democratic (and some Republican) single-issue voters. Many of us Democrats view this war and the geopolitical strategy that spawned it as dangerous and poisonous; we consider it to be counterproductive to world efforts to secure safety and promote stability. This being the case, it stands to reason that if a candidate is on the wrong side of this particular issue, we will a) not vote for him, if we have the ability to do so and b) actively campaign for others to do the same.
This is not an instance of "poor Joe" being beaten up by "blogosphere bullies". This is a large group of people exercising their Constitutional right to voice their opinion on an issue that has become a paramount concern to them. And if the hypothetical candidate I described a few paragraphs above were to be speaking from the podium at the RNC, Republicans would be doing the exact same thing.
Dare them to deny it with a straight face -- they can't.