I made a brief comment with this analysis yesterday, but when I read David Sirota's frankly delusional
description of how the various possible outcomes of the Connecticut Democratic Senatorial Primary will reverberate in the halls of power, I felt that SOMEBODY here should splash a little realistic cold water on the growing gleeful self-importance that is flying around Ned Lamont's ascendency.
Now, Sirota's column is tongue-in-cheek. But it's clear that at root, he believes his premise: that Lieberman losing in CT will rattle the Beltway insiders to their cores.
To which I say, ballocks. Get real, ladies and gentlemen. Lieberman's fall is just the fall of a politician who acted like an idiot. More below the fold.
There are plenty of politicians in this country who hold positions that are unpopular in their districts. There are plenty of politicians who will continue to hold such positions and are in no danger of losing their seats. Both of my Senators are among them: Sen. Dianne Feinstein routinely infuriates the liberal Democrats in California, and Sen. Barbara Boxer routinely infuriates more conservative voters in California. Boxer has led somewhat of a charmed political life since reaching the Senate, never having been challenged by a strong and competent Republican with sufficient financial backing, so she's kind of a special case.
But Feinstein will never, ever, ever lose her seat until she relinquishes it, and you can take that to the bank. That's because, unlike Joe Lieberman, she has never gone out of her way to undermine and insult her colleagues in order to make herself look good at their expense.
Now, admittedly, California is not analogous to Connecticut. CA is huge and requires vast sums just to establish voter name recognition, open field offices and buy media. CA is also much more closely divided in party loyalty--we have a lot of conservatives here. CT is small, and solid blue.
But this is a major reason why Sirota is wrong. Most of the "Beltway insiders" he thinks are going to quiver in their boots because yet another millionnaire has reached the US Senate couldn't really care less.
I agree with Armando when he says that bloggers didn't win CT for Ned Lamont. Real-world grassroots organizing, which he credits, helped a lot.
But more than anything else, Joe Lieberman defeated Joe Lieberman. Only the consistent drumbeat of his arrogant, dismissive, self-important and selfish contempt for his own party and the values of his own constituency put him in a position where he could possibly be defeated. That is the only way a 3-term Senator in a safe state could find himself in this position. He did it to himself, and then, because he had established this vulnerability, he was unlucky enough to have a competent, articulate, wealthy challenger arise against him.
If it hadn't been for Joe Lieberman's complete failure to do the basic soft-pedaling of unwelcome political positions that every competent politician learns while still on a city council or school board, we wouldn't be watching this race. It would already be over in an uncontested primary.
So enough with the hubris and the nonsense about "crashing the gate". This is a special case. I'm glad Lieberman is going, but it wasn't bloggers that took him down, or "people power", either. Neither could have laid a glove on him if he wasn't such an arrogant, selfish fool.