Good Morning Fellow Progressives! I'm writing this diary today because I haven't had a good old fashined ass-chewing for a while, and I knew that you would be just the crowd to help me out with that. Not that it will help me, but let me begin by saying that I like Ned Lamont, and I supported Ned Lamont, and I was sad on November 7 when Ned Lamont didn't make it past the finish line first. That being said though, I'm going to do something I don't normally do....I'm going to stand up for the D.C. Democratic establishment a bit.
First, I think everybody needs to quit blaming other Democrats for Ned's loss, as well as the DSCC. Your point is well taken that they didn't step up and get gung-ho behind Ned after he won the primary. But the fact is that he was a pretty inexperienced candidate running for the big time. He had a great ad team, an idealistic message, and most of all an opponent that most of us can't stand.....but he wasn't a rock star candidate-----yet. Most people don't cut their teeth on running for office in the United States Senate (City Council doesn't count in this case) and his inexperience showed in the campaign. He was little better than fair in the debates and in my opinion did a lousy job of claiming the moral high ground in the face of Lieberman's attacks. A good example for me was in the last debate when those assholes kept interupting Joe by breaking into song. We all know that Ned didn't set that up, but he's the one who should of walked to the front of the stage and told them to shut the fuck up and leave....not Alan S. To someone watching who doesn't blog, who doesn't follow politics very closely, and who had been immersed in attack ads from Lieberman's campaign, it would easily have appeared that they were part of Ned's group of anarchists, and I guarantee you that some people who watched or heard about that quit listening to anything else that Ned had to say---fair or not. I think that Ned did a great job as a fist time candidate for major office and I think he should be urged to continue his pursuit. He is in good company as a guy who tried to reach the Senate but came up short the first time (Mark Warner comes to mind). So I urge those of you in CT to get him back into the game in 2 or 4 years. I don't know the make-up of the district very well, but perhaps running him against Chris Shays in '08 would be a possibility, or for the Governorship in 2010. But I think everyone needs to sit back and accept the fact that Ned's biggest problem in the campaign was that he appeared to be an amateur to enough deomocrats that they just couldn't quite leave Lieberman.
As for the Democratic Establishment's culpability in the election....I'm sorry but I don't blame them at all. I live in Nevada where President Carter's son ran against a George Bush lap dog (John Ensign) that on his best day was far worse than Lieberman on his worst day. I and a lot of others busted our asses just like the folks at team-Lamont did and we came up short. We got very little help from the DSCC or other democrats as well, but in the end they weren't the ones running. Our campaign never quite made it a serious race and the establishment wasn't going to change that. By the way, not to digress, but you guys in Conneticuit act like you are the only people in America who had to deal with a heart-breaking loss and you're not. The folks in Nebraska-03, the folks working for Harold Ford, and many other close races all put their hearts and souls into getting their guy elected and they all came up short too.....and for the most part I don't see them blaming everyone else in the Democratic Party for it. But back to the issue at hand: idealogically the right thing to do was to throw the entire weight of the deomcratic party behind Ned Lamont...pragmatically the right thing to do was let he and Joe fight it out amongst themselves and see who was standing at the end. Not one of you in the Lamont campaign could say for certain that more money, support, appearances, etc. by the DSCC and other prominent democrats would have tipped the balance in favor of Ned Lamont. But here is what almost all of us believe to be a fact: if the establishment would have punished Joe the way you wanted them to and he still managed to eke out a victory, we would not have the majority in the U.S. Senate right now because he would be caucusing with the Republicans. I'm sorry to all of you in Conneticuit who fought so valiantly for Ned, but for the country at large a victory for Ned Lamont at the expense of Jon Tester, Jim Webb, Ben Cardin, or Bob Menendez would have been unacceptable. What do you think the media narative would be right now if the Democratic party managed to purge one of its own members at the expense of gaining the majority....it would be a political joke.....although not as bad as the joke of trying with all its might to purge one of its own but falling short and having that guy jump the fence and handing the majority over the the Republicans. It was in the best interest of the rest of the country for the establishment to stay neutral whether you like it or not because Joe Lieberman was going to be a contender in this race and always presented the possibility of winning, and therefore we simply could not afford to lose him from the caucus. I know he is a tool and a DINO in many ways, but because he is staying in the Deomcratic Caucus Harry Reid will decide what bills get to come to a vote...not Mitch McConnell, Carl Levin will run the Armed Services Committee...not John Warner, Joe Biden will run the Foreign Relations Committee...not Dick Lugar, Pat Leahy will run the Judiciary Committee...not Arlen Specter, John Rockefeller will run the Intelligence Committee...not Pat Roberts, I don't know yet who will run the Environment & Public Works Committee but it WON'T be James Inhofe, Ted Kenndedy will run the Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee...not Michael Enzi, Kent Conrad will run the Budget Committee...not Judd Gregg, and I could go on and on and on. I'm sorry, but keeping Joe Lieberman is a small price to pay for those changes and I'd be a hell of a lot less happy if every Democrat had treated Joe like a traitor and rallied to Ned only to have Ned lose and have Joe hand the majority back to the Republicans.
I will say that after 2008 when we increase our Senate Majority to 55-57 that Joe should then be stripped of any meaningful position in the caucus because we would no longer need him, and I think that would be the ultimate revenge because the party would then be using him the same way he used the party. Besides, I highly doubt that he would leave the Democratic Caucus to join the Minority party.
So, in conclusion, Ned lost and it's time to move on to the next election. He put up a great effort and he should keep at it. The Establishment didn't help as much as it could have, but they didn't sabotoge the election either. You aren't the only ones who were disappointed last Tuesday night, so please stop being martyrs about it. Whether or not you like the effect it had on the race in your back yard, the establishment did the right thing on balance for the rest of the country because a Majority in the chamber trumps any one member that we don't like. I assure you that many of the senators that we do like so much both Freshman and Veteran will be far more effective in THIS Senate than they would have been in a Republican controlled Senate tipped by Joe Lieberman. So suck it up, take a deep breath, take pride in the message you sent and what you accomplished in the Deomcratic Primary, and enjoy the overall success we achieved last week and the great potential we have to build on it in two years, and stop obsessing over and blaming all the other democrats in the world for your loss-----like it or not, this is politics.