Hearing George Will repeatedly describe the Lieberman-Lamont battle, and the larger one between the netroots (or as he says, the "far left") and the rest of the party as "mono mania," is making me crazy. This is the frame being set by politicians and pundits to explain the netroots political agenda: it's all about Iraq. We are being portrayed as far-left crazies who chose candidates based solely on their view of the Iraq War.
Yes, Iraq is a huge issue for us. The Bush Administration took advantage of the country's state of fear and post-9/11 "patriotism" to invade a country that was not a threat to us, resulting in death, debt and a rise in terrorism. Of course we are unhappy with the way our elected officials, and the media, fell down on the job of oversight in the buildup to the war.
But we are not only concerned with Iraq. Iraq is, in a way, a symbol and reminder of the failure of our leaders. It is a very visible piece of a much bigger problem that the netroots have with the Bush Administration, the Republican Congress, and some in our own party.
What we--the netroots--want is a Democratic party that will stand up to those who are ruining our country. We want a party that listens to the public, that understands that "we the people" are sitting outside of the DC bubble and want to be heard.
It's not "mono mania." It's not a single issue. We want to see our party strengthened, we want to see it engaged, we want to see it in power. We want Our Democracy back.
What motivates us?
We demand that our party fight for our rights to freedom (including freedom from warrantless spying, freedom from religious persecution), to justice and to security (REAL security). We want to know that our party leaders will do everything in their power to repair relations with our allies, to find real solutions to the energy and global warming problems (viewing them as actual problems--we're reality-based, after all), to institute policies to ensure that we follow the Geneva Conventions and other codes of conduct in our treatment of detainees. We expect our leaders to find solutions to our healthcare crisis, to ensure our educational system is the best it can be, to help the less fortunate in our society.
There are many, many more issues. This is not just about Iraq. Lieberman may have lost a lot of support in CT and from the netroots with his ongoing support of the Iraq War, but that is not the whole story. We need a strong Democratic party united in the fight to get our country back on a sane track, one that stands up to the current leadership. Lieberman has shown that he does not agree with these goals. This is why we oppose Senator Lieberman.