ctkeith, Kos, and Connecticut follow Tip O'Neill

In the first Reagan Administration Congress, the House was nominally Democratic, but was effectively controlled by a coalition of Republicans and Boll Weevils, Democrats who consistently allied with the Republicans. One Boll Weevil, Phil Gramm, stuck his neck out further than the rest of the insects by leaking Democratic Caucus information to the Republicans.

Speaker of the House (and therefore head of the Democratic operation in the House) O'Neill was angry, but he also saw it as an opportunity to make an example of one of the Boll Weevils, without completely alienating all of them. He stripped Gramm of his Appropriations Committee assignment.

One could argue that O'Neill's action was counterproductive. After all, Gramm resigned to switch parties and run as a Republican, then later won a Senate seat. But actually, the dozen or so other Boll Weevils started behaving much better. Gramm may have had the resources to make the switch, but most of the others didn't want to risk it. So O'Neill had found an effective way of regaining some party discipline.

I think Lamont will probably win the General Election this year. But he might not, and if he doesn't, there's a real cost to his candidacy. But even if the seat goes Republican or to a Lieberman who's free of the Party and now votes more conservatively, there's also a real gain. It will be a long time before any prominent Democrat will want to be described the way Rahm Emanuel referred to Lieberman last night.