Lamont/Lieberman: The Fallout

Here's where that race stands... Ned Lamont now has the full support of the Democratic party, with members popping up all day to officially give him their support. An encouraging sign. None, however, seems to have convinced Sen. Lieberman to accept defeat gracefully and drop the Independent run (and Joe's still telling anyone who will listen how Democrats betrayed him and how important he is to America).

As for the Republicans, they're ignoring their candidate in Connecticut, instead choosing to defend Lieberman and use his fall to cement talking points that polls show stopped working. This is what we're hearing from them... Democrats rejected Lieberman because they want to lose the war. The Democrats won't stop another 9/11, because terrorism doesn't bother them. The Democrats are far-left crazies now. *yawn* I'm tired of those songs; let's change the station, guys.

My response to those three talking points if I were running the Democratic party: Democrats rejected Lieberman because they don't want to lose the war; 'stay the course' is delusional. We need a change in direction badly, and we need an exit strategy. The Democrats are very concerned with preventing future attacks, which is why they proposed the 9/11 Commission the President tried to stop, why many of them did not want to unnecessarily invade Iraq which distracted us from the real issues and exacerbated our Mideast problems, and want to stop the President from abusing his war for domestic political gain. And if Democrats wanted to 'move left', they would've nominated Cindy Sheehan instead of a left-leaning moderate like Ned Lamont. Polls show the Democratic Party positions have long been the mainstream ones.

The fact is the Lamont win more likely than not has the Republicans very worried (hence, the mad rush to throw out talking points on the issue that got them this far-- 9/11). Ned's win is indicative of several things: That Democratic voters are very motivated heading toward November, that closeness to Bush and the war is a negative, and that people are unhappy with their incumbents (the 'throw the bums out' mentality). In regards to the anti-incumbent thing specifically, Josh Marshall has a good post on Tuesday's losses for Rep. McKinney (D-GA) and Rep. Schwarz (R-MI) as well.

Josh Marshall further looks at all this and just shakes his head-

I'm surprised at how easily many of my press colleagues pen stories like this recounting GOP press offensives without questioning whether it really seems likely to succeed.

What's really sad is that the nexus of national press and political operative bigwigs really needs to get over itself a bit here. Because once they do, they may actually be able to get over Joe Lieberman.

Joe Lieberman is not a world-historical figure.

He's not fighting some long twilight struggle.

He thinks he's both. But he's not.

That's a key point I wanted to highlight, because it happens all the time. Besides the conventional wisdom propensity I mentioned Tuesday morning, the media far too often just accepts GOP information as fact without a) taking time to journalistically analyze the story, or b) assume that the Republicans might, I don't know, have an agenda in presenting it. And yet they never do the same with the Democrats; they'd be smarter than that. But six years of all-GOP rule, coupled with fears of bias charges, has dampened their journalistic skeptism. As I've said many times before, whenever the Republicans boast loudest on an issue (Iraq, warrantless wiretapping, terrorism), it's a preemptive deflection on an issue they know they're vulnerable on.

Josh concludes-

Many Americans are not comfortable with the idea of just pulling out of Iraq. But the war is really unpopular. I think most Americans realize that the president thinks his Iraq policy is a rousing success and most Democrats don't. They get that. They see it. They understand it. If Republicans think the Martyrdom of Joe is going to be their killer issue, let them have at it. They're trying to knock the Dems off their stride but they're showing their desperation. The whole thing is, in both the most serious and frivolous senses of the word, a joke.

Bingo (and speaking of jokes, the Daily Show brilliantly tackled this race tonight).

Finally, as I said at the beginning, I am proud to see the Democratic leaders standing behind Ned Lamont... the voters' choice. I have often criticized the Democratic party for a lack of unity or fight, as well as a propensity to play it safe (by playing to a center that has moved considerably rightward). But they have turned it around in the past several weeks and really taking a more united, and aggressive, stance as the elections approach. They cannot allow themselves to become distracted.

As Howard Dean says in a new letter, "Our party is united on a new direction for our country." And Sen. Lieberman threatens to stand in the way of that. He served his country for 18 years in the Senate. Unless he wants his storied career to be remembered as ending on a downward spiral of sour grapes, he needs to do the right thing and walk away now.

[PS- Some online thoughts on Sen. Lieberman's fall and future plans:
-Salon War Room (Joan Walsh): Clueless Joe
-Salon War Room (Glenn Greenwald): The sad, sorry state of Joe Lieberman
-Time.com (Josh Marshall): Lieberman Lost the Old-Fashioned Way

PPS- On the issue of Republican support for Lieberman, even I was taken aback by the level of it today. Rush Limbaugh and others were very upset (oh, and by the way, George Bush is totally not a conservative; didn't ya know?). Tony Snow said at the White House that this is bad for America. Vice President Cheney said that Lamont's win encourages "al Qaeda types" who are "betting on the proposition that ultimately they can break the will of the American people". That's right, Mr. Vice President, that's what really concerns the terrorists- the Democratic Senate race in Connecticut... why they barely got any jihad done today, so glued were they to CNN. RNC Chair Ken Mehlman even refuses to say the candidate they will be backing is the Republican one. Finally, Karl Rove calls Joe to offer support. Gosh, I can't imagine why Democrats rejected him.]