Posted on 08/06/2006 7:36:01 PM PDT by blam
Democrats agonise over anti-war stance
By Alec Russell in Goshen, Connecticut
(Filed: 07/08/2006)
A political earthquake is threatening the foundations of the Democratic Party as a liberal anti-war movement prepares to topple one of its best-known senators.
The drama, which has the potential to tilt the party to the Left, poses an acute dilemma for its centrist leaders, in particular Hillary Clinton, the frontrunner for the 2008 presidential nomination. Left-wing, anti-war Democrats have traditionally been trounced when running for the White House.
The centre of events is in leafy Goshen, Connecticut, where Joe Lieberman, the party's vice-presidential candidate in 2000, faces humiliation tomorrow in a Democratic primary for November's congressional elections.
His challenger, Ned Lamont, a clean-cut businessman, has moved into a double-digit lead as he has pounded Mr Lieberman over the senator's staunch support for the war in Iraq.
Would-be presidential candidates all over the country are frantically recalibrating their positions. Mrs Clinton, who has also faced fierce attacks from the Left over her backing of the war in Iraq, last week launched her sharpest criticism yet of the Bush administration.
Her particular challenge is to overcome the Middle American perception that, as a woman, she would be weak on national security, while convincing her party's base that she has not betrayed its principles.
She savaged Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, accusing him of presiding over a "failed policy" in Iraq and calling for his resignation.
"This is the beginning of something happening all over the country," said Mikael Moore, a senior Democratic aide on Capitol Hill, as he campaigned for Mr Lamont this weekend.
"Already you are seeing Democratic senators saying things about the war that they would never have said four weeks ago. We have been running so far to the Right or the middle that we were way off base. If someone can take out Lieberman on an anti-war platform then most Democrats should be thinking that ought to be their platform."
As he shook hands at a jazz festival in Goshen, Mr Lamont played down talk that he was the face of a new Democratic movement.
"I am the face of the new Democratic senator of Connecticut," he said. But he conceded that the war in Iraq was the key to both his campaign and the country.
"It's a defining issue, there is no question about it. More and more people think it was a war of choice. It's time for us to start bringing our troops home."
Mr Lieberman's last hope is that his campaign team's organisational muscle, built up during his 18 years as a senator, will, at the last minute, overcome the passion and drive of his challenger's supporters.
In the last fortnight, a host of party bigwigs, including Bill Clinton, have campaigned for Mr Lieberman, the most outspoken of the dwindling band of Democratic hawks. He has vowed to run as an independent if he loses tomorrow. He would, however, fight a lonely battle as most of his big-name supporters have made clear that they will melt away if the party rejects him.
With two years still to go before the 2008 presidential election, Republicans have started to promote the idea that their opponents are defeatist - a potent charge that has led to repeated Democratic defeats, most recently in 2004.
Dems have no principles whatever. No plan; no vision for American; no sense of the real world we live in; no proposals for the future; none. It's all about what it takes to win elections. They're despicable. I hope they all become cut-and-runners, and lose BIG in November.
Huh?
Hello Defiant.
I wish I shared your optimism, but I believe that people are that stupid.
The margin of victory in the last four elections testifies to that. Millions of people in this nation vote for Democrats. When Marion Barry ran after his cocaine scandal, people who voted for him said the videotape was fake and a conspiracy.
I try to never underestimate the stupidity of people.
The majority that voted for Bush last time is not stupid enough to think they can trust Democrats to protect the country. I personally think that Bush ran a lousy campaign, and that a strong candidate should have had 55 percent at least. Reagan would have had over 60 percent in wartime. So, again, a person who articulates the conservative position well, and does not shy away from exposing the inadeqacy of the Democrats, should be able to win, even granting the stupidity of Democrat and many independent voters.
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