Dead With Ned (Why Lamont's victory spells Democratic disaster.)

Slate ^ | 8/9/2006 | Jacob Weisberg

[BlackRazor]

Dead With Ned
Why Lamont's victory spells Democratic disaster.
By Jacob Weisberg

Posted Wednesday, Aug. 9, 2006, at 3:33 PM ET

Political analysts tend to overinterpret the results of isolated elections. But you can hardly read too much into Ned Lamont's defeat of Joe Lieberman in Connecticut's Aug. 8 primary. This is a signal event that will have a huge and lasting negative impact on the Democratic Party. The result suggests that instead of capitalizing on the massive failures of the Bush administration, Democrats are poised to re-enact a version of the Vietnam-era drama that helped them lose five out six presidential elections between 1968 and the end of the Cold War.

(snip)

Whether Democrats can avoid playing their Vietnam video to the end depends on their ability to project military and diplomatic toughness in place of the elitism and anti-war purity represented in 2004 by Howard Dean and now by Ned Lamont. Hillary Clinton, the Democratic front-runner for 2008, is trying to walk this difficult line, continuing to express support for the war in principle while becoming increasingly strident in her criticism of its execution. As the congressional elections approach, many Republican candidates are fleeing Bush's embrace because of his Iraq-induced unpopularity. But Lamont's victory points to a way in which Bush's disastrous war could turn into an even bigger liability for the Democrats.

[RonDog]

Illustration by Mark Alan Stamaty.
Click image to see enlarged view.

[George Smiley]

So Jonah Goldberg agrees with Congressman Billybob.

[bert]

Lannie Davis has been on multiple times spinning spinning spinning the disaster he sees.

[Mind-numbed Robot]

Hey, if Joe was the conscious of the senate does that mean the senate now has no conscious or is it unconscious.

You might try this word: conscience. It is the correct one.

[freespirited]

Lieberman's campaign ought to get some video clips of Lamont's most lefty moments. Then make them into a commercial with a Connecticut voter saying at the end, "I know people want change. But not THAT kind of change."

[RoseofTexas]

"Bush's disastrous war"

DISASTROUS??...GOD I hate the liberal whore presstitutes! They were the MAIN reason why Vietnam became a lost cause!

[Teacher317]

"[N]ed's dead, baby. [N]ed's dead."

[GOPJ]

... Vietnam was a badly chosen battlefield in a larger conflict with totalitarianism that America had no choice but to pursue. In turning viciously on stalwarts of the Cold War era like Lyndon B. Johnson, Hubert Humphrey, and Scoop Jackson, anti-war insurgents called into question the Democratic Party's underlying commitment to challenging Communist expansion. The party's Vietnam-era drift away from issues of security and defense—and its association with a radical left hostile to the military and neutral in the fight between liberalism and communism—helped push a lot of Americans who didn't much like the Vietnam War into the arms of Richard Nixon.

Gotta love those dems - they might be stupid, but they're always stupid in the same predictable ways...

[ThanhPhero]

Drifting?

[tiki]

My first thought this morning was that Lieberman would have won if this terror plot had been discovered Monday.

[shrinkermd]

The issue with the polls claiming majority antiwar convictions, is the very low number of undecided. A filter question should be are you against all wars or this one. The basis for statistical inference requires the question means the same to all individuals. This is not the case here. The second filter question would be, "are you sufficiently informed to make a decision on the Iraq War?" Usually 40% or more of respondents are abysmally ignorant of the issues but opine anyway.

Pseudo-polls are intended to persuade. They use statistics like a drunk uses a lamp post--not for illumination but for support. In other words, they have tailor made a poll to provide confirmation bias.

[Hawthorn]

The notorious Stalinist, Corliss Lamont, has recently been described in print as the following:

1. Father of Ned Lamont

2. Grandfather of Ned Lamont

3. Great-Uncle of Ned Lamont (present "Slate" article)

Does anybody out there know the truth about old Care-Less?

[Time to get David Horowitz on the case!]

[johnny7]

Hillbilly boy?

[The G Man]

Bolting?

[Hawthorn]

The G Man wrote:

> The Democratic Party drifting to the left can only be a good thing for us. <


I couldn't disagree more.

Our great country now faces an existential threat from Islamo-Nazism that's more perilous than anything since the Revolutionary War.

As I see things, NOTHING ELSE REALLY MATTERS at this point. If we can't achieve something close to a national consensus on this overweaning issue, I fear our civilization and our way of life may end.

We urgently need the support of the liberals and socialists and all other Americans in the coming struggle, no matter how much we may disagree with them on tax policy, abortion rights, gun control, homosexual marriage, and the like. So when I see a large percentage of the Democratic Party join the appeasers and the cut-and-run caucus, I pray for my country.

[LS]

Perhaps, but I think the Heathrow near-miss will have more of an impact on the November races than Ned Lamont.

[The G Man]

I meant politically of course.

[DarthVader]

"There are many of us who would love to "Teach them a lesson in November" (myself included), but who recognize that the stakes are too high for political games."

You are smart to realize this, those who want to play political games under the current circumstances are bordering on insanity.

[webstersII]

"The Dems always find a way to shoot themselves in the foot."

And then the GOP wins. And then the GOP enacts many of the same types of legislation that the Dems would have enacted -- Out of control budgets, no drilling in ANWR or coastal areas, liberal judges, more centralized control of things like education, more bureaucracy, etc., etc., etc.

The Dems don't have to worry about being Dems as much anymore because the GOP has taken on that job.

[DustyMoment]

You are smart to realize this, those who want to play political games under the current circumstances are bordering on insanity.

Thanks for the vote of confidence. I wish we could afford to play some political games and toss some people out on their butts, but with the WOT, the death of the "loyal opposition" (used to be called "Democrats"; now they are the Moonbat Party) and the ongoing threats from those who want us dead, it's too dangerous.