Free Republic

From Washington State to Missouri to Pennsylvania, Democratic candidates found themselves on the defensive Wednesday as the Republican Party worked ferociously at every level to try to use the primary defeat of Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut to portray the oppposition as the party of weakness and isolation on national security and liberal leanings on domestic policy. Doleful Democrats bemoaned the irony: At a time when Republicans should be back on their heels because of chaos abroad and President Bush's unpopularity, the Democrats' rejection of a sensible, moralistic centrist has handed the GOP a weapon that could have vast ramifications...

Joe Lieberman has been in the Senate for 18 years. He's a leader of the Democratic Leadership Council, the money wing of the party. He became the party's vice presidential nominee, even as he championed the DLC's "triangulating" politics, pushing off of the Democratic Party base to demonstrate his "independence" by embracing key elements of the conservative agenda -- championing the war in Iraq, attacking affirmative action, pushing capital gains tax cuts that benefit only the very wealthy. Now he's pushed off so long, he seems confused about whom or what he represents. He now says he's a good Democrat,...

Dick Morris, America's most prominent campaign strategist, tells NewsMax that the biggest victim of Joe Lieberman's stunning loss in Connecticut's Democratic primary is Hillary Rodham Clinton. "The big loser last night was Hillary Clinton," Morris said. "She has to go through the Democratic [presidential] primaries to win and it is an increasingly hostile place for someone who voted for the war and has not recanted." Senator Clinton has not announced a 2008 bid, but most political observers say she will run and already holds the frontrunner mantle because of her ability to raise funds and tap into her husband's political...