Without a "Joebituary", CT-Sen Result Was Worst-Case Scenario
My worst nightmare played out last night in the Connecticut Senate primary. Don't get me wrong. I'm not enamored with Joe Lieberman by any stretch. But neither was I overly impressed with victorious challenger Ned Lamont or especially the fact that this battle was chosen in the first place when Democrats' ONLY priority this year should have been defeating Republicans in November. Nonetheless, the situation is what it is, so one of two scenarios would have been the least damaging last night.....
The first would have been a Lieberman victory of any margin. It would have prevented the media narrative of "Democrats at war with themselves" that we'll be bombarded with over the next few weeks (as opposed to the fact that Republicans are getting their asses handed to them in polls across the country). But even this scenario would have had a downside because Lieberman is no so thoroughly despised by anti-war Democrats in Connecticut that his critics wouldn't have bothered to show up at the polls in November without Lamont on the ballot, making the Congressional defeats of three vulnerable Republican incumbents in the state (Rob Simmons, Christopher Shays, Nancy Johnson) very unlikely to have happened.
The second favorable scenario would have been a Lamont blowout, as was predicted in the polls. If Lamont had won by double digits, as I had predicted last week. Squabbling by the media and Republican pundits would have hit fever pitch just as it has today, but it would have scarcely mattered because Lieberman would have taken such a hit that his independent bid wouldn't have gotten much traction in the face of such a widespread rejection.
Unfortunately, neither of those scenarios occurred. The worst scenario played out, where Lamont pulled out a nailbiter, dividing Democrats and emboldening Lieberman to proceed with his egomaniacal and sour grapes independent bid. Republicans and media sharks will have a field day with this, and the fact that Lamont's victory speech was given with Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton in the background will only add to the embarrassment. And the hypothetical I outlined last week looks downright prophetic already, right down to the candidate. Republicans in Missouri are reportedly about to run an ad challenging red-state Missouri Democrat Claire McCaskill to choose sides between "the extremists" and "her party's 'honorable' former Vice-Presidential candidate".
Almost to the letter, I was correct in predicting the potential for a weeks-long or even months-long PR bloodbath in the wake of a Lieberman defeat. I'm more convinced than ever of that happening given the specifics of last night's outcome.
With all that said, I always found Joe Lieberman to be a decent guy, even if he was far from my favorite Democrat and a bit of a sanctimonious moral elitist. I was prepared to feel kind of bad for the guy in the wake of his defeat last night. Boy, was I wrong. The guy pissed me off big-time when his cheap, $15-per-month campaign blog crashed and he accused liberal bloggers of hacking into it, without any proof. If (or more likely when) his accusations are disproven by a thorough investigation, he could have some well-deserved egg on his face for that slanderous stunt.
And then, rather than offering anything in the way of a public concession to Lamont, he immediately announced to the world that he was not going to abide by voters wishes and would run as an independent rather than take his primary defeat like a man. This is a pattern with Lieberman, who has elevated his personal interests above and beyond that of the party or the voters. Back in 2000, his Senate seat was up on the same night as the Presidential race. Despite pleas by the party to abandon his Senate run, let another Connecticut compete for the seat, and focus on winning the Presidency, Lieberman chose to hedge his bets and run for the Senate and VP simultaneously, knowing that if he and Gore had won, Connecticut's Republican Governor would appoint a Republican to fill Lieberman's seat. The way things played out on Election Night 2000, if a few dozen votes in Florida had went the other way, Gore and Lieberman would have been headed to the Oval Office....and the Senate seat Lieberman would be forfeiting would have been the difference, handing Republicans control of the Senate when the Dems would have otherwise won it back. But it was all about Joe.
The consequences of Lieberman's ego could be even worse this time, throwing his party under the bus and forcing a nasty intraparty distraction at its most opportune moment for regaining power. Once again, it's all about Joe. I've lost all respect for the man.
What does this mean for this race in the general election? Hard to say. Lamont may or may not get a bounce from his primary win. I don't sense that he's ready for primetime so the odds of him making a momentum-killing gaffe in the next three months is probably pretty good. On the other hand, Lieberman will find his financial resources drying up quickly now that he's abandoned the Democratic Party. He'll probably get lots of money from Republican interests, which could further erode his standing among the left-of-center electorate in Connecticut. At the very least, he'll lurch fiercely to the right to try to win over Republican voters that could help him win in a three-way race, but that will also trigger a further erosion of support from Democrats and the mostly left-leaning independents in the state. Given all the pitfalls both candidates could face, I'm split right down the middle as to whether I think Lieberman or Lamont will prevail in November. One outcome that definitely won't happen is a victory by Republican Alan Schlesinger, an absolutely awful candidate who was the only guy the GOP could get to challenge Lieberman back when it was perceived to be only a two-candidate race. If the GOP knew then what it knows now, you can bet they'd have run a stronger candidate, but given the fact that they're stuck with Schlesinger, a guy who used a false identity to cover up his huge gambling debts, they're a non-factor in this race.
Lastly, I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that another primary happened last night in the state of Michigan. In the moderately-conservative 7th Congressional district, moderate GOP incumbent Joe Schwarz was defeated by double-digits by fire-breathing right-wing nutball Tim Walberg, a certifiable loony from the Rick Santorum wing of the party. Next month, liberal Rhode Island Republican Senator Lincoln Chafee also faces a primary challenge from the far right. Funny how the same Republicans excoriating Lieberman's primary defeat as "proof that there is no room for moderates in the Democratic Party" can't seem to recognize the irony that their party never passes up the opportunity to purge non-purists from its ranks either. Then again, if we can't count on Republicans to be mindlessly cartoonish hypocrites, what is there we can count on in this world?
The first would have been a Lieberman victory of any margin. It would have prevented the media narrative of "Democrats at war with themselves" that we'll be bombarded with over the next few weeks (as opposed to the fact that Republicans are getting their asses handed to them in polls across the country). But even this scenario would have had a downside because Lieberman is no so thoroughly despised by anti-war Democrats in Connecticut that his critics wouldn't have bothered to show up at the polls in November without Lamont on the ballot, making the Congressional defeats of three vulnerable Republican incumbents in the state (Rob Simmons, Christopher Shays, Nancy Johnson) very unlikely to have happened.
The second favorable scenario would have been a Lamont blowout, as was predicted in the polls. If Lamont had won by double digits, as I had predicted last week. Squabbling by the media and Republican pundits would have hit fever pitch just as it has today, but it would have scarcely mattered because Lieberman would have taken such a hit that his independent bid wouldn't have gotten much traction in the face of such a widespread rejection.
Unfortunately, neither of those scenarios occurred. The worst scenario played out, where Lamont pulled out a nailbiter, dividing Democrats and emboldening Lieberman to proceed with his egomaniacal and sour grapes independent bid. Republicans and media sharks will have a field day with this, and the fact that Lamont's victory speech was given with Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton in the background will only add to the embarrassment. And the hypothetical I outlined last week looks downright prophetic already, right down to the candidate. Republicans in Missouri are reportedly about to run an ad challenging red-state Missouri Democrat Claire McCaskill to choose sides between "the extremists" and "her party's 'honorable' former Vice-Presidential candidate".
Almost to the letter, I was correct in predicting the potential for a weeks-long or even months-long PR bloodbath in the wake of a Lieberman defeat. I'm more convinced than ever of that happening given the specifics of last night's outcome.
With all that said, I always found Joe Lieberman to be a decent guy, even if he was far from my favorite Democrat and a bit of a sanctimonious moral elitist. I was prepared to feel kind of bad for the guy in the wake of his defeat last night. Boy, was I wrong. The guy pissed me off big-time when his cheap, $15-per-month campaign blog crashed and he accused liberal bloggers of hacking into it, without any proof. If (or more likely when) his accusations are disproven by a thorough investigation, he could have some well-deserved egg on his face for that slanderous stunt.
And then, rather than offering anything in the way of a public concession to Lamont, he immediately announced to the world that he was not going to abide by voters wishes and would run as an independent rather than take his primary defeat like a man. This is a pattern with Lieberman, who has elevated his personal interests above and beyond that of the party or the voters. Back in 2000, his Senate seat was up on the same night as the Presidential race. Despite pleas by the party to abandon his Senate run, let another Connecticut compete for the seat, and focus on winning the Presidency, Lieberman chose to hedge his bets and run for the Senate and VP simultaneously, knowing that if he and Gore had won, Connecticut's Republican Governor would appoint a Republican to fill Lieberman's seat. The way things played out on Election Night 2000, if a few dozen votes in Florida had went the other way, Gore and Lieberman would have been headed to the Oval Office....and the Senate seat Lieberman would be forfeiting would have been the difference, handing Republicans control of the Senate when the Dems would have otherwise won it back. But it was all about Joe.
The consequences of Lieberman's ego could be even worse this time, throwing his party under the bus and forcing a nasty intraparty distraction at its most opportune moment for regaining power. Once again, it's all about Joe. I've lost all respect for the man.
What does this mean for this race in the general election? Hard to say. Lamont may or may not get a bounce from his primary win. I don't sense that he's ready for primetime so the odds of him making a momentum-killing gaffe in the next three months is probably pretty good. On the other hand, Lieberman will find his financial resources drying up quickly now that he's abandoned the Democratic Party. He'll probably get lots of money from Republican interests, which could further erode his standing among the left-of-center electorate in Connecticut. At the very least, he'll lurch fiercely to the right to try to win over Republican voters that could help him win in a three-way race, but that will also trigger a further erosion of support from Democrats and the mostly left-leaning independents in the state. Given all the pitfalls both candidates could face, I'm split right down the middle as to whether I think Lieberman or Lamont will prevail in November. One outcome that definitely won't happen is a victory by Republican Alan Schlesinger, an absolutely awful candidate who was the only guy the GOP could get to challenge Lieberman back when it was perceived to be only a two-candidate race. If the GOP knew then what it knows now, you can bet they'd have run a stronger candidate, but given the fact that they're stuck with Schlesinger, a guy who used a false identity to cover up his huge gambling debts, they're a non-factor in this race.
Lastly, I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that another primary happened last night in the state of Michigan. In the moderately-conservative 7th Congressional district, moderate GOP incumbent Joe Schwarz was defeated by double-digits by fire-breathing right-wing nutball Tim Walberg, a certifiable loony from the Rick Santorum wing of the party. Next month, liberal Rhode Island Republican Senator Lincoln Chafee also faces a primary challenge from the far right. Funny how the same Republicans excoriating Lieberman's primary defeat as "proof that there is no room for moderates in the Democratic Party" can't seem to recognize the irony that their party never passes up the opportunity to purge non-purists from its ranks either. Then again, if we can't count on Republicans to be mindlessly cartoonish hypocrites, what is there we can count on in this world?
posted by Mark at 6:43 PM
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