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Post by chrisfan on Aug 9, 2006 8:30:02 GMT -5
Rocky, if we don't hear all sorts of talk from Democrats over the coming weeks regarding party loyalty and principles in an attempt to get Lieberman out of the race, I will eat my shoe.
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Post by chrisfan on Aug 9, 2006 8:39:03 GMT -5
Also, I think you're mischaracterizing the degree to which Lieberman is a liberal. There's very few issues that he's really liberal on. Voting with his party means nothing when his party has largely voted right along with the Republicans in recent years. His 95% pro-choice voting record and F rating from the NRA are two indicators of his liberal record. He is against a ban on gay marriage - according to Kenny above, that's also a liberal position. He voted against Bush's tax cuts, is against Bush's Social Security reform, and is behind the creation of the bureaucracy known as Homeland Security. He's strong in his stand that the government must do more to curb global warming, and has vowed to continue to fight to reverse Bush's stand on funding for stem cell research. He's in favor of government reform of health care, and against an amendment to ban flag burning. Okay, so the guy favors school vouchers and doens't want so much violence in movies. But the list of liberal positions outnumbers his conservative stands substatially - at least enough to ensure he's a liberal. Not a die-hard bleeding heart liberal, but a liberal nonetheless. |
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Post by kmc on Aug 9, 2006 9:02:53 GMT -5
Have you seen anything on the Republican candidate? I don't expect that Republicans will even vote for him. Connecticut will remain in the hands of a Senator who is going to vote for Democratic leadership, and whose last name begins with the letter "L". As I observe the fall out of the Connecticut primary, I have to wonder just how firmly committed those who say they want more choices and parties really do. I also wonder how much people truly want the principled politicians who are more concerned with the nation than they are with their party and retaining power. It seems apparent that peole only really want those things when it's the other guy who is going to give them up. In Liberman, you've got a Senator who voted with his party 90% of the time. He's conservative on media / censorship issues -- but that's not all that unusual in the Democratic party. And he's conservative on national defense issues. Other than that, he's an honest to goodness liberal. He's been rather loyal to his party - even dropping his stand on some core issues while serving as Gore's running mate, because that WAS the right thing to do for the party. I'm not going to discount his stand on the war. It most certainly DOES go against the current beliefs of the vast majority of the Democratic party. But how much is given up to punish him on that? We say that we don't want candidates who can buy offices for themselves, who don't have principles, and who are more concerned with their party than they are themselves. But what exactly is Lieberman guilty of here? Voting in the way he thinks is best for the country INSTEAD of what his party told him to do. We SAY we don't want politicians whose loyalty is to their party. However, in both parties (Republicans were working to do the same thing in Michigan) we punish principled decisions when they don't reflect blind party loyalty. This is fair commentary, but misses the point that Joe was beaten for his lack of stance on the issue of the day, not by a bunch of crazy uninformed wackos. Many would like to attribute this loss to some kind of uber-liberal takeover of the Democratic Party in CT, but this is just not true. The fact remains that Lamont promises to vote like Joe in just about every issue except the war. Joe was too firmly entrenched in the Bush camp on that issue, and it lost him the primary. I think Rahm Emmanuel said it best: "This shows what blind loyalty to George Bush and being his love child means. This is not about the war. It's blind loyalty to Bush." With due respect, it isn't just a matter of being pro-war vs. anti-war. It is a referendum on how much CT was willing to put up with a guy who did not stand up to the President in the most important issue of the day, especially as this President consistently redefined the role of the Executive. As I read this morning and concur, "if you continually cosy up to the other side without winning any concessions from them, it's not so-called "centrism", much less "bipartisanship" -- it's simple sycophancy." |
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Post by chrisfan on Aug 9, 2006 9:11:07 GMT -5
The Rahm Emmanuel quote is at it's best bullshit. I just outlined above the number of issues where Lieberman's positions are directly against Bush - where Lieberman has voted against Bush and campaigned against Bush. Blind loyalty to George W Bush would have delivered votes for tax cuts, for Sam Alito, and against funding for stem cell research.
If this about the war, and nothing but the war, then call it that. To call it blind loyalty to George Bush is utter bullshit. That is a smackdown for not behaving and towing the party line when instructed to. There is an issue of blind loyalty here ... but it's not blind loyalty to Bush. It's the lack of blind loyalty to the party. Big open tent open for everyone my ass.
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Post by rockysigman on Aug 9, 2006 9:17:30 GMT -5
I maintain that Lieberman is more conservative than you're characterizing him as, but I also agree with Kenny that the number of issues for which he stands on one side or the other is not as important as where he stands on one particular issue.
Whether or not his support for the war is due to blind loyalty to Bush, or because of pure boneheadedness is beside the point, IMO. Regardless of why he is behind the war, the fact is that he is behind the war and the Connecticut Democratic party is not. The party is open to disagreements on most issues, but, as Kenny said, the war is the most important issue of the time. The Democrats constantly get criticized for not standing for anything. This is at least one example where the party is standing for something, and since Lieberman does not hold that position, he is no longer representative of the party. The idea of a big tent is a nice one, but it is common sense that there has to be some areas in which the party has a unified position, or else it ceases to be a political party at all.
It's a "smackdown" for continually supporting a horrible, horrible policy. It's true that the party is now building itself up around being against that policy, but I think that the real issue to the voters is not that he isn't loyal to the party, it's that in breaking from the party, he's supporting bad and dangerous policy.
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Post by rockysigman on Aug 9, 2006 9:21:23 GMT -5
Rocky, if we don't hear all sorts of talk from Democrats over the coming weeks regarding party loyalty and principles in an attempt to get Lieberman out of the race, I will eat my shoe. I meant more in regards to why people are actually voting against him more than what the party rhetoric is saying, but point taken. |
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Post by kmc on Aug 9, 2006 9:32:32 GMT -5
The Rahm Emmanuel quote is at it's best bullshit. I just outlined above the number of issues where Lieberman's positions are directly against Bush - where Lieberman has voted against Bush and campaigned against Bush. Blind loyalty to George W Bush would have delivered votes for tax cuts, for Sam Alito, and against funding for stem cell research. If this about the war, and nothing but the war, then call it that. To call it blind loyalty to George Bush is utter bullshit. That is a smackdown for not behaving and towing the party line when instructed to. There is an issue of blind loyalty here ... but it's not blind loyalty to Bush. It's the lack of blind loyalty to the party. Big open tent open for everyone my ass. What are you advocating then, Chrisfan? That being pro-war should not have cost Joe the nomination? That people were wrong to not vote for him based on that issue? |
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Post by kmc on Aug 9, 2006 9:34:33 GMT -5
I maintain that Lieberman is more conservative than you're characterizing him as, but I also agree with Kenny that the number of issues for which he stands on one side or the other is not as important as where he stands on one particular issue. Whether or not his support for the war is due to blind loyalty to Bush, or because of pure boneheadedness is beside the point, IMO. Regardless of why he is behind the war, the fact is that he is behind the war and the Connecticut Democratic party is not. The party is open to disagreements on most issues, but, as Kenny said, the war is the most important issue of the time. The Democrats constantly get criticized for not standing for anything. This is at least one example where the party is standing for something, and since Lieberman does not hold that position, he is no longer representative of the party. The idea of a big tent is a nice one, but it is common sense that there has to be some areas in which the party has a unified position, or else it ceases to be a political party at all. It's a "smackdown" for continually supporting a horrible, horrible policy. It's true that the party is now building itself up around being against that policy, but I think that the real issue to the voters is not that he isn't loyal to the party, it's that in breaking from the party, he's supporting bad and dangerous policy. Exactly. |
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Post by chrisfan on Aug 9, 2006 9:42:06 GMT -5
The Rahm Emmanuel quote is at it's best bullshit. I just outlined above the number of issues where Lieberman's positions are directly against Bush - where Lieberman has voted against Bush and campaigned against Bush. Blind loyalty to George W Bush would have delivered votes for tax cuts, for Sam Alito, and against funding for stem cell research. If this about the war, and nothing but the war, then call it that. To call it blind loyalty to George Bush is utter bullshit. That is a smackdown for not behaving and towing the party line when instructed to. There is an issue of blind loyalty here ... but it's not blind loyalty to Bush. It's the lack of blind loyalty to the party. Big open tent open for everyone my ass. What are you advocating then, Chrisfan? That being pro-war should not have cost Joe the nomination? That people were wrong to not vote for him based on that issue? No. Don't forget Kenny, I see Lieberman as a liberal. I don't see his seat as one that Republicans would have ANY chance of picking up, therefore, I don't consider it a win or loss for my side. I'm not advocating a vote for or against Lieberman. I'm simply observing that it looks to me like this is a great example of people's words not lining up with their actions. |
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Post by rockysigman on Aug 9, 2006 9:47:07 GMT -5
But their words are that they don't support the war, and their action is that they didn't re-nominate a guy who supports the war. That lines up perfectly.
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Post by chrisfan on Aug 9, 2006 9:49:06 GMT -5
To expand on that last comment - don't forget, I don't have a dog in this race. I'm not looking at it as a statement on the issue that matters most. I'm looking at it as a statement of voter behavior. There are all sorts of actions that voters say they advocate. "The problem with politics is the guys who buy their way into office", "The problem with politics is people protecting their power in the party instead of looking out for what they think is best for the country", "You can't just vote on one issue - you have to look at the big picture".
Those are all lofty ideals that many claim matter to them. But what happens when we get in the voting booth? We typically go against all of those things, and say that someone else needs to do them, this case is different. It's really no different than the frequency with which we see polls and hear rhetoric about how "all incumbants need to be voted out". And yet, election after election (yesterday ironically being the exception here) peole continually put the incumbants back in office. Again, it leads to the conclusion that people hold one set of ideals that other voters should live by, and one that they do themselves.
I guess I'm not really advocating for anything per se. I'm making an observation.
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Post by chrisfan on Aug 9, 2006 9:49:58 GMT -5
But their words are that they don't support the war, and their action is that they didn't re-nominate a guy who supports the war. That lines up perfectly. In the small picture, you're absolutely right. But politics isn't black and white enough to fit everything in the small picture. I'm speaking more of the big picture. |
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Post by chrisfan on Aug 9, 2006 9:57:29 GMT -5
I'll add one thing, specifically on the issue of this election being a referendum on the war. I don't disagree that it was. I also don't disagree that the Democrats will build their entire strategy upon the belief that running against the war, and making everything a referendum on it. And while I"m not confident enough about the predictoin to eat my shoe, I will predict that the strategy will blow up in their faces. I think that the truth is that strategists on the Republican side, led by Karl Rove, are licking their chops at the thoughts of the faces of the Democratic party continuing in Connecticut for the next 3 months talking about the war being a mistake, and getting our troops out now. I expect Republicans for the next 3 months (okay, they'll wait a few weeks to make sure the Democrats firmly announce their position) to hit hard discussing the implications of pulling out, and let that decision be made at the ballot box. I agree that November will be all about the war. But it will not surprise me at all to discover on November 8 that the Democrats completely misunderstood the polling numbers and what they're saying.
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Post by kmc on Aug 9, 2006 10:01:41 GMT -5
I wouldn't doubt that...but I think that Democrats must understand that to run solely on war opposition will blow up in the face. It would literally mean that the Democratic party has learned nothing in the last few years.
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Post by chrisfan on Aug 9, 2006 10:08:20 GMT -5
I wouldn't doubt that...but I think that Democrats must understand that to run solely on war opposition will blow up in the face. It would literally mean that the Democratic party has learned nothing in the last few years. How do they avoid it at this point? You've got all kinds of big-name Dems, most notably Hillary Clinton, who have vowed their support now for LaMont. LaMont will still have to campaign against Lieberman, and you've established today that a race between those two is a race about the war, and nothing else. There's no way that they can keep that race from remaining on the national stage. So how do you campaign sucessfully putting support behind LaMont and using your heavy hitters to support him, but then turn around and say "No, no, don't look there. We're campaigning on more than just the war". It's a lovely catch-22 ... and Karl Rove's fingerprints aren't even on it. |
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