On July 30, yours truly predicted that Joe Lieberman (who perhaps might have been our Vice President today were it not for a few thousand votes and Ralph Nadar’s candidacy) would be hung out to dry by the Democratic establishment in Connecticut and beyond (so I’m batting 100%, 1-for-1, in political predictions).
Following his 52-48 August 8 primary loss to Ned Lamont, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and Sens. Chuck Schumer, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Dick Durbin, John Kerry and Christopher Dodd have all declared their support of Ned Lamont in the November general election. New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson today became the first prominent figure to explicitly call on Sen. Lieberman to drop his reelection bid.
This past Wednesday, Jacob Weisberg, writing in the left-of-center publication Slate lambasted the Lamont candidacy with this incisive piece entitled Dead with Ned. Weisberg’s reading on Ned Lamont’s victory is that:
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.
In a nutshell, Weisberg asserts that:
The problem for the Democrats is that…..Many of them appear not to take the wider, global battle against Islamic fanaticism seriously. They see Iraq purely as a symptom of a cynical and politicized right-wing response to Sept. 11, as opposed to a tragic misstep in a bigger conflict. Substantively, this view indicates a fundamental misapprehension of the problem of terrorism. Politically, it points the way to perpetual Democratic defeat.
I do not agree with all of Weisberg’s remarks (he regards the Iraq war as a mistake), but his entire essay is quite thoughtful and well written.
(HT: Justin Taylor)