Liberating Lieberman

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The New York Sun

Now that the returns are in, the concession phone call made, the speeches delivered, and the general election campaign begun, it’s clear that the winner of Tuesday’s Democratic primary for Senate in Connecticut is — Joseph Lieberman. With his intraparty opponents exposed as a bunch of Internet-addled loons tinged with anti-Semitism who will support anti-war inherited wealth over interests of blue collar working families, Mr. Lieberman is liberated from the modern Democratic Party and bursting to campaign as an independent. No sooner was Mr. Lieberman free than he was greeted by Mayor Bloomberg, who, in one of his finest moments, told reporters that he would stick with Mr. Lieberman all the way. Our reporter, Leon Neyfakh, writing on page one today, takes that as a sign that a serious third party option is coming into focus for 2008.

In one sense, Mr. Bloomberg himself has been ahead of Mr. Lieberman. The mayor gave up on the Democratic Party in 2001, after concluding little room was left for a progressive but pragmatic politician. Mr. Lieberman had to be pushed, though he had already left the party ideologically.The senator stands as the latest in a line of Democrats, from Truman to JFK to “Scoop” Jackson, who believed it was possible for the party to be both strong on national security and progressive on domestic issues. That party had room for people who adhered to some religion other than abortion and for politicians who thought outside the party line on other issues.

No longer, however. For his support for the war in Iraq, Mr. Lieberman was subjected to a hateful campaign. Even after Mr. Lieberman’s defeat, the left-wing blogger Markos Moulitsas took to the Internet to call Connecticut’s three-term senator “a pompous, insulting ass.” Senator Clinton signaled well before the vote that she would abandon her erstwhile friend if he lost. Senator Schumer has bailed out, plunging a dagger into the heart of the wing of the party that he more logically should be helping to rescue.The remnant of the civil rights movement Mr. Lieberman supported, the Reverends Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, stood behind Mr. Lamont last night cheering his win.

Ultimately, Mr. Lieberman is better off leaving a party like that. When Vice President Gore selected Mr. Lieberman as his vice-presidential nominee in 2000, the senator had to jettison some of his long-held views to mesh with those of the Democratic Party’s base. He backtracked from his earlier support for school choice to appease the teachers’ unions. It didn’t work. Mr. Gore’s leftward veer cost them the election. Senator Kerry then emerged from the Democrats’ far-left element to lead the party to another bitter defeat.

That is the element that accedes with Ned Lamont.The party leadership looks increasingly like the same kind of plutocratic club Democrats like to accuse Republicans of being. There are Senator Kerry of Windsurfing-on-Heinz Fortune and Senator Rockefeller of the Rockefeller Populists. What a contrast to Mr. Lieberman, whose parents ran a liquor store and were the children of immigrants. Mr. Lamont is the great-grandson of a chairman of J.P. Morgan, attended Phillips Exeter, and lives in a $30 million home. He is a scion of the family that included Corliss Lamont, one of the most notorious apologists for Stalin.

We have nothing against wealthy individuals entering politics. We favor the example set by Mr. Bloomberg, who has used the management expertise that earned him his fortune to harness city government and win re-election in a landslide. The wealth of the Democratic Party’s plutocrats, however, serves only to highlight how disconnected they’re becoming from the concerns of ordinary Americans. Those Americans are too busy raising families and running small businesses to devote much time to hating “the rich.” They’re too smart to buy defeatism in the Battle of Iraq or any other battle in the war on Islamist terrorism. Mr. Lieberman is better off without that kind of Democratic Party. And when he gets the backing of a man like Michael Bloomberg, it is a signal that this involves more than the question of who will represent the Connecticut in the next Senate.


The New York Sun

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