NYC Letter: Lieberman Loses

Joe Lieberman takes in on the primary chin.

LAMONT DEFEATS LIEBERMAN IN PRIMARY

August 9, 2006 (NYT) - Ned Lamont, a Connecticut millionaire whose candidacy for the United States Senate soared from nowhere on a fierce antiwar message, won a narrow victory [Huh? 51%/45%, not too narrow by our count] in the Democratic primary last night over the incumbent, Joseph I. Lieberman.

Ned Lamont? Ned Lamont who? Who indeed. Mr. Lamont is a political cipher with a checkbook.

Martin Peretz, editor in chief of The New Republic (!), provides a thumbnail:

[M]r. Lamont comes to this campaign for the U.S. Senate from absolutely nowhere--and it shows in his pulpy statements on public issues. Here is a paradigmatic one: "We need to provide parents and communities the support they need to assure that children start their school day ready to learn." Of course, he also thinks that U.S. troops should be replaced by the U.N. in Iraq. Does he know anything at all about the history of the idea that he so foolishly rescues from the dust? So what we have in this candidacy is someone, with no public record to speak of but with perhaps a quarter of a billion dollars to his name, who wants to be a senator. Mr. Lamont has almost no experience in public life. He was a cable television entrepreneur, a run-of-the-mill contemporary commercant with unusually easy access to capital. ...

Now Mr. Lamont's views are also not camouflaged. They are just simpleminded. Here, for instance, is his take on what should be done about Iran's nuclear-weapons venture: "We should work diplomatically and aggressively to give them reasons why they don't need to build a bomb, to give them incentives. We have to engage in very aggressive diplomacy. I'd like to bring in allies when we can. I'd like to use carrots as well as sticks to see if we can change the nature of the debate." Oh, I see. He thinks the problem is that they do not understand, and so we should explain things to them, and then they will do the right thing. It is a fortunate world that Mr. Lamont lives in, but it is not the real one. Anyway, this sort of plying is precisely what has been going on for years, and to no good effect. Mr. Lamont continues that "Lieberman is the one who keeps talking about keeping the military option on the table." And what is so plainly wrong with that? Would Mahmoud Ahmadinejad be more agreeable if he thought that we had disposed of the military option in favor of more country club behavior?

Finally, the contest in Connecticut tomorrow is about two views of the world. Mr. Lamont's view is that there are very few antagonists whom we cannot mollify or conciliate. Let's call this process by its correct name: appeasement. The Greenwich entrepreneur might call it "incentivization." Mr. Lieberman's view is that there are actually enemies who, intoxicated by millennial delusions, are not open to rational and reciprocal arbitration. Why should they be? After all, they inhabit a universe of inevitability, rather like Nazis and communists, but with a religious overgloss. Such armed doctrines, in Mr. Lieberman's view, need to be confronted and overwhelmed.

The contest is over.

We have never been big fans of Joe Lieberman. Yes, he was the first and one of the few Democrats who publicly spanked Mr. Clinton, but when push came to shove, he voted acquittal. We were further underwhelmed when Mr. Lieberman transformed himself into a party slave for the vice presidency in 2000. We can't think of a single Democrat in Hollywood whose fanny does not bear the impress of Joe's lips. For that matter, it is hard for us to work up any enthusiasm for someone who'd hitch up with Al Gore, as phony a phony as you'll find.

Yes, yes, but all it takes is a Ned Lamont to rattle our set opinions and have us reconsider what a swell guy Joe is after all.

Senator Lieberman, a national party leader and the Democratic nominee for vice president in 2000, conceded defeat in a phone call to Mr. Lamont shortly before 11 p.m. But then, in a combative speech to supporters in Hartford that was carried live on television news, the senator declared that he was not dropping out of the race, but would instead run for re-election as an independent this fall.

“As I see it, in this campaign, we’ve just finished the first half and the Lamont team is ahead — but in the second half, our team, Team Connecticut, is going to surge forward to victory in November,” Mr. Lieberman told cheering supporters.

Well, good luck. With the party leadership and the regional pols rallying behind Mr. Lamont, Joe has little chance of prevailing. He will be campaigning as the loser, which is not much of a winning message.

On the bright side, nasty nutcase Cynthia McKinney lost her primary run-off for her House seat (4th Congressional District - GA).

McKinney had been expected to cruise through the July primary but emerged only 3 percent ahead of Johnson, a lawyer and former county commissioner, and was forced into a run-off for a seat she has held since 2004.

Senior Democratic leaders had declined to endorse McKinney's re-election campaign, viewing her as a polarizing figure who could hurt party chances in November elections, commentator Earl Hutchinson told Reuters.