Can the Democrats and their liberal wing do us any more favors?
In the 2000 presidential race they ran an incumbent vice-president
from a Southern state and were beaten by the narrowest of margins.
In what some viewed as a conservative national tilt in 2002, they
lost their Senate majority giving control of two branches of
government over to the GOP.
In response they gave us uber-liberal Nancy Pelosi as the House
Minority Leader. Failing to adjust their game-plan, they next sent
John Kerry to the plate — ignoring his lifetime American
Conservative Union batting average of 5% as opposed to Al Gore’s
14.6% — which led to an even bigger defeat in the 2004 Fall
Classic.
After the ‘04 election, they discovered via exit polls that
“values” issues had carried the day for President Bush. The result?
Howard Dean took the reins and he and his netroots pals pulled that donkey hard left. And
now the Daily Kos bunch is making a major play for legitimacy
within the party despite the fact that the horses they’ve backed
are 0 for 20.
Although there are predictions of doom and gloom for the GOP
this November, it is the Democrats who face a fork in the road. And
right now that road wends its way through the sometimes bucolic
paths of Connecticut. At stake is the incumbency of its junior
senator, Joe Lieberman.
Connecticut may be a Democratic state, but like its big blue
brothers, New York, Massachusetts and California, it has a
Republican governor. The reason for this seems to reflect the
desire of some Democrats to be nurtured by the nanny state yet
governed by a daddy. This also demonstrates that some of them still
have at least an iota of the sense with which they were born.
Once a country-club Republican bastion, the Nutmeg State is now
populated largely by what I call diaper Democrats — those born
into the party. These mostly blue-collar voters have been extremely
supportive of Lieberman, helping him to win re-election twice by
two-to-one margins over his opponents. But this time around, the
Kos crowd hopes to make him pay for his support for the War on
Terror and specifically our involvement in Iraq.
This might seem like a good strategy but it might be a harder
sell to the relatively large and politically active Jewish
population in Connecticut, already edgy about anti-Semitism charges
against many on the left who seem to side with the likes of
Hezbollah and Hamas over our ally Israel. American Jews have been a
reliable source of votes for them and one that should not be taken
lightly, but if the Democrats want to keep on giving, who are we to
argue?
Joe Lieberman has not run many TV ads yet, possibly hoping Ned
Lamont’s own loopy spots will jar some diaper Democrats into
reality. But the few that have aired feature the stars and stripes
as a background, hoping to stir the patriotic sentiments of a
people deluged 24/7 by the liberal media onslaught of propaganda
against the war.
But what else have they got? Were it not for the war and the
all-encompassing hatred for George W. Bush, Democrat playbooks
would be empty. As Leader Pelosi explained, “Why
should we put a plan out? Our plan is to stop him. He must be
stopped.” And since they can no longer stop Bush, Joe Lieberman
will do nicely, thank you.
In any event, the primary on August 8 will be a good day for
conservatives. If Lieberman fends off the challenge of the
far-lefties, good for him, good for the Democratic Party, and good
for America. If Lamont wins, good for him, good for Republicans and
disastrous for the Democrats. Because if the party allows itself to
be consumed by its radicals in a country that’s gotten redder in
each general election, it will cease to be electorally viable in
the near future.
Odds are that Joe Lieberman will return to Washington, either as
a loyal Democrat, or as a less dependent Independent. The only
negative for Joe is that old friend Bill Clinton is campaigning for
him. The miserable record of Kos and company is nearly matched by
that of Bill and Hill, whose support for anyone not named Clinton
is usually a political death knell.
So we’ve reached the point where the far left is supporting a
former Republican millionaire who owns Halliburton stock, while the party’s superstar is stumping
for a man who’s accused of cozying up to a GOP president. Where can
one find irony like this? Only in the Democratic Party, where the
hits just keep on coming.
