Ned Lamont got a stunning 33% of the vote from Connecticut Democrats last night and will be on the ballot.
Lieberman is still strongly favored to win the primary and the general election, but the angry left is making itself heard.
For all our efforts we are rewarded with the moniker “angry left”. I don’t care for that name. But I will say that I have a bumper sticker that says “If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention.” And that’s the truth. Holy Joe is bitter:
Lieberman said he believes Lamont will hurt other party hopefuls if he continues his battle for the congressional seat.
“I think it’s going to be harmful of our party and the chances of our congressional candidate, our Democratic challengers and our gubernatorial candidates,” he said “But it’s his decision.”
He should have thought of that before he backed Alito, got on the Schiavo train, and kissed George W. Bush. I wonder if Ned Lamont has made James Woolsey cry.
Lieberman is a selfish pseudo-Republican career politician. It should surprise no one that he will be running a negative smear campaign against Lamont.
Lieberman supports the repubs because he senses they support Isreal! I do think it is that simple with many of the jewish neocons, or to put it another way, there are jewish Neocons because they see US military force as the key to Isreal’s survival. This is an area that does not get enough discussion, IMO!
Lieberman evidently does not trust the dem party to support Isreal the way he sees Bush doing it, and that is the basis of his pro-Bush stance. On many other social issues, the guy is pretty acceptable, but he sees red on the middle-east-Isreal issue and not because of OIL! I suppose that non-oil motivation is refereshing in an way!
Insofar as Lieberman has supported Bush’s foreign policy because it dovetails with Israel’s interests, it only makes Lieberman’s positions more odious.
Supporting a failed policy in the Middle East for the United States government is about the worst way to assure the sustained support of the American people for a strong alliance with Israel.
Holy Joe should realize that the consequences of failure in Iraq are likely to involve a backlash against our one-sided alliance with Israel. And I think he does realize this, but rather than use his position to try to offer constructive advice he just keeps hoping against hope that Iraq will turn out okay. It won’t.
I understand why Joe feels so strongly that we must keep trying, but he’s just wrong. The writing is on the wall. We have failed in our mission in Iraq and our best option now is to start lowering expectations in anticipation of a phased withdrawal. Bush is still ramping up expectations, assuring any withdrawal has the maximum sting of defeat attached to it. Lieberman needs to face facts. This leadership has failed us in dramatic and unprecedented ways and there is no escaping the consequences of that.
I agree with your feelings, but I am trying to show how Lieberman has thought in the past, IMO anyway. I do not support him, but I see many jewish neocons and have to ask why. Jews were/are a strong liberal group in the past, so just what has happened to these hybrid neocon jews. The answer must be fear of Isreal being destroyed. That is all I can come up with!
This subject needs more discussion, no?
Neo-conservatism and Judiasm have a complex relationship. There are a lot of people that use that relationship to further their anti-Semitic agenda, and that makes discussion of the issue difficult.
Israel is a complex country and its citizens are more diverse than the Likud Party. I’d say the people of Israel are relieved that Saddam Hussein is out of power, but I don’t think they are enjoying the aftermath. The more prescient of Israel’s citizens knew that invading Iraq would turn out about as well as Israel’s invasion of Lebanon. Not well. It must be quite frightening to see the Palestinians elect a Hamas led government. They can thank George W. Bush for that.
At some point, Israelis and the Americans that consider themselves the strongest defenders of Israel are going to realize that neo-conservatism is not a good long-term answer to resolving the Palestinian question.
They have been pretty successful in stopping terrorist attacks lately, though, and I suspect the neo-cons think they’re winning the battle.
I don’t think his one-sided support for Israel explains all of Leiberman’s conservatism. But I do think that if you look at his observance of Orthodox Judaism you find additional answers. Seems to me that any religious observance than leans towards fundamentalism takes people to some similar places on lots of issues. This would include Judaism, Protestants, Catholics, and Muslims as well. Even tho they have fought bloody wars with each other over power and their particular brand of dogmatism, I see them more alike than different.
I know that compared to his Othodox brothers, Leiberman’s religious practices would be seen as liberal, but the mindset seems to be there.
I agree that the Israeli issue is coloring Lieberman’s politics. Try reading this article if you feel like being really frightened.
that’s a tremendous article.
Israel and the war aside, I would not agree that Lieberman is acceptable on social issues. He supported NAFTA and CAFTA, No Child Left Behind, School Vouchers, and denying women contraception.
I don’t know why he says he is “a proud Democrat.”
In his favor, he does state what his positions are and doesn’t seem to tailor his answers to the crowd. I heard him supporting “free trade” at an AFL-CIO candidate forum in 2004.
It should surprise no one that he will be running a negative smear campaign against Lamont.
It isn’t surprising. What exactly can he use to smear Lamont on, though? Lamont has low name recognition because he hasn’t done anything in politics yet. There isn’t a track record to go negative on except inexperience, and I don’t think that’s going to work particularly well this year with the Senate’s approval ratings under 30%.
The grass roots is picking up influence rapidly, but the negative campaign Lieberman is going to run is still the best chance Lamont has of winning because of the backlash it will generate. A 3-term Senator resorting to negative campaigning is a huge sign of weakness. Lieberman can’t very well run on his own record, though, because he hasn’t done much the voters in Connecticut approve of.
That was the best news I’d heard in a long time.
Of course Lieberman and company are trying to pin the “angry left” moniker on Lamont. Since the days of Ronald Reagan ordinary voters don’t want to have to admit that they voted for a candidate who was of “the left”. That’s one of the biggest problems we have in convincing people to vote for us.
The word “angry” is just code for “extremist wacko”. And yeah, there are a lot of them out there in the left leaning world, just as there are a lot of extremist right wackos. Fortunately, LaMont doesn’t seem to fit the stereotype. So the label might not hurt him.
We could even hope that he appears so calm and reasoned that he starts to make Lieberman and gang look “angry” for making the accusation.
It does make it seem like a bunch of fringe wackos are giving Lieberman a problem. It also sounds cool. Democrats will want Lamont of “The Angry Left” as opposed to Liebermen “President George W. Bush’s lap dog.” That part of the abcnews article made made smile thanks for that link. Its perfect.
His naysaying is so destructive. Thankfully, people know enough to ignore his words, I hope!
I thought the Connecticut primary was in August. What is the deal with this – what – convention, caucus – that Lamont got 33% of? What is it and why does it matter?
It’s significant because Ned Lamont needed 15% of the vote to get on the ballot in August. Otherwise, he would have had to collect a lot of signatures. So Lamont is now on the ballot. More importantly, Lieberman pulled out all the stops and called in all his chits to try to prevent Lamont from getting 15%. He more than doubled that.
The 33% is actually a low measure of Lamont’s support, since many activists had no incentive to openly back Lamont and Lieberman strong-armed a lot of people. It is likely that his actual support consititutes a majority of the delegates.
How that translates into an August primary is anyone’s guess, but I think Joe has a real contest on his hands.
Lieberman said he believes Lamont will hurt other party hopefuls if he continues his battle for the congressional seat.
What he’s doing is threatening Democratic candidates in other races. If Lieberman was a true Democrat, he would use his warchest to help other Democrats if he loses in a primary. The Connecticut Democratic party would actually be stronger if he lost. Instead, Lieberman only cares about his own career and doesn’t give a damn about his party or supporters. I really hope Lamont wins so Lieberman leaves this party he clearly doesn’t believe in.
Lieberman can’t tolerate the fact that a real Democrat challenged him, so he (not even just his lackeys) says a campaign against him will hurt other Democratic races in CT? And this is after Lieberman would not rule out an independent run if he was not the Democratic nominee? This is a truly mind boggling example of hypocrisy, thuggery, and some kind of strange self concept in which Lieberman apparently sees himself as indispensible to America (not, obviously, the Democratic Party) — either that or he’s just an incredibly selfish, bloated head asswipe (or both of course).
Centrist Democrats or the Republican-lite Democrats are the angry Democrats because we, the true-blooded FDR Democrats are finally outing these Libermans, Clintons, Schumans and others for their positions. Certainly, these positions to compromise or whatever has hurt the Democratic party.