Dan Balz on the stakes:
A victory by businessman Ned Lamont on Tuesday would confirm the growing strength of the grass-roots and Internet activists who first emerged in Howard Dean’s presidential campaign. Driven by intense anger at President Bush and fierce opposition to the Iraq war, they are on the brink of claiming their most significant political triumph, one that will reverberate far beyond the borders here if Lieberman loses.
An upset by Lamont would affect the political calculations of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), who like Lieberman supported giving Bush authority to wage the Iraq war, and could excite interest in a comeback by former vice president Al Gore, who warned in 2002 that the war could be a grave strategic error. For at least the next year, any Democrat hoping to play on the 2008 stage would need to reckon with the implications of Lieberman’s repudiation.
Interestingly, Balz talks up a Gore candidacy. More than anything, he sees this Lamont outcome as sending a message that we are now a legitimate power center that cannot be ignored.
Strategists say the Connecticut race has rattled the Democratic establishment, which is virtually united behind the three-term incumbent’s candidacy, and will force an uneasy accommodation with the newest, volatile power center within the party.
“This sends a message to all Democratic officeholders,” said Robert L. Borosage of the liberal Campaign for America’s Future. “You’re going to have a much tougher Democratic Party.”
That could be felt most acutely by Clinton, who polls show is the early front-runner for the 2008 nomination and who has drawn criticism from what are known as net-roots activists for opposing a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. Clinton appears to have gotten the message, as she demonstrated with sharp questioning of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld at a Senate hearing on Thursday.
It’s essential that Lamont wins this primary.
