Well, David Sirota has a funny take on it. Simply put, everything is at stake. In one corner is Joe Lieberman. Joe is not just one man. He represents a constituency, a mindset, that is 180 degrees removed from the goals of the netroots. He thinks talking tough on national defense makes you wise on national defense. He thinks a party cannot win unless it is more warlike than the other party. He thinks being socially conservative on female reproduction, assisted suicide, and media content is the only way the Democrats can win elections. He thinks the best way to move America forward is to grab humungous checks from millionaires and corporate interests.
We think that is all stinking thinking. We believe a new kind of politics is possible. It’s the kind of politics that gives the voters information thru a diffuse filter of hyper-opinionated and hyper-educated blogs, not thru a corporate filter of what gets ratings and dumbs down and pacifies the electorate. It’s the kind of politics where the money comes in $25 at a time, rather than $6,100 at a time. It’s the kind of politics where the little guy has fair representation.
Progressive ideas have always been at a disadvantage. Especially economic issues. People with money have traditionally controlled the message and run both parties. They have found it convenient to tolerate anti-evolution, anti-science rhetoric, and even to promote it, while defining labor advocates like Michael Moore as outside the pale of acceptable discourse. Ann Coulter can spew her hate saying liberals want to destroy America, but Phil Donahue can’t be the face of MSNBC. We’re overcoming these obstacles. It’s a slow process. We don’t have any money. Money buys power. We are having to wage a war against our own party, rather than uniting against the Republicans.
We must win this battle tomorrow with Joe Lieberman. And we must follow it up with more victories. The Lieberman set will say we are dragging the party to a place on the left where it has traditionally lost elections. But we say that if we can beat Lieberman, we can beat Schlesinger. We can beat Kyl and Allen and DeWine and Talent and Santorum and Chafee and Burns and Corker. And that is something the old Democratic Party could not do.
