Damning With Faint Praise
Well, here's David Broder's piece that will get him dropped from a LOT of left-wing non-denominational, multi-culturally inclusive, non-judgmental holiday card lists (And drop the word holiday if that offends and use 'best wishes'). He's, shall we say, less than pleased with Lamont's - and the Democrats - long term prospects versus a short-term and short-sighted - potential upset over Lieberman.
For many Connecticut Democrats, the overriding motive is to send a message against the war, against the Bush administration, against Washington — everything that Lieberman represents to them. On the night after the Clinton-Lieberman rally in Waterbury's Palace Theater, I came here to meet with some of these voters among the 200 people attending a wine and cheese fundraiser with Lamont and his wife, sponsored by a coalition of feminist organizations.
….
The people backing Lamont are nothing if not sincere. But their breed of Democrats — many of them wealthy, educated, extremely liberal — often pick candidates who are rejected by the broader public. Many of the older Lamont supporters went straight from Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern in the 1960s and '70s to Howard Dean in 2004. They helped Joe Duffey challenge Sen. Tom Dodd in Connecticut for the 1970 Democratic nomination on the Vietnam War issue, only to lose to Republican Lowell Weicker in November. Lamont's campaign manager, Tom Swan, is also director of Connecticut Citizen Action Group, a populist organization founded in the 1970s by Toby Moffett, a Ralph Nader protege and anti-Vietnam activist who was one of the "Watergate babies" elected to the House in 1974. Moffett's political career also was ended by a loss to Weicker, who stayed in the Senate until Lieberman finally beat him in 1988.
Democrats everywhere are looking to Connecticut for clues about the party's direction. The primary will probably point them leftward, toward a stronger antiwar stand. But often in the past, the early successes of these elitist insurgents have been followed by decisive defeats when a broader public weighs in. That is why this contest is so consequential for the Democratic Party.
Elitist insurgents - pretty well wraps that one up. It's kind of funny watching the chickens come home, isn't it? All the damnation of the administration by the Washington press has spawned something the press now realizes is too extreme and not good for the party they support. And they are scrambling.
By jeff, Sunday, 30 July , 2006 @ 9:41 am
I wonder how much the fact that he’s a Jew motivates liberals against him.