On a private web board I belong to, one of the members said about the Lieberman / Lamont primary results tonight:
"i'm undecided on whether this is a great example of being a sore loser.
surely three viable choices is better than two? question, not a statement."
It's an interesting question. But ultimately, I think the answer is yes, this IS a good example of someone being a sore loser.
If an incumbent officeholder is defeated in his/her primary by a challenger, it sends a strong message that the members of that party do not want said person to hold that office anymore. The question then becomes, does that mean the incumbent should not have any opportunity to represent the entire electorate, based on the decision of the members of one party?
Of course not.
But that's not what's happening in Connecticut. Lieberman is trying to have his cake and eat it too. He wants the privileges of being an incumbent Democrat, with the attendant seniority and benefits that confers on him, but he also wants the freedom to blow off the will of the members of the Democratic party when it suits him.
That pisses me off.
The way I see it, if you're a Democrat, then you should accept the judgment of Democratic voters. If you're not a Democrat, then say so, and accept the consequences (no financial support from the party, no endorsements from high-profile Democrats, no access to other Democrats' fund-raising lists, etc). But to reject the will of Democratic voters while simultaneously expecting to be treated like any other Democrat is arrogant, gutless, and just plain wrong.
Comments (3)
Lieberman is nothing but a spoiler. The Republicans have been using election spoilers for years. Ralph Nader, that arrogant bastard, was funded primarily by Republican contributions to hurt Al Gore's chances. Of course, he was teamed with Lieberman at the time. That probably didn't help him any. By that point, Joe Lieberman had already been known as a DINO, shilling for the Republicans and badmouthing everyone in his party every chance he got.
The Republicans are probably thrilled that Lieberman is acting like a spoiled child. He likes his cushy job and the money funnelled to him by the lobbyists. Ned Lamont is going to have to make some serious inroads against Lieberman's supporters - 10,000 votes isn't a wide enough margin when you consider that: A) Lieberman is going to split the Democrat vote; and B) SOme Republicans might even vote for Lieberman since he sides with the Republicans on almost every issue.
His "concession" speech was anything but graceful. He brushed over his loss, moving right ahead to basically saying he was going to waste milliopns more of taxpayers' money for his own selfish gains in spite of his constituents voting against him. He made snide remarks about Lamont, accusing him of partisan politics and running a mudslinging campaign - all things that HE was doing. The kicker was how he told people to visit his website, "if it isn't being hacked" - his campaign had been making accusations that Lamont's campaign people hacked hius website. The cheap bastard paid for a TEN DOLLAR A MONTH website, and ran out of bandwidth. HIS WEBSITE ACCOUNT WAS SUSPENDED. Apparently they have either paid the bill or moved the domain to another site (www.joe2006.com). What resides there now is a direct accusation that Ned Lamont's campaign attacked and disabled the website.
Joe Lieberman is a useless, paranoid douche. He should just fucking retire already. The only thing left for this dipshit is to renounce Judaism as well and convert to some fundamentalist evangelical Christian church.
Posted by Skawt | August 8, 2006 10:13 PM
I usually avoid political bru ha ha, but seing as this is my area.
1. Lieberman lost because of a bad campain. He did nothing about re-election untill Lamont was ahead in the polls. Lamont spoke not a word about what he stood for, but only slung mud at Lieberman. Lieberman didn't have a campain, and when he did, he didn't even mention Lamont. I don't know what speech you heard where he slung mud. Lieberman's only response was that if he lost, he would be a independant, then went about getting signatures. This told us that he was bailing on the party. He should have done that from the start.
This isn't new to Connecticut. Last year, a mayor, in Waterbury, I think, ran as a democrat, lost the primary, ran as an independant and won overwhelmingly.
If Lieberman wanted to be an independant, he should have done so from the start. He would have won hands down.
Posted by Dexter Herron | August 11, 2006 12:41 PM
What is curious to me is how an elected offical can say, "Vote for Joe, he's good. Don't vote for Ted, he's bad." Then when Joe loses say, "Don't vote for Joe, he's bad. Vote for Ted."
True, Joe should have been an independant from the get go, but Chris Dodd, H. Clinton and all those powerful Democrats knew from before the vote what Joe stood for. How can they now turn and not support him and what he stood for 24 hrs later. Joe's is right for us or not?
Do we elect a party? or do we elect a person?
Posted by Dexter Herron | August 11, 2006 12:48 PM