Congeries of cross connected concepts
I can’t believe that I (almost) agree with Howard Dean
“I know how hard this is for Joe, and he is a good person, but the truth is, I lost one of these races, and I got behind my party’s nominee, and I think that is what you have to do […]”
This contrasts sharply with Jonathan Chait (via Brothers Judd)
The longer Senator Joe Lieberman’s reelection campaign in Connecticut goes on, the harder it gets to detect any rationale for his candidacy that’s persuasive to anybody who isn’t Joe Lieberman.
Chait is just silly — if it were in fact true that no one can figure out why Lieberman is running, then no one will vote for him and his campaign is completely irrelevant, so why waste time writing about it? What Chait describes is a problem that will solve itself and those are best left to do so.
On the other hand, it is reasonable for the Democratic Party to be upset. Dean gets it basically correct, that part of being in the party is accepting its rules, like “if you lose the primary, you don’t run in the real campaign”. Of course, such rules aren’t legally binding, but it is certainly not being a good member of the party and I agree with Dean on that.
It may not be the best political choice to go after Leiberman on that point, but it’s certainly reasonable.
| Michael Herdegen Monday, 14 August 2006 at 23:23 |  |
While both you and Howard Dean are basically correct about party discipline, the situation with Lieberman and Connecticut is highly unusual.
Since the GOP candidate is a mere token, and cannot win, Lieberman won’t be acting as a spoiler by running in the general election. Essentially, the general election will just be a Democratic primary writ large, if Lieberman keeps his word about staying a Senate Dem voter if re-elected as an independent.
Further, the Dem Party will be damaged nationally if Lamont wins the general - while a large fraction of current Democrats want to see the party go even further Left, it would result in fewer election victories across the nation, especially for the Presidency and Senate races.
So Lieberman is basically attempting to save the Dem Party from itself, along with his career. “Doing good by doing well”, I believe it’s called.
