Josh Marshall has a great piece on the Lieberman trainwreck over at Time magazine.
Marshall makes it really easy for even Joe and his army of White House allies to understand -- the trainwreck isn't over yet!
Time:
He got his head lost in the clouds of national politics and lost touch with his constituents. . .
His continual embrace of President Bush — both literal and figurative — was an insult to Democrats, the great majority of whom believe Bush has governed as one of the most destructive Presidents in modern American history. It's almost as though Lieberman has gone out of his way to provoke and offend Democrats on every point possible, often, seemingly, purely for the reason of provoking. Is it any wonder the guy got whacked in a party primary?
If this were just a matter of Joe Lieberman's hubris and obliviousness, the story of his demise might have a human significance but not a larger political one. But the Lieberman train wreck is also part of the unfolding story of the 2006 election cycle and the dangerous gulf widening between Washington and the country at large.
Lieberman got in trouble because he let himself live in the bubble of D.C. conventional wisdom and A-list punditry. He flattered them; and they loved him back. And as part of that club he was part of the delusion and denial that has sustained our enterprise in Iraq for the last three years. In the weeks leading up to Tuesday's primary, A-list D.C. pundits were writing columns portraying Lieberman's possible defeat as some sort of cataclysmic event that might foreshadow a dark new phase in American politics — as though voters choosing new representation were on a par with abolishing the Constitution or condoning political violence. But those breathless plaints only showed how disconnected they are from what's happening in the country at large. They mirrored his disconnection from the politics of the moment.
The polls tell us the President's approval rating seldom gets out of the 30s. Congress is unpopular. Incumbents are unpopular. Voters prefer Democrats over Republicans by a margin of about 15%. When a once-popular three-term Senator gets bounced in a primary battle with a political unknown, it's a very big deal. Those numbers all add up to a political upheaval this November. The folks in D.C. see the numbers. But they haven't gotten their heads around what they mean. Joe was out of touch. And Washington, D.C., is too.
They didn't see the Joe train wreck coming and they're not ready for what's coming next either.
Politics Lieberman Loserman Bush Iraq War Democrats News Ned Lamont Election 2006 Connecticut Primary Republicans
