Last Tuesday, an earthquake shook the Democratic Party. Connecticut businessman Ned Lamont, a political novice by any definition, took down Senator Joseph Lieberman, a three-term incumbent who had once been held in such high regard that he was chosen as his party’s vice presidential nominee. Lamont’s campaign focused on Lieberman’s support for the war in Iraq, an increasingly unpopular war that at one point did have broad support among Democrats.
But unlike many in his party, Lieberman refused to do a complete 180-degree turn and revoke his support for the war. Sensing a stray from the party line on the most important issue of the day, the liberal blogosphere jumped into action. Led by the popular site DailyKos.com, Lamont’s candidacy slowly picked up steam among the left across America, with victory going from improbable, to unlikely, to possible, to a fait accompli over just a few months. The war was preeminent on their minds, but Lamont supporters were quick to point out a whole host of issues where Lieberman strayed from his more liberal colleagues. Essentially, Lamont challenged Lieberman because he was a moderate, and the base of the Democratic Party, in Connecticut and across the country, embraced that challenge.
This is bad news for the Democrats, said one New York Democratic Congressman who asked to remain anonymous. The big tent of the Democratic Party is now shrinking, he said, and moderate and centrist voters seem to be the ones getting left out in the cold. “The Democrats need to be a center-left party,” he said. “And if we’re going to move further and further left, we’re going to be the minority.”
He pointed to the case of Bob Casey, a Democrat and Senate candidate in Pennsylvania running against hard-right Republican incumbent Rick Santorum. Despite Casey’s credentials and serious chance to win the race, many of the traditional base groups of the Democratic Party have refused to actively support Casey’s candidacy. Casey is pro-life, and that’s just not going to fly these days among the left, regardless of his otherwise impressive resume. “Sure, he’d be a pro-life vote, but he’d also be a solid vote on a lot of other issues,” said the Congressman. “If we’re going to start doing litmus tests for purity on every issue, we’re going to be a minority.”
The congressman did think that Lieberman did not help himself by opening the door for Lamont through his tone-deaf stance on the war. And though Lieberman might have been too hawkish on the war, at least he was offering some opinion about how to win it, unlike many of his Democratic colleagues. “I think it’s important to energize the anti-Iraq sentiment to our favor,” said the Congressman. “But we have to show voters the Democrats stand for something. We can’t just say ‘vote for us, we’re not Republicans.’”
Many have opined that the Lamont victory and the rise of a more ferocious liberal left might signal the end for the national ambitions of more moderate Democrats. Locally, Senator Hillary Clinton would be the logical choice for the “netroots” to attack. She has been hawkish on the war, though she has been very critical of the war’s handling, and has moved to the right on a handful of high-profile issues in a move to appeal to a wider number of voters should she eventually run for president in 2008. However, the Congressman does not think Lamont’s win will have that great of an effect in future elections, and could in fact help Republicans, who are likely to take advantage of Lamont’s victory by exploiting some of his associates in more moderate areas.
“I don’t like seeing Ned Lamont with Jesse Jackson, with Al Sharpton,” said the Congressman. “These are polarizing figures, and this could be a godsend for Republicans.” What kind of Democrat might appeal to those same voters turned off by Sharpton and his ilk? Perhaps a moderate Southern governor with a penchant for aggressive capitalism and national defense, like maybe Bill Clinton, said the congressman.
“If you cannot win any southern states, you cannot win the presidency,” said the Congressman. “On the one hand, these types of victories might energize the party’s base, but we’re also making moderates uncomfortable. Clinton embraced moderates, and that’s where we need to be. Most of the American people really embrace the center, and the party that captures the center wins national elections. The more we move to the left, the less likely it is we’re getting a majority.”
The Congressman added that rather than punish any Democrat who might stray from an ideological line, the national party should instead be embracing Democrats like Lieberman and Casey, a move he sees as the only way to take back the federal government and keep Republicans from painting the Democrats as nothing more than a far-left lunatic fringe.
“We have to be very careful before well tell moderates there’s no room for them in the Democratic Party,” added the Congressman.
