10 Ağustos 2006 Perşembe

Two Perspectives on Lieberman's Loss

Long-time Mod-Blog friend and commenter Bowhunter has sent in his thoughts on the loss of Senator Joe Lieberman to neophyte Ned Lamont in the CT Democratic Primary.
I believe that there is one and only one reason that Ned Lamont won… and that is George Bush. Never in my lifetime has one person so polarized a nation.

Many say that Joe lost because of his support of the war. I don’t see it that way. Hillary has the same position on the war and we don’t hear cries for her removal. Ned ran a very effective radio commercial that only lightly touched on Joe’s support of the war but was heavy on tying Joe to the Bush administration. The moment that Bush called Joe his favorite Democrat, he was done. That kiss on the cheek during the State of the Union was tantamount to the kiss of death.

It isn’t that Dems hate Joe, it is that they hate George. Call it how you want to but that is the only way that a one-issue candidate with no experience could possibly unseat an 18 year loved and effective incumbent… HATE. Ned will not win unless he can figure out a platform other than “I hate George” and “I hate the War”. The Dems will not win unless they can see that bowing to the extremes in their party is not they way to win a majority vote from the people.

And poor Joe, well, he is just a good guy who is caught up in the middle of the biggest mistake in strategy that I have ever seen.
But while BH is generally in agreement with the thoughts here at Mod-Blog (though I must say that I found Reagan a MUCH more polarizing figure than GWB), it is always informative to see it from the other side of the fence. Consider this post from John Scalzi's blog entitled "Lieberman in Exile".
Look, it's over. Lieberman lost his chance at re-election to the US Senate last night, and come November, he's going to lose again. The difference is that he will lose in November for entirely separate reasons than the ones which caused him to lose last night. Last night, he lost because of his support for an unpopular war, and the general feeling that he's out of touch with his constituency in Connecticut. In November, he's going to lose because he lost last night. He lost fair and square, so his assertion that he gets to have a mulligan isn't going to fly. And shouldn't.
Who would've thought a few months back that the core issue of the 2006 elections would be brought to a head in the little state of Connecticut? But it appears here are where the battle lines are being drawn, and where the fight is moving from theory into fact. It is going to be an "interesting" Fall election season, in the sense of the old Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times."

Hiç yorum yok:

Yorum Gönder