Seeing as we still have Joe Lieberman to kick around
“The old politics of partisan polarization won today. For the sake of our state, our country and my party, I cannot and will not let that result stand.”
Cannot and will not let that result stand. Cannot and will not let that result stand. Cannot and will not let that result stand.
We move to November. Let us say that Ned Lamont defeats Joseph Lieberman and Alan Schlessinger, Jr — oh, 50.1 (just to hurdle us past the majority there) to 39.9 to 10. Joe Lieberman gives his concession speech.
“The old politics of partisan polarization won today. For the sake of our state, our country and my party, I cannot and will not let that result stand.”
At which point, a sniper shoots Lamont dead over at the Victory celebration, and Lieberman — surrounded by his Praetorian Guard, marches forth to his Senate office to resume his duties as Senator and … ahem… Statesman.
Cannot and will not let that result stand. Cannot and will not let that result stand. Cannot and will not let that result stand.
I’m thinking he probably would have had a good clean shot at the Governor chair in Connecticut. But then I’m thinking that he wouldn’t get anything done there. For one thing, the famed ten percent of his views that are out of step with the Democratic Party are outside the purview of Connecticut governor, and those ten percent are probably in the end-run his passion. Second, and more importantly, he would not have a good seat in the Beltway Establishment — for he is not a Democrat or even a Republican (even as he becomes a Republican proxy in the 2006 election campaign, as Republicans work an effort to churn out a story that a sensible Democrat has been “purged” out by a bunch of neo-McGovernites — who, incidentally, leads Nixon in the polls these days, into a reality that settles somehow into the electorate) but instead is a member of the Beltway Party. And the Beltway Party is nothing if not an advocate for a one-party system, one where a particular and peculiar line of thinking is strictly enforced.
I now note a strange irony. In 1992, the Republican Party was all aflutter that Bob Casey was not speaking at the Democratic Party Convention, probably trying to make political hay out of it by suggesting that anti-abortion — pro-life if you must — (more targeted: Catholic) voters are being consigned out of the Democratic Party, a litmus test is being enforced. Clinton and the Democrats maintain that the reason he didn’t speak is because he hadn’t endorsed Clinton for President. Either way, the “purge” storyline seeped into the Political storyline. 2006, while Lieberman is supposedly “purged” from the party — the Democratic Party cleared the field whereby Bob Casey, Jr. — politically speaking seeming to be a clone of his father — would be the party standard bearer in the Pennsylvania Senate race, what is considered the Democrat’s top political pick-up opportunity. How does this work? You purge one thing and then regurgitate it whilst purging a similar but distinctly different confection?