(Note to Atrios readers: scroll down this entry for the news from New Haven).
A Washington Post columnist gets it:
Well. I don’t blog; I columnize. But count me with the bloggers on this one. No great mystery enshrouds the challenge to Lieberman, nor is the campaign of his challenger, Ned Lamont, a jihad of crazed nit-pickers. Lieberman has simply and rightly been caught up in the fundamental dynamics of Politics 2006, in which Democrats are doing their damnedest to unseat all the president’s enablers in this year’s elections. As well, Lieberman’s broader politics are at odds with those of his fellow Northeastern Democrats. He is not being opposed because he doesn’t reflect the views of his Democratic constituents 100 percent of the time. He is being opposed because he leads causes many of them find repugnant.
As early as December 2001 Lieberman signed a letter to President Bush asking him to make Saddam Hussein’s Iraq our next stop in the war against terrorism. As recently as last month, he opposed two Democratic resolutions to scale back our involvement in the war. And just last week Lieberman characterized the progress of the war as “a lot better” than it was a year ago, adding, “They’re on the way to building a free and independent Iraq.”
So, why the surprise if Connecticut voters, listening to Lieberman and looking at his record, conclude that they cannot trust his judgment on the single most important issue of the day? That’s not mandating purity; it’s opting for a senator who pays more attention to the war on the ground than to the war in his head.
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Lieberman’s ultimate problem isn’t fanatical bloggers, any more than Lyndon Johnson’s was crazy, antiwar Democrats. His problem is that Bush, and the war that both he and Bush have championed, is speeding the ongoing realignment of the Northeast. His problem, dear colleagues, is Connecticut.
In other Lieberman news, from the New Haven Register:
“We are seeing an increased number of unaffiliated voters switching to Democratic to vote in the primary,” Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz said Tuesday.
Several registrars of voters in the New Haven area agreed, saying they are even getting some calls from Republicans asking if they can still change their registrations in time to vote in the Democratic primary.
Looks like Joe’s core constituency is trying to rally behind him. Fortunately, they’re too late:
The answer to that question is no; the deadline for switching from one party to another was May 8.