"Call Me A Democrat"

Apparently the benefits of retaining seniority exceed the allure of claiming to be an independent. It's probably the best political decision for everyone involved... politically speaking.

Krauthammer on Lieberman

Charles Krauthammer attempts to understate the relevance of this week's election, perhaps unaware of the implication of his own claims:

The Republicans had control but by very small majorities. In 2000 the presidential election was settled by a ridiculously small margin. And the Senate ended up deadlocked 50-50. All the changes since then have been minor. Until now.

* * *

The result is that both parties have moved to the right. The Republicans have shed the last vestiges of their centrist past, the Rockefeller Republicans. And the Democrats have widened their tent to bring in a new crop of blue-dog conservatives.

Unless he presupposes that the center has shifted along with the Republican party, assuming Krauthammer correct, a nation that was formerly split about 50:50 will continue to vote with a belief set that is now better aligned with the Democratic Party. This inference is also manifest in Krauthammer's claims about Joe Lieberman:

To muddy even more the supposed ideological significance of this election, consider who is the biggest winner of the night: Joe Lieberman. Just a few months ago he was scorned by his party and left for dead. Now he returns to the Senate as the Democrats' 51st seat -- and holder of the balance of power.

The same, of course, can be said for any senator among the 51 who comprise the Democratic majority. Lieberman's not even the only independent who will caucus with the Democrats. Apparently, among the 51, Krauthammer believes Lieberman to have the least loyalty to the Democratic Party and the greatest desire to demand tribute for his fickle commitment - is that truly what he believes? Further,

Lieberman won with a platform that did not trim or hedge about seeking victory in Iraq. And he did it despite having a Republican in the race who siphoned off 10 percent of the pro-war vote. All this in Connecticut, a very blue state.

Sure. And in a "red" state the Republican might have even been backed by his own party, which skews the significance of the outcome. But let's play it Krauthammer's way.

In 2000, Lieberman won reelection 63 - 34 against his Republican opponent. If it is reasonable to infer that the overwhelming majority of the 24% of Connecticut residents who did not vote Republican in 2006 chose Lieberman over Lamont, then almost half of the voters who chose Lieberman were Republican. If in fact, as he suggests, Lieberman is the big winner, Krauthammer should perhaps be acknowledging that a Democratic Party that shifts slightly to the right could dominate a Republican Party that has shifted even further to the Right.

Independent Joe....

What's wrong with this picture:

I wonder if he'll further expand his search for "independent voters" by getting voter lists for registered Republicans....

Brooks Says: Vote Perot! (Or is it Vote Libertarian!")

Behind the firewall, in "Party No. 3", David "Babbling" Brooks endorses a "McCain-Lieberman" ticket, as somehow the cure for all that ails America. (What would we call this new party... perhaps the Huggy-Kissy Party? Ah yes, independent centerists to the end.

Brooks starts with some racial overtones, sneering at Lamont for letting Al Sharpton share space on the stage at his victory speech. Lieberman, after all, would never appear with Al Sharpton, let alone be photogaphed with him, or sit next to him at a pro-choice rally. Without even starting a new paragraph, Brooks makes plain that he doesn't understand the American political system, or how primaries work:

And the McCain-Lieberman Party was represented by Joe Lieberman himself, giving a concession speech that explained why polarized primary voters shouldn’t be allowed to define the choices in American politics.

Is he really taking the position that we should no longer have primaries? That each party should designate its preferred candidates, and that the voters should be stuck with that choice for fear that the most active, informed, motivated, and yes extreme local members of the party might pick somebody else? Sure, the primary system can work against centrist candidates, but let's be honest for a moment - there are moderate Republicans who would be replaced in a heartbeat by their party, but for the fact that there is a primary system in place. That's not a recipe for centrist politics.

The McCain-Lieberman Party begins with a rejection of the Sunni-Shiite style of politics itself. It rejects those whose emotional attachment to their party is so all-consuming it becomes a form of tribalism, and who believe the only way to get American voters to respond is through aggression and stridency.

Note how neatly Brooks skips over the central issue - what this party would stand for. Like Perot's Reform Party, or the Libertarian Party, that may work as long as they are serving primarily as an outlet for a protest vote. But if they seriously want to win an election, they need to take a stand on the issues that matter to voters. The Simpsons parodied this many years ago, with space aliens disguising themselves as the Presidential candidates:

Announcer: Ladies and Gentlemen, 73-year-old candidate, Bob Dole.

Kang: Abortions for all.

[crowd boos]

Very well, no abortions for anyone.

[crowd boos]

Hmm... Abortions for some, miniature American flags for others.

[crowd cheers and waves miniature flags]

So what would McCain Lieberman give us... Abortions rights from Lieberman, miniature American flags from McCain... without even agreement on whether it should be constitutional for McCain to forbid the voters to burn their little flags. No agreement on reproductive choice. No agreement on First Amendment principles of symbolic speech, perhaps unless it involves banning video games. Lieberman supporting federal intervention in Shiavo. McCain endorsing the teaching of intelligent design in the classroom. McCain supporting gay rights, and Lieberman opposing them.... A party that simultaneously stands for everything and nothing. They don't even seem to agree on what centrism is - McCain's is an iconoclastic centrism under which he can stand against his party when he chooses, and which does not require his seeking compromise or middle ground. McCain gets to define the center, and then lets others join him there. Lieberman's is a deferential centrism, in which he is willing to yield ground to those who hold power in order to resolve an issue, even if the other side itself cedes no ground in order to reach the resulting "compromise". In my opinion, both often engage in their form of centrism for personal reasons and political gain. They both love the spotlight, they both love being seen as above party politics, and they both seem to believe that by being darlings of the media and of pundits like Brooks they are somehow deserving of the adulation of the voting public.

The McCain-Lieberman Party counters with constant reminders that country comes before party, that in politics a little passion energizes but unmarshaled passion corrupts, and that more people want to vote for civility than for venom.

How? By virtue of being impressed with the value set and behavior codes of wealthy white men? They get the benefit of not having to articulate a political platform because they know how to dress nicely, shake hands, and smile at the right moments? Brooks tries to articulate the Lieberman-McCain common ground, which would supposedly make it distinct from the major parties:

• They agree with Tony Blair on the "War on Terror". (It isn't explained how this differs from agreeing with Bush.)
• They will raise taxes while slashing social programs. (Possible, but hardly a winning election platform, nor an indication that they could agree on how to raise taxes or how to cut social welfare programs.)
• They believe in free trade, investment in "human capital" and "immigration reform". (What does any of that actually mean to Brooks, let alone to a possible political platform?)
• They don't like teacher's unions, or allowing corporations to write environmental rules. (There's some loyalty for you... the teacher's union endorses Lamont, and it's like they never shared their love with Lieberman. Presumably Lieberman still loves the AFL-CIO... unless they support Lamont in the general election.)
• "It sees two traditions immobilized to trench warfare." (While perhaps voters see McCain drawing lines in the sand, and Lieberman trying to breach the other side's trench by offering a handful of pansies.)

So when it comes to the major issues, Brooks defines "centrism" as total deference to present military policy. He sees it as "centrist" to raise taxes. He sees it as "centrist" to cut social welfare programs - while at the same time proposing new social welfare programs to revamp our nation's "human capital". Health care isn't an issue that matters to the "center". Abortion rights aren't relevant to the "center". Rights for gays aren't relevant. First Amendment issues aren't relevant.

He also seems to believe that to be a centrist you must pursue your party's goals in a moderate, consensus-building manner, as otherwise you're engaging in "trench warfare". That's just plain silly. If the centrist party wants to achieve universal health care coverage, for example, it will have to steamroll over opposition to that plan.

Basically, as is typical, Brooks hasn't thought this one out.

Addendum: I think that Lieberman's position on the war contributed significantly to his loss, but I think it was his approach to politics - the faux centrism that makes him the darling of political conservatives like Brooks - which cost him the election. The manner in which he supported the war and condescended to his critics, the straw which broke his back in the primary campagn, is a manifestation of that faux centrism.

Joe Lieberman's Website Woes

Joe Lieberman's campaign is apparently still accusing Lamont of somehow being responsible for hijacking his website.

"We call on Ned Lamont to make an unqualified statement denouncing this kind of dirty campaign trick and to demand whoever is responsible to cease and desist immediately," Smith said in a statement. "Any attempt to suppress voter participation and undermine the voting process on Election Day is deplorable and has no place in our democracy."

The latest version of their accusation seems to be of a denial of service attack:

"This statement is to confirm that the suspension of displaying the Web site www.joe2006.com was not due to to an overdue account. Friends of Joe Lieberman is completely paid in full. The screen that showed yesterday is a default image from the server," the Lieberman campaign said Tuesday in a statement.

"In order to isolate where the denial of service attack was coming into the site, we disabled it as rapidly as possible. Once we were able to isolate all the site files for study, we were able to add an appropriate one-page maintenance message."

Except throughout this "attack" people were able to access the website and see an error message. It gives me no confidence in the Lieberman campaign staff, or their accusations of sabotage, that they seem to think that their website is served from a magic box which can only fail in the event of the malicious acts of others. They also seem to believe that only a political opponent would target a high-profile website in a manner likely to grab headlines.... A savvy opponent would not do this on the eve of a primary.

Here's another lesson for political campaigns - particularly major or national campaigns - set up your servers to automatically refresh site content on a regular basis (e..g, every half-hour) such that no vandalism of the site itself will last long, even when responsible staff members are busy with other matters or are asleep. Consider setting up a separate SMTP server to handle mail. Implement frequent automated backups of any areas of the site which are regularly updated, to prevent or at least minimize data loss. This is basic stuff, which is why even I know it....

Blogs and Negative Campaign Ads

In the last Presidential election, we saw certain blogs and websites emerge which professed to assess the veracity of campaign ads and statements by the candidates. Although I haven't been following the race particularly closely, I have noticed that in Ned Lamont's supporters in his race against Joe Lieberman choose not to wait for these sites to analyze Lieberman's ads - they link to the ads up on their unofficial Lamont weblog and make fun of them. It also seems to be one of the first places that Lamont's new ads apepar. Should the responses go over the top, well, it's unofficial. (And Lamont's campaign is doing quite well.)

I don't know how effective this is yet, but given that it is an inexpensive way to publish a response to an opponent's attack ads, and if done right may be one of the first places the media looks when covering campaign ads (you know - those "We don't agree with negative campaigning, but we will now play in full candidate X's latest attack ad" segments), I think we can expect to see this type of blog commentary in pretty much every contested race in the fall.