Incumbents Beware?
July 28, 2016 at 4:25 p.m.
At first glance, one might think some incumbents might be in for a rough time this November.
Frankly, I thought it was a bit shocking that Joe Lieberman, the Democrat Senator from Connecticut, lost his bid for re-election in the primary this past week.
In 2000, as Al Gore's running mate, he was just a few Florida votes shy of being the Vice President of the United States.
In 2004, he was a formidable candidate for his party's nomination for a presidential run against George Bush.
A three-term incumbent, he was highly respected by his peers on both sides of the aisle in the Senate.
He is the ranking Demo on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which he chaired in 2001 and 2002.
He also serves on the Armed Services, Environment and Public Works and Small Business and Entrepreneurship committees.
He was very popular in his home state and he's no moderate.
Since 2000, when Democrats and Republicans disagreed, Lieberman voted 90.5 percent of the time with his colleagues in roll call votes, according to the Connecticut Post. That puts him slightly to the left of Demo Majority leader Harry Reid.
The guy who beat him is Ned Lamont. Lamont is the great-grandson of Thomas W. Lamont, who was a partner in J.P. Morgan & Co.
He went to expensive private schools, got degrees from Harvard and Yale. He worked at a small newspaper, then he got into the cable TV business. In the 1980s he founded Lamont Digital Systems building advanced telecommunications networks for college campuses and residential gated communities. He's currently president and chairman of that company.
So he's got a lot of money and certainly was able to afford a credible campaign.
Politically speaking, he is a novice. He was elected a selectman for the town of Greenwich and then finished third in a failed bid for the state senate in 1990.
So how does a guy like Lieberman lose to a guy like Lamont? I can sum it up in a single letter.
W.
Lieberman was perceived as a W supporter. He voted for the war and continued to support it, despite the fact that it is very unpopular these days.
Lamont's campaign was pretty one-dimensional - anti-war. At Lamont rallies, it was fairly routine to hear chants of "Bring them home."
It's pretty easy to be against the war these days. I wonder if Lamont was against the war in 2001. I looked for awhile and couldn't find any references to his war position back then.
But that's the advantage of not being an incumbent. You don't have a record to trip you up.
A couple other incumbents lost in primaries this week.
They were Georgia Rep. Cynthia McKinney, and Michigan Republican Rep. Joe Schwarz.
But there were other factors involved in those races. You may remember McKinney as the nutty Congresswoman who tried to whack a Capitol Police officer with a cell phone.
Schwarz was the target of a well-financed conservative effort to oust him because of his support for stem cell research.
So, at least superficially, it does seems as if there is some pretty significant voter angst out there.
This would seem to translate into problems for incumbents - more for Republicans than Democrats.
But there are two ways to look at everything and there are unintended consequences.
The far-left wing of the Democrats - people like Michael Moore, George Soros and the moveon.org crowd are crowing the virtues of the anti-war ideology and are ready to cash in.
They herald Lamont's win as proof of a new direction for Democrats and they've put all other Democrat candidates on notice: "Do it our way or lose."
Here's Moore on his Web site:
"We will actively work to defeat each and every one of you who does not support an immediate end to this war. ... Nearly every Democrat set to run for president in 2008 is responsible for this war. They voted for it or they supported it. ... Lieberman and Company made a colossal mistake - and we are going to make sure they pay for that mistake."
That sounds great because the war is unpopular. But it's shallow.
That position begs some questions.
What would the Democrats have us do? Bring all the troops home? Give Iraq back to the terrorists?
The Democrats seem to have the notion that giving up in Iraq - defeat - is only a reflection on W, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, et al.
They're the ones who got us into this, after all and they - and anyone who supported them - deserve to be punished in the voting booth.
It is true that those people are culpable and deserve a good portion of blame for the mess in Iraq, but that argument only goes so far.
I think Republicans need to remind voters that giving up in Iraq - defeat - is a reflection on all of us and Americans hate to lose.
Whether you believe Iraq had anything to do with terror before 9/11 is irrelevant at this point.
We've swatted the nest with a big stick and there's no coaxing the hornets back inside.
These days, terror and Iraq are inexorably intertwined. Al-Qaida recruits are moving in every day. U.S. troops are fighting to wrest control of a Iraq from these people.
If we pull the troops out, do you suppose the terrorists will stop hating us? Do you suppose they'll stop trying to blow up airliners? Will they will leave Iraq and allow democracy to flourish or turn it into a terrorist base of operations?
From a political standpoint, do you suppose voters don't understand this?
Eliminating the threat of terror may be impossible. Minimizing the threat will be a long and arduous task and unfortunately, Iraq is a portion of that task. I can't see the upside of giving up on Iraq until a semblance of order is achieved.
Lamont's win in Connecticut has given the far-left wing of the Democrat party what it perceives as a winning political strategy - divide the nation over the war on terror.
I think they pursue this strategy at their peril.
Allowing the moveon.org people to define the party is a huge mistake for Democrats. Every political strategist knows the votes needed to win elections are found in the center of the political spectrum - not the edges.
Democrats are squandering a great opportunity. W is unpopular. The war is unpopular. There is voter angst. But instead of cashing in and racing to the center, Democrats are allowing the party to be dragged to the fringy left.
If you would have asked me a week ago about Republican prospects in the fall election, I would have given you a grim assessment.
The assessment today is brighter. [[In-content Ad]]
At first glance, one might think some incumbents might be in for a rough time this November.
Frankly, I thought it was a bit shocking that Joe Lieberman, the Democrat Senator from Connecticut, lost his bid for re-election in the primary this past week.
In 2000, as Al Gore's running mate, he was just a few Florida votes shy of being the Vice President of the United States.
In 2004, he was a formidable candidate for his party's nomination for a presidential run against George Bush.
A three-term incumbent, he was highly respected by his peers on both sides of the aisle in the Senate.
He is the ranking Demo on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which he chaired in 2001 and 2002.
He also serves on the Armed Services, Environment and Public Works and Small Business and Entrepreneurship committees.
He was very popular in his home state and he's no moderate.
Since 2000, when Democrats and Republicans disagreed, Lieberman voted 90.5 percent of the time with his colleagues in roll call votes, according to the Connecticut Post. That puts him slightly to the left of Demo Majority leader Harry Reid.
The guy who beat him is Ned Lamont. Lamont is the great-grandson of Thomas W. Lamont, who was a partner in J.P. Morgan & Co.
He went to expensive private schools, got degrees from Harvard and Yale. He worked at a small newspaper, then he got into the cable TV business. In the 1980s he founded Lamont Digital Systems building advanced telecommunications networks for college campuses and residential gated communities. He's currently president and chairman of that company.
So he's got a lot of money and certainly was able to afford a credible campaign.
Politically speaking, he is a novice. He was elected a selectman for the town of Greenwich and then finished third in a failed bid for the state senate in 1990.
So how does a guy like Lieberman lose to a guy like Lamont? I can sum it up in a single letter.
W.
Lieberman was perceived as a W supporter. He voted for the war and continued to support it, despite the fact that it is very unpopular these days.
Lamont's campaign was pretty one-dimensional - anti-war. At Lamont rallies, it was fairly routine to hear chants of "Bring them home."
It's pretty easy to be against the war these days. I wonder if Lamont was against the war in 2001. I looked for awhile and couldn't find any references to his war position back then.
But that's the advantage of not being an incumbent. You don't have a record to trip you up.
A couple other incumbents lost in primaries this week.
They were Georgia Rep. Cynthia McKinney, and Michigan Republican Rep. Joe Schwarz.
But there were other factors involved in those races. You may remember McKinney as the nutty Congresswoman who tried to whack a Capitol Police officer with a cell phone.
Schwarz was the target of a well-financed conservative effort to oust him because of his support for stem cell research.
So, at least superficially, it does seems as if there is some pretty significant voter angst out there.
This would seem to translate into problems for incumbents - more for Republicans than Democrats.
But there are two ways to look at everything and there are unintended consequences.
The far-left wing of the Democrats - people like Michael Moore, George Soros and the moveon.org crowd are crowing the virtues of the anti-war ideology and are ready to cash in.
They herald Lamont's win as proof of a new direction for Democrats and they've put all other Democrat candidates on notice: "Do it our way or lose."
Here's Moore on his Web site:
"We will actively work to defeat each and every one of you who does not support an immediate end to this war. ... Nearly every Democrat set to run for president in 2008 is responsible for this war. They voted for it or they supported it. ... Lieberman and Company made a colossal mistake - and we are going to make sure they pay for that mistake."
That sounds great because the war is unpopular. But it's shallow.
That position begs some questions.
What would the Democrats have us do? Bring all the troops home? Give Iraq back to the terrorists?
The Democrats seem to have the notion that giving up in Iraq - defeat - is only a reflection on W, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, et al.
They're the ones who got us into this, after all and they - and anyone who supported them - deserve to be punished in the voting booth.
It is true that those people are culpable and deserve a good portion of blame for the mess in Iraq, but that argument only goes so far.
I think Republicans need to remind voters that giving up in Iraq - defeat - is a reflection on all of us and Americans hate to lose.
Whether you believe Iraq had anything to do with terror before 9/11 is irrelevant at this point.
We've swatted the nest with a big stick and there's no coaxing the hornets back inside.
These days, terror and Iraq are inexorably intertwined. Al-Qaida recruits are moving in every day. U.S. troops are fighting to wrest control of a Iraq from these people.
If we pull the troops out, do you suppose the terrorists will stop hating us? Do you suppose they'll stop trying to blow up airliners? Will they will leave Iraq and allow democracy to flourish or turn it into a terrorist base of operations?
From a political standpoint, do you suppose voters don't understand this?
Eliminating the threat of terror may be impossible. Minimizing the threat will be a long and arduous task and unfortunately, Iraq is a portion of that task. I can't see the upside of giving up on Iraq until a semblance of order is achieved.
Lamont's win in Connecticut has given the far-left wing of the Democrat party what it perceives as a winning political strategy - divide the nation over the war on terror.
I think they pursue this strategy at their peril.
Allowing the moveon.org people to define the party is a huge mistake for Democrats. Every political strategist knows the votes needed to win elections are found in the center of the political spectrum - not the edges.
Democrats are squandering a great opportunity. W is unpopular. The war is unpopular. There is voter angst. But instead of cashing in and racing to the center, Democrats are allowing the party to be dragged to the fringy left.
If you would have asked me a week ago about Republican prospects in the fall election, I would have given you a grim assessment.
The assessment today is brighter. [[In-content Ad]]