what is at stake in connecticut

the connecticut senate race is a race for the heart and soul of the democratic party. should we be a party that is open to anybody at all, regardless of what they believe, and let just anybody hold office and represent us, even if they disagree with us on many fundamental issues? or should we be a party that has principles, that has beliefs, that takes stands on issues, and that tries to have its members vote uniformly in congress so that we can actually excercise some power in washington instead of letting the republicans play divide and conquer with our congresspeople and senators? the democratic party has very little power in the federal government, and for years we have been divided while the republicans have been united. it is very clear when you look at the voting records on important legislation in congress, or if you watch c-span. the republicans have remarkable message discipline and are quite good at dealing with dissent; in the last year or so, of course, this has been changing, and they are getting more internal dissent, but they still have a lot less than the democrats. and another important question is: should we re-elect incumbent politicians that we don’t like, or throw them out and replace them with someone new? should we, in the democratic party, function as an elitist institution, where a small, never-changing elite group is always in control, and is never challenged by any outsiders? where things like the nomination to run for president are treated like entitlements, and the idea of running against a front-runner in a primary is considered treasonous? or should we really let the best candidate win, and hold our elected representatives to higher standards? if a politician from our own party goes astray, but we would never vote for the other party in a million years, isn’t our only option to defeat them in a primary? if you look at how congressional elections work, incumbents are re-elected a ridiculously high percentage of the time. and politicians are so arrogant, they act as if their positions are entitlements, and how dare the people they represent even consider voting for someone else. this is what the senate race in connecticut is all about. it is about determining whether democrats are willing to hold their own politicians accountable. nancy pelosi has already demonstrated that congressional democrats are willing to throw one of their own overboard if there are serious ethical problems, in the case of william jefferson. it would have been admirable if the republicans had been able to similarly ditch tom delay, before delay’s indictment forced it upon them. politicians are really public servants, elected to represent the people of their districts or whatever geographical region, whether city, state, or country. and if they fail to uphold their duties to represent their constituents, it is the duty of their constituents not to re-elect them, but instead to replace them with a challenger, unless the challenger is even worse. joe lieberman might do what he think is right most of the time, but the fact is, he is one of the most right-wing democrats in congress, consistently. he is the poster boy of the democratic leadership council, a thinly veiled corporate lobbyist group hell-bent on screwing working americans through a hostile takeover of the democratic party. now the democratic leadership council does have one claim to fame: they helped bill clinton get elected in 1992, and he was a close ally of theirs. that explains why clinton is helping lieberman out now. but really, the democratic leadership council does not belong in the democratic party. i mean of course wealthy people and corporations do have legitimate concerns and have a constitutional right to petition the government for redress of grievances, but so do all other citizens. and the democratic leadership council is entirely focused on having the wealthy and the corporations make all the decisions on economic issues. the democratic leadership council is also very hawkish and militaristic; it is not like any of them would have to send their kids off to die in a war. that is what working-class people do. now yes, joe lieberman and the democratic leadership council are very liberal on many social issues, but even on those, they have an uneven record, and are quite conservative on a few hot-button social issues from time to time. ned lamont, on the other hand, is a progressive, from what howard dean calls “the democratic wing of the democratic party”. we progressives include most of the liberal blogosphere, such as the daily kos and atrios and democrats.com and many other sites. the #1 favorite senator of most of us progressive democrats, russ feingold of wisconsin, is actually jewish, so no we are not anti-semitic, and joe lieberman’s judaism has nothing to do with why he is a bad senator. moveon.org, michael moore, the nation magazine, and mother jones magazine are all progressive democrats, as is people for the american way, the air america radio network, and the center for american progress think tank. now some people, especially fox news, think that michael moore and moveon.org and the daily kos are all left-wing extremists or some crap like that. but really, we progressive democrats are proud to be associated with such forward-thinking people, who are certainly a lot better on policy matters than most of the people we have in office. now ned lamont may be a wealthy businessman, but we do not hold his background against him, because he shares our beliefs, and he is one of us. he is one of those wealthy individuals who actually wants to give something back to society and make the world a better place, not the greedy type who only care about themselves and nobody else. now some people might be thinking george soros right now, and all i have to say is, george soros is a wonderful man, a humanitarian, a progressive thinker, who simply wants to make the world a better place, and is willing to spend his hard-earned money to help out other people without expecting anything at all in return. in fact, he expects to have to pay higher taxes in return, but does it anyway. now that is what i call unselfish. he is a hungarian refugee, who survived nazism, and since i am half-hungarian, i have a special affinity for george soros and am outraged whenever i hear people in the media or on blogs blithely attack him for his good works. another billionaire i think is a wonderful man is ted turner, although i am sure there are many people who would disagree. to them i say, shut up, because ted turner is awesome! he is an environmentalist, the largest private landowner in the country, spending his own money on buying up wilderness to preserve it for future generations. and he is an anti-war internationalist, who has donated a billion dollars to the united nations, to help it fulfill its mission that it established in its charter. but ted turner’s biggest concern is the survival of the human race as a species, and that is the issue he has devoted the most time and energy to, which i think is very admirable. he is a true progressive. but anyway, my point is, joe lieberman is not a progressive. joe lieberman is a close ally of the wealthy and powerful, but not the good wealthy people like george soros and ted turner; joe lieberman is an ally of the bad wealthy people, who just care about tax breaks and getting corporate welfare and having free-trade agreements that let them ship jobs overseas. he is a corporatist, and an ally of the military-industrial complex. he is a war hawk, and an unapologetic advocate of the use of military force by the united states and israel. he was one of about half of the democrats in congress who helped out the lending industry and the bankers by passing the republican bankruptcy bill into law; that law makes it much harder for ordinary people to become bankrupt, but actually helps wealthy people shield their investments if they declare bankruptcy. the lending industry mails out credit cards to anyone at all, even shopaholics with no income, and then they come whining to congress after people with bad credit behave as expected, go deep into debt, and declare themselves bankrupt. if you are running a bank, and you issue credit cards with huge credit limits to joe blow off the street despite his bad credit, why the hell should you be surprised when he goes out and spends a lot of money he can’t afford, becomes bankrupt, and is unable to pay back his debts to you? it is just common sense. if businesspeople are so stupid that they do not know how to make money, it is not the job of the federal government to bail them out. capitalism only works if you let the bad businesses fail, so that the good ones can succeed even better. but joe lieberman is one of those corporate welfare types who dole out money to reward poorly managed corporations for their inability to make money. and in defending his record to the people of connecticut, all he has to defend his career in the senate is 18 years of getting wasteful pork barrel spending projects for his home state, the wealthiest state in the nation. it is not the business of the federal government to do wasteful pork barrel spending, when there are more important things to spend money on, like health care and education and the military. why do politicians always brag about how they got spending for such-and-such a pork barrel spending project, and then keep getting re-elected? it is mind-numbing madness. now, the best crusader against wasteful pork-barrel spending is republican congressman jeff flake of arizona, but he cannot even get his own party to go along with him, much less the democrats. quite a shame indeed. but ned lamont has said that he does not support these stupid pork-barrel spending projects, or corporate welfare, or any of that other bullshit joe lieberman has done while in office. so yeah. the republicans are all saying how horrible this is, what we democrats are doing to joe lieberman, how it is like an inquisition or something. but guess what? we democrats are just showing that we have standards, and if one of our elected officials is not good enough, we give them the boot. something the republicans had better re-learn, as they certainly seemed to know it in 1994, but they have forgotten it since then. and the current leaders of the republicans in congress are nowhere near as good as newt gingrich was. you gotta give the guy credit, newt gingrich was a genius. if he were still in charge in congress, there would be no deficit. but instead, the republicans chose corruption, bad policies, bush administration mismanagement, and tom delay. in short, they have shown themselves completely incompetent at governance, just like joe lieberman. ned lamont promises to be a real progressive senator, like russ feingold or the late paul wellstone. if more politicians were like that, our government might actually work the way it is supposed to. which it will... once we take over. the party bigwigs might not like it, but the revolution is on, and they can either join the team and be a part of making this country a better place, or get left in the dust and replaced the next time they are up for re-election. replacing joe lieberman is only the beginning; even politicians we enthusiastically support today can become potential targets for replacing tomorrow. it is a complicated world, and the issues are changing all the time. who knows who will be next to incur the wrath of the blogosphere? know this... we in the blogosphere, whether we are right-wing, left-wing, or whatever, are not to be trifled with. if you are a politician, i would highly recommend having your people monitor the major blogs, to keep track of what people say about you, or else you could be in for a nasty surprise, just like joe lieberman. but if you do keep track of what the major bloggers say, you should be able to figure out what to say in order to pander to us, and keep the threat at bay. you have been warned.