US Diary: why the Dems will win in November, because the time of the old-fart pols is over

Lieberman & Co.'s Days Are Numbered
Political hacks like Joe Lieberman have run the country for decades, but now that that they've fucked up Iraq and everything else so badly they've made "McGovernism" mainstream.
By Matt Taibbi

Late at night in Hartford's Goodwin Hotel on August 8 -- I'm not even sure what time it was -- Joe Lieberman made his way to the podium for his much-anticipated "concession" speech.

I'd been joking with another reporter that en route to his capitulation Joe would leave fingernail tracks in the carpet leading all the way back to his private room upstairs, but surprisingly he did not have to be dragged onstage at all, and his little elfin nails looked unbloodied and intact as he spoke. I was looking over a crowd of reporters and Joe staffers, off to the right and to the rear of the hall, as he announced his determination to press on:

"If the people of Connecticut are good enough to send me back to Washington..." he began, "I promise them I will keep fighting for the same progressive new ideas and for stronger national security..."

At the words progressive new ideas I couldn't help myself and let out a little laugh, recalling Lieberman's determination to yank funding from public schools that counseled suicidal teens that it was okay to be gay. Was that the kind of progressive idea he was talking about? I really did try to muffle it, but it was too late -- a middle-aged woman with big dangly earrings in a Lieberman t-shirt whipped around and glared at me.

"Yes?" I said.

"Have some respect!" she snapped.

"What?" I shouted.

"You should be ashamed of yourself!" she hissed.

I shrugged. A few minutes later, Lieberman ended his speech with an impassioned promise to fight on: "I believe tonight, more than ever, in America's greatness in its values... Will you join me? "

Roars, cheers from the crowd; the sneering lady in front of me jumped up and down; and then, weirdly, Joe descended from the stage to the strains of the "Tattoo You"-era Rolling Stones anthem Start Me Up . As the defeated Democrat (now officially an insurgent candidate) hugged his family and shook hands with his supporters, the familiar but suddenly unpleasant lyrics shot out through the ballroom:

If you start me up

If you start me up I'll never stop...

Slide it up!

As I listened to this, another Joe supporter -- a somewhat older woman in horn-rimmed glasses -- came over and cornered me.

"You know what?" she said. "You reporters are all alike. You won't admit it, but you're all anti-Semites..."

I scratched my head. Anti-Semites? The song rattled on creepily:

If you rough it up

If you like it you can slide it up, slide it up

I shuddered at this, trying to keep my wits, but Horn-Rimmed Glasses was still whaling away at me. "You people really do have no respect," she went on. "Joe is such a wonderful man..."

"Listen," I exploded, interrupting her. "Do you know what this song is about?"

She froze.

"It's about a guy who gets an erection that doesn't go away," I said. "Can you explain to me why this song is playing now? What the hell is wrong with you people?"

Horn-Rimmed frowned and listened. At that exact moment Mick Jagger was wrapping the song up:

You, you make a dead man come...

You, you make a dead man come...

The woman recoiled, briefly assumed a quizzical expression, then walked away shaking her head, like the song was my fault.

My experience at the Lieberman event was not unique. A number of other reporters were accosted by a man who showed up at the Goodwin Hotel dressed in a Hillary Clinton t-shirt and proceeded to cruise the periphery of the ballroom accusing the indifferently boozing crowd of journalists of being pro-Hezbollah, anti-Semitic terrorist supporters. In a few cases fistfights were narrowly avoided. Apparently the post-electoral talking points had been issued in advance, because almost from the moment that Lieberman "conceded," a wave of politicians and commentators began similarly hammering home the theme that Lamont's victory was a comfort to terrorists and al-Qaeda, his supporters de facto collaborators.

Lieberman himself was the most shameless: speaking on the day the British terror-plot story broke, which came just 36 hours after his loss, he said that if Lamont's Iraq plan is implemented, "it will be taken as a tremendous victory by the same people who wanted to blow up these planes." Dick Cheney held a press teleconference to comment upon the Lamont election -- an incredible step for a Vice President to take on the occasion of an opposition party primary result -- and suggested that "al Qaeda types" were encouraged by the Lamont election. And Ken Mehlman, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, quickly reacted to the Lamont win by calling the Democrats the "party of defeat and retreat."

It should be noted that both Cheney and Mehlman pointedly referred to the Lamont win as a "purge," echoing the seminal anti-Lamont editorial by the Democratic Leadership Council from two months ago which used the term eight times. They were joined in that effort last week by virtually the entire conservative punditry establishment, with everyone from Cal Thomas ("Purge by Taliban Democrats" was his clever innovation) to American Conservative Union chief Patrick Keene ("The purge that began with the McGovernite seizure of the party...") to Foundation for Defense of Democracies president Clifford May ("The August Purge of Lieberman," a funny historical malapropism; May was trying to echo Soviet Russia, which had an August putsch , not a purge) to Fox's John McIntyre to a whole host of others decrying Lamont's supporters as rich, elitist, neo-commie liberals bent on softening us all up for a terrorist attack, apparently just for the pure, America-hating thrill of it.

There is something perversely exhilarating about watching the American political establishment in action, especially now, when -- with the Middle East in flames, the front pages filled with news of jarring electoral surprises, and the poll numbers of its once-brightest stars falling through the floor -- it has begun behaving like a cornered animal, lashing out incoherently at anything that comes near.

Lieberman himself has been stumbling around like a deer that has just been hit and thrown 200 yards by an F-150, taking the utterly insane position that his candidacy -- his, Joe Lieberman' s candidacy -- somehow represents a fight against the "same old" Washington politics. You have Dick Cheney and a whole host of conservative talking heads, all pretense of two-party politics gone now, openly parroting the talking points of the supposed other side, the Democratic Leadership Council. And then you have New York Times columnist David Brooks, acting like a man high on laughing gas, committing to print that positively amazing assertion that "polarized primary voters should not be allowed to define the choices in American politics."

(That one might be my all-time favorite; flailing around in search of a new group on the margins to demonize, this yutz accidentally argues that voters shouldn't be allowed to decide elections . I thought it was funny, but Brooks this time nearly gave progressive pundit Dave Sirota an aneurysm.)

The reason the Lamont election has all of Washington so badly freaked out and dug in is that it's revealed a crack in the long-dependable mechanism of mainstream American politics. For almost four decades now conservatives in both parties have been governing according to a very simple formula. You run against Jane Fonda and George McGovern in election season, then you spend the next four years playing golf, shooting flightless birds, and taking $25,000 speaking gigs in Aspen while you let your fundraisers run things around the office.

But their problem now is that they've fucked up Iraq and everything else so badly that they've practically made "McGovernism" mainstream. A whole generation of hacks has reached office running against George McGovern, and now Joe Lieberman is threatening to ruin things for everybody, just like Jimmy Carter wrecked the Barry Goldwater gravy train for the last generation by falling on his face against Ronald Reagan. If there is such a thing as a principle in Washington, avoiding such a catastrophe as that is it. That's why they won't let Joe die easy -- no matter how much he seems to deserve it.

(Matt Taibbi is a writer for Rolling Stone)


2. The Democrats Mean Business
Washington needs an entrepreneurial approach.
BY NED LAMONT

In the past week, my victory in the Connecticut Senate primary has been labeled everything from the death knell of the Democratic Party to the signal of our party's rebirth. Beneath all of this punditry is a question that I want to face directly: how the experience I will bring to the U.S. Senate will help Connecticut and the Democratic Party during this time of testing for our country.

I ran at a time when people said "you can't beat a three-term incumbent," because I believed that President Bush, enabled by Sen. Joseph Lieberman, had weakened our country at home and abroad. We're weaker economically, because we're more dependent on foreign energy and foreign capital. Our national security has also been weakened, because we stopped fighting a real war on terror when we made the costly and counterproductive decision to go to war in Iraq.

My confidence that Connecticut was ready for a real debate and a real choice this year was founded not only on current events but also past experience. It was my career in business that shaped my outlook, and helped prepare me to run the race I did.

In 1984, with a loan from People's Bank, I started Campus TeleVideo from scratch. Our offer was unique: Rather than provide a one-size-fits-all menu of channels, we let the customers design their cable system based on the character of the community being served.

From the moment I filled out that loan application, I've been in every part of the business--pulling cable, hiring workers, picking a good health-care plan, closing deals, listening to customers and fixing problems. It's been profitable, and it's been instructive, a quintessentially American experience. Here, entrepreneurs have the freedom to be successful in ways the rest of the world admires.

These defining lessons of my business experience are central in my campaign: identifying the challenges that face our state and offering real solutions. Something clearly worked, because the voters decided to do what our Founding Fathers envisioned; they put their trust not in a career politician but in a concerned citizen and experienced businessman who promises to rock the boat down in Washington.

Here are the four lessons of my business life that I talked about every day on the campaign trail, and that have resonated with Connecticut Democrats:

• First, entrepreneurs are frugal beasts, because the bottom line means everything. In Connecticut, voters are convinced that Washington has utterly lost touch with fiscal reality. We talked about irresponsible budget policies that have driven the annual federal deficit above $300 billion and the debt ceiling to $9 trillion. Meanwhile, the government is spending $250 million a day on an unprovoked war in Iraq while starving needed social investment at home. I am a fiscal conservative and our people want their government to be sparing and sensible with their tax dollars.

• Second, entrepreneurs invest in human resources. Our business strives to pay good wages and provide good health benefits so that we can attract employees that give us an edge in a competitive marketplace. Well-trained and well-cared-for people are essential for every business these days, particularly in a global economy. It's getting harder and harder for American businesses to compete on price, but we innovate and change better than any economy on the planet. The quality of our work force is one of America's competitive advantages--if our education system fails our children and our employers, we'll lose the future.

That's why I talked about my work as a volunteer teacher in the Bridgeport public schools, which can't afford to be open later than 2:30 p.m., schools that send children home to an empty house. That's why my campaign offered a strong alternative to standardized tests and No Child Left Behind. That's why I believe in an employer-based health-care system that covers everyone, and providing tax benefits to small businesses so they can provide insurance without risking bankruptcy.

• Third, in a market-driven economy, entrepreneurs can never lose touch with what customers, suppliers and workers are saying. A great strength of our campaign is that we embraced the grassroots and netroots, suburbs and inner cities, and used the most advanced technology to empower our door-knockers and activists. We listened hard and respectfully to what voters told us, and gave them the confidence to trust someone new.

• Finally, entrepreneurs are pragmatic. Unlike some politicians, we don't draw a false strength from closed minds, and we don't step on the accelerator when the car is headed off the cliff.

By every available metric, the "stay the course" strategy in Iraq is not a winning strategy. Changing course is neither extreme nor weak; it is essential for our national security.

We start with the strongest, best-trained military in the world, and we'll keep it that way. But here's how we'll get stronger by changing course. We must work closely with our allies and treat the rest of the world with respect. We must implement the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission and put in place real protections for ports, airports, nuclear facilities and public transit.

Good judgment is an essential part of good governance. But we're bogged down in Iraq, and hamstrung in the war against terror, by leaders who lacked judgment, historical perspective, openness to other cultures and plain old common sense. We offer something different.

But in the final analysis, the results of this election say less about me, and more about the people of Connecticut. They turned out in record numbers; they spoke every day with a simple eloquence and urgency about the country we love. They oppose the war and the fiscal nightmare crafted by President Bush and his allies. But their vote, finally, was one based on pragmatism and reality, on optimism and hope. And it is to these ideals and values that we plan to address my campaign in the months until November.

(Mr. Lamont won the Democratic Senate primary in Connecticut last week.)