Lieberman post mortem
One of the interesting questions in the wake of the primary election defeat by anti-Iraq War Democrat Ned Lamont of Sen. Joseph Lieberman in Connecticut has been whether Bush political guru Karl Rove was secretly helping Lieberman behind the scenes. Huffington Post writer R.J. Eskow has considered the question and found several of the old Deuce's hallmark tactics. I thought the Election Day crash of the Lieberman campaign website was a bit suspicious myself. My guess is that Republicans did it to enrage Lieberman (who immediately blamed Lamont) and make it more likely that he will run as an independent in hopes of retaining his seat. And it might work. Lieberman, at least at this point, is saying he will file a petition to do just that.
Lamont is an interesting person. He's a great-grandson of Thomas Lamont, one of the founding partners of J.P. Morgan and Co. You can read about his great-grandfather in Ron Chernow's excellent book, The House of Morgan. Lamont will win Lieberman's seat in the general election (the Republican candidate is basicly a sacrificial lamb) unless Lieberman gets into the race, in which case it becomes a toss-up. Lamont won the primary with a 52 percent margin. Lieberman won't hold onto all his votes in the general, but if he gets a significant number of Republican votes, he could cobble together a victory. And then turn Republican? Crazier things have happened, and he certainly seems more comfortable with Bush's party than the Democratic Party.
What Lieberman refuses to accept is that large numbers of moderate American voters as well as liberals are fed up with George W. Bush's war in Iraq and every other failed policy of the President. Lieberman embraced those sickening failures in the name of a phony bipartisanship that was really ideological surrender. On Tuesday, the voters of Connecticut said enough was enough.