They Forgot Lieberman/Lamont

How quickly they forget. They apparently don't seem to grasp the concept of been-there-done-that and, if it didn't work the first time, don't do it again. The "they" that I am talking about are the Democrats. The been-there-done-that that I am about to reference is the Joe Lieberman reelection bid of 2006.

In Connecticut in 2006, Joe Lieberman was up for reelection. The far left of the Democratic Party decided that they didn't want Joe Lieberman back in the Senate. He had voted for the war in Iraq and continued to be an advocate for that war. He was also too centrist. So, Howard Dean and the far left groups like MoveOn.org decided to challenge Lieberman with a far-left, anti-war candidate, Ned Lamont. Nobody on the far left cared about the fact that Lamont had no experience and that Joe Lieberman was widely popular on the left, center, and moderate right. To make a long story short, Ned Lamont only won by slightly more than half the Democratic votes and got the Democratic nomination over Lieberman. In defiance, Lieberman ran as an Independent and won.

There are a lot of parallels to what happened to Ned Lamont in 2006 and what might be happening to Barack Obama in this Presidential election.

First, Barack Obama, just like Ned Lamont, was, from the very start, against the War in Iraq. This fact, alone, endears him to the far left Democrats like Howard Dean and organizations like MoveOn.org. Additionally, Obama is a far-lefty, just like Lamont, and that has given him appeal and the backing of the far left likes of Kennedy, Pelosi, Schumer, Durbin, and all the others. Like Ned Lamont, he barely won the nomination over Hillary Clinton. Barack struggled against Hillary in much the same way as Lamont struggled against Lieberman. It wasn't the popular vote that gave Obama his big win, it was those "fluid," decidedly left-of-center super-Delegates that did.

Hillary didn't go Independent to run against Obama as in the case when Lieberman decided to go Independent and win against Lamont. Instead, Obama is having a similar problem against a somewhat Lieberman-like candidate known as John McCain. John is the centrist and the maverick against his own party that, like Lieberman, appeals to the moderate left, Independents, and moderate rights. With the addition of Sarah Palin, he picked up the Republican base that wasn't too enthusiastic about John McCain.

I don't know who will win this election, but there are certainly a lot of parallels to the loss of the party-favorite, Ned Lamont, in Connecticut and what appears to be happening, now, to Barack Obama. In Team Obama's arrogance, they went against a possible win by not picking Hillary as the running mate and snubbing the women of America. John McCain took a calculated risk and may have picked a woman VP that could steal some of those disenchanted and disenfranchised women from the Democratic party and, at the same time, shore up his base; all in one fell swoop. That's why I think the Democrats might be crying in their beers because they had "been there, done that", then lost, and wound up doing it again!