Beautiful friend, the end

The Democratic primary for US Senate in Connecticut is tomorrow, and if all the polls hold up to be accurate, political lightweight Ned "Crazy Eyes" Lamont will cruise to a victory over three term incumbent senator, former Presidential and Vice President, and Bar Mitzvah, Joe Lieberman. That's right, Joementum has run its course.

To be honest, I am very happy to see Senator Lieberman booted out of office. He was by far the nastiest campaigner during the 2004 Presidential primary, he has never hesitated to angrily attack another Democrat, he has been the Republicans' go to guy when they search for the answer to the question: "Which Democrat do you respect?" Finally, his staff in the 2004 primaries were also the nastiest; they stole signs and were incredibly verbally vicious. None of that really means anything, because if I was a supporter of Senator Lieberman, I would glaze over all of those things and call him a fighter. I would say he had guts, that he was the kind of Democrat with balls.

Most of the people supporting Ned Lamont, specifically the Nutroots on Markos "Daphne" Zuniga's site, are fighting against Lieberman because he supported the war in Iraq and has been one of its most vocal supporters all along, including his speech to the 2004 Democratic Convention, where it seemed like he got confused and thought he was speaking at the Project for a New American Century Convention. And while I considered myself a supporter of the Iraq War in the beginning, Lieberman never seemed to realize along the way like the rest of us that he or the President had made a mistake, with the exception of the occasional body armor comment.

That all irked me, but the question then becomes, why aren't the nutroots vociferously primarying Hillary Clinton? She's a nationally known figure, she hasn't backed off of her support of invading Iraq, although she has been a little more critical of the administration. So instead of a highly organized Lamont style campaign in New York, we've got Jonathan Tasini running with 15% in the polls. The answer has little to do with the inner workings of the Democratic Party, with strategy or a numbers game or smart politicking; it is personal animous in the nutroots. These folks don't like Lieberman.

And neither do I, which is why I am not upset that he's going to be sent packing back to Connecticut, where he will wind up sitting on the corporate board of a defense contractor and preaching moral fortitude to a whole new generation of eager listeners. I never really got over his bashing of Clinton in 1998, and his moral superiority, while he was in the Senate and when he ran for President, was absolutely nauseating.

So that's fine, we'll kick him out of the Senate, a guy who many may find personally distasteful despite his affable and rather humorous demeanor, largely because we don't like him. I don't have that big of a problem with that, in politics far worse things happen to much better people. It's the breaks, and when you don't hang around your state for a bunch of years and are more popular among Republicans than Democrats, that's what happens.

My problem, though, with all of this, has almost nothing to do with Lieberman. I don't like him, I dont agree with his view on the war, and he made out with President Bush. Putting all of that aside, my big issue with the race is Ned Lamont. And to (painfully) quote Joe Lieberman, "Who is Ned Lamont?" We are about to unseat a three term incumbent Democratic Senator with a guy who served eight years on the Greenwich Board of Selectman, and then had the mind boggling analysis so say that he was just dealing with "potholes" and "streetlights". What kind of confidence is this supposed to instill in the Connecticut electorate? You're voting in a guy to the United States Senate whose political experience consists of zoning ordinances and placing third in a State Senate race in 1990??? Also, he's a millionaire cable executive, whose business largely catered to gated communities. What?

Yeah, so it will be nice to not have to see Joe Lieberman's face on television anymore telling everyone how pious they aren't. It will be good for FoxNews to have to find another Democrat, perhaps one who disagrees with the President on the war, to headline a lot of their shows. But this is the United States Senate we're dealing with here, in a time of current war and potential future war, and we're electing a guy whose totality of political experience is haggling over variances and building permits? This election has nothing to do with Ned Lamont, so let's get over our starry eyed optimism. This is about getting rid of a guy who has been publicly disloyal; getting rid of a guy who annoys the nutroots. Ned Lamont is going to be elected to the US Senate out of personal antipathy, and that can't rub anyone the right way.