Aug
18, 2006
Lieberman’s
Defeat in Democratic Primary
The defeat on August 8 of the
3-term Senator, Joseph Lieberman, at the hands of
a political novice, Ned Lamont, in the Democratic
Primary of Connecticut, must have sent shock waves
in the political circles of the U.S. In the past
two decades, this is only the fourth incumbent candidate
rejected by the voters. The turnout was said to
be 45-50 percent of registered Democrats in Connecticut,
double the usual figure and by far the largest proportion
of the electorate that took part in any recent primary
election.
Some 30,000 persons are reported to have registered
as Democrats in the run-up to the Primary to be
eligible to vote. Most of them had been registered
as independent voters earlier. That shows the extent
of interest in the election.
The outcome conveys a signal to politicians of both
parties that the voters are unhappy and frustrated
over the war in Iraq. For, the winner fought the
election on an anti-war plank and defeated the Senator
with 18 years experience and standing as an eminent
national leader. He was the Democratic vice-presidential
candidate in the 2000 election.
His vociferous support of the Bush administration
on the war in Iraq, that raised many an eyebrow
of Democrats and independents throughout the country,
was the chief target of his opponent’s campaign
against his re-election. The success of his opponent,
millionaire Lamont, is perhaps indicative of the
widening national divide on the issue of Iraq.
An orthodox, practicing Jew, married to a lady born
in Israel, Lieberman, 64, learned the political
ropes, the wheeling and dealing, from John Bailey,
the Democratic guru of the State for half a century.
His books “The Power Broker” and “The
Legacy” describe the life and work of Bailey.
He has throughout been a steady Democrat. His decision
following the defeat in the Primary to contest for
the Senate seat as an independent candidate is as
surprising as it is thought provoking. It ignores
party interest and discipline and is likely to split
Connecticut’s Democratic vote bank giving
perhaps a lead to the Republican candidate, Alan
Schlesinger.
It looks all the more odd when one takes into account
the fact that the party had elevated him to the
level of a Vice-Presidential candidate in the 2000
election.
A virtuous and pious person, who does not even step
out of his house on Sabbath, he has not unoften
looked at issues in moral perspective instead of
adhering to the partisan viewpoint. He denounced,
for instance, Bill Clinton on the Lewinsky affair
despite his close friendship with him. Clinton campaigned
for his candidacy in the election that he has just
lost to Lamont.
The Democratic vote was more against Lieberman than
for Lamont. His stance on Iraq was the main reason
for the voters’ verdict. One commentator bluntly
remarked: “He forgot that he was elected to
represent the people of Connecticut, not Israel.”
The election result reverberates far beyond Connecticut.
For, it is on an issue that concerns the entire
nation. A Quinnipiac poll taken in July showed that
80 per cent of Democrats opposed the war in Iraq
and 75 per cent thought that all US troops should
be withdrawn soon. The primary thus turned into
a referendum on the war that has failed to render
the desired results. Yet, the fact of the matter
is that the Democratic leadership is constrained
from openly denouncing the war. For, 29 Democratic
senators had voted for the October 2002 resolution
authorizing the war, virtually all Democratic senators
have since voted for military appropriations to
sustain it.
Of all these senators, Lieberman is the first to
have failed to secure re-nomination. But then, he
has been the most vocal and vehement. Hillary Clinton,
the Senator from New York, stands next to Lieberman
in defending the war and opposing any timetable
for the withdrawal of troops. She is the early favorite
for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.
A shift in her stance could not go unnoticed in
the way she questioned recently Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld. One paper called her a chameleon.
and Internet bloggers have hijacked the Connecticut
primary. Fact of the matter is that the Democratic
Party too is a capitalist set-up. It is committed
to market economy and profit system, and it defends
the worldwide interests of the giant corporations
and banks -the core institutions of American capitalism.
Lamont who has won the Connecticut primary is a
dyed-in-the-wool capitalist, a multimillionaire
great-grandson of the founding partner of J.P. Morgan.
He owns a cable television and his wife is a venture
capitalist with a fortune equivalent to that of
her husband.
He is a staunch supporter of Israel’s aggression
in Lebanon despite the glaring fact that by massacring
Lebanese civilians, Israel has massacred its own
legitimacy. Also he believes that Syria, Iran and
North Korea should be sorted out, as they constitute
‘the axis of evil’.
There is however no doubt that Lamont’s victory
over Lieberman has opened a crack in the bipartisan
pro-war front of the US political establishment.
The war has spawned more problems in Iraq than it
has solved by eliminating the Saddam regime. The
fast piling up of national debt to keep financing
the war will hurt the national economy and the average
citizen. It has no doubt removed the Iraqi threat
to Israel but at what cost . The war no longer enjoys
the bipartisan support. The crack is likely to keep
widening.
At the moment, Democratic leaders both in the House
and the Senate are wary of even talking about the
crucial issue –the war in Iraq- even while
commenting on the outcome of the Connecticut primary.
They have called it a referendum on George Bush,
or “a referendum about being a rubber stamp”
for the Bush administration. But they have meticulously
avoided any mention of the war in Iraq that has
already gone awry and was a folly as contended by
Lamont and endorsed by the voters in the primary.
Ask a man in the street and he would, more often
than not, tell you that he doesn’t understand
why this country really went to war against Iraq.
The Connecticut primary bears out the logic of his
query.
Some commentators on the surprise outcome of the
Connecticut primary election have pointed to the
possibility of Al Gore agreeing now to be the Presidential
candidate in 2008 elections. The repudiation of
Lieberman by Democratic voters has cast a pall on
the Presidential ambitions of Hillary Clinton. Taking
this situation into account, if Al Gore does agree
to be the next Democratic candidate, it would be
a welcome development for this country. Those who
have read his book or seen the film “An Inconvenient
Truth” about global warming would be glad
to see him at the helm of affairs. For, he would
focus on the biggest problem facing this planet
instead of dissipating national assets and energies
on external adventures of questionable value for
this nation and the world community at large.
- arifhussaini@hotmail.com
