OP-ED | The Lieberman-Lamont Primary: Five Years After
by Susan Bigelow | Aug 5, 2011 11:47am
(7) Comments | Commenting has expired
Posted to: Opinion
On the night of Aug. 8, 2006, I stood in a crowded hotel lobby, crammed in with reporters, bloggers, and supporters to watch Sen. Joe Lieberman concede the Democratic U.S. Senate primary to Ned Lamont. Miles away in Meriden, Lamont and his supporters celebrated. It was an astonishing moment. The attention of the world was focused on Connecticut’s battle; national and world media tuned in. It was a rare moment in American politics where amateurs, liberal activists, and other members of the public managed to have a huge effect on a major political race by using new media to get their opinions heard.
I’ve been reflecting on that race this week. What are some of the lessons learned, five years after Lieberman-Lamont?
Lesson #1: Change is a constant
A lot of the people who celebrated Lamont’s win must look back on that time as if it was part of a completely different age. Our troops are still in Iraq and Afghanistan, but political discourse now is dominated by a right wing that has been resurgent ever since they figured out how to use computers in 2007. Republicans won back the House that Democrats fought to hard to capture in 2006; while here in Connecticut our new Democratic governor has pushed for union concessions while letting off the wealthy relatively easily. Worst of all, one of the most popular and influential political websites in the state is . . . a right-wing flavored Drudge Report clone? Really? What happened?
Everything changes. Blogs seemed like a new and exciting format in 2006, but now they seem rather quaint. The action is shifting to Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and so on. And as formats change, debate is subtly altered by its containers. Blog comments and tweets aren’t quite the same thing, and can have very different effects.
Ever more immediate ways to register political opinion means that the political world can shift in the blink of an eye, and advances made by one side can so easily be undone by the next round of populism. This leads directly to . . .
Lesson #2: Grassroots momentum is very difficult to sustain after a win
Lamont’s primary victory seemed like a turning point for liberal, citizen-powered media and the anti-war Left in Connecticut. In a lot of ways, it was. But it also turned out to be a peak. After 2006, Connecticut’s progressive blogs and other independent online media stopped growing, while conservative sites began to gather steam. In 2005 and 2006, it seemed like someone was inspired to start a blog to rant against the Iraq War and the Republicans every few minutes; by 2007 all of that had changed, and new blogs tended to rant against liberals instead. The big change was that Republicans had lost the House and Senate, and Connecticut Democrats picked up two Congressional seats and made gains in the state legislature.
That’s the thing about a lot of interactive media: it’s great if you’re in opposition, not so much if you’re in power. Ask the Tea Party about that. Speaking of that crowd…
Lesson #3: Political parties are increasingly ineffective as organizations
We kind of knew this one already, but the point is worth making again. What does it actually mean to be a Republican or a Democrat in Connecticut today? Are there a set of clear principles that really divide the two? The distinction became more murky this year when the Democrats in the legislature found themselves in opposition to organized labor, instead of supporting it.
Lieberman-Lamont divided Democrats in ways that are still festering, and showed how fractious Connecticut’s majority party really is. That election also demonstrated how useless top-down party organizations are at protecting incumbents from popular tides. Four years later, the Tea Party wing of the Republican Party made this point again and again.
Lesson #4: Doing anything and everything to win rarely works out well in the long run
Sen. Joe Lieberman pulled out all the stops to get back into the U.S. Senate for another term, and then proceeded to have his revenge on Democrats by infuriating them at every turn. He even went as far as to speak at the Republican National Convention in 2008. The end result was that he became a man without a constituency. He wasn’t quite a Republican, and definitely not welcome as a Democrat any longer. As an independent he might have had a shot; in fact, his election in 2006 owed a lot to his image as a nonpartisan consensus-builder. However, in his fourth term he did very little to try and build bridges between parties, much preferring to set those behind him on fire. He has spent the Obama years lost in the wilderness.
This is a smart lesson for the right-wingers in Congress: wins like the one you just scored over the debt ceiling may feel like victories now, but they almost always come back to bite you later.
There are many other lessons to be learned about organizing, communication, activism, and the isolation and general cluelessness of the political establishment. But maybe the biggest and most important lesson is the first one: everything changes, and if you take your eye off the ball even for a moment you’ll be blindsided by whatever is coming next.
Susan Bigelow is the former owner of CTLocalPolitics. She lives in Enfield with her wife and cats.
Tags: Lieberman, Lamont, 2006, primary, democrats, connecticut
(7) Comments
posted by: Jesterr72 | August 6, 2011 6:34pm
An interesting, but obviously biased article…Susan Bigelow’s view of the world through a liberal/progressive lens has led her to make two big mistakes in this piece.
First, the differences in the two political parties could not be more stark - and the rift is widening. The fact that Gov Malloy must even threaten to go through with layoff notices is only because he has to show his union buddies they have to start giving up something. It is just not in the unions’ mindset to give up anything because the taxpayer well could always be dipped into. No more - and everybody knows it. The State is flat broke and the taxpayers increasingly see the huge disparity in guaranteed increases, six-figure pensions and cushy benefits while they are losing their jobs. They are mad as hell and starting to show it.
2). Which brings me to the second big mistake. People are fed up with both parties, but the country (and this State, too). Is realizing we are in deep trouble. Way too much reckless, stupid spending that is threatening everybody. The Tea Party is not a wing of the Republican Party - it is “We the People” and there are people of all political views who want the spending by both Parties that is ruining the future of our children to stop. And make no mistake - the Tea Party power is growing. With the downgrade in the U.S. Debt rating under this President, THAT will be increasingly evident as the country heads into 2012.
posted by: GoatBoyPHD | August 7, 2011 1:45pm
2006. Also known as the year the sexual libertines co-opted the anti-war movement and the old-era Kennedy-era Democrat Moderates switched sides in the general election.
And just exactly what has become of the 2008 Progressive mandate? A deeply flawed health care plan? Bonuses for AIG? a repeal of DADT? An increase in US military involvement overseas?
I don’t think Lieberman is without resources. As the economy worsens and the Mid East gets lass stable Joe is looking like a worn out shoe but has the value of sage wisdom when compared to diaper dandies like Murph. Now that would be an interesting General Election: Murph, Shays and Lieberman.
After SEBAC poisoned half the state on public sector unions and SustiNet let’s see how long that anti-GOP bias holds up.
I predict 2006 all over again in the Democratic Party. The progressives will co-opt the convention one last time and the press and the blogs will go along.
The general election will not go progressive. Never.
posted by: Christine Stuart | August 7, 2011 4:01pm
Jesterr72,
It’s an opinion piece, so it’s supposed to be biased. That’s what OP-ED means. Don’t really know how I could make that any more clear, but I’m open to suggestions.
Christine Stuart
editor-in-chief
posted by: Susan Jane Bigelow | August 7, 2011 5:48pm
@Jesterr72 - Well, it IS an opinion piece, I’m entitled to my biases, as you are to yours. Plus, S&P explicitly cited GOP intransigence and unwillingness to consider tax increases as justification for the debt downgrade—not Obama.
@GoatBoyPHD - Sexual libertines? Did I miss something? *head scratch*
posted by: Disgruntled | August 7, 2011 5:55pm
I did not like the article but it did the job…a couple of wacko’s came out in a huff on a summer day.
I got a D on a paper I wrote in college,back in the 70’s. It was about how a third party was basically a “given”.
Jesterr gets an F.
posted by: GoatBoyPHD | August 7, 2011 6:47pm
Jester72,
During every recession there is an Empty Nester movement of Democratic Conservatives that come out of the wood work.
These CT Conservatives might have gotten laid off, they may have taken an early retirement for a job that is no longer there, their empty Nest is filling up with kids and extended family who can’t get decent jobs and have school debt, or got divorced.
Them there’s the sadness of selling their 70—something parents home before there isn’t any real equity left and their parents move in.
The job opportunities for the family aren’t good and they don’t want to hear about property tax increases. As the recession gets worse the extended family budget get worse until it spurs some form of political action even if only at the polls.
2012-2016 will be interesting times as the Feds start cutting back on state funding and the state can choose to tax or cutback or both as pension debt and and ratings go through the roof as interest rates start rising.
What people don’t get—there isn’t any flex in the international economy now.
The world’s absolutely tuned to perfection for a debilitating economic crisis. Not the best environment for Progressives.
Does anyone really believe Murph has meaningful solutions? Or Susan Bysiwiecz with her Access Database of contributors?
Not to be mean but who’s really buying that they will change Washington culture of change the military or Health Care?
Not a good election for Progressives I’m afraid. They don;t have a real candidate anyway. If Murph and SB are the candidates then let’s just say that DADT is already repealed, abortion law isn’t getting further expanded, DOMA will be settled in the courts as will the Health Care mandate.
The Chinese (and Moody’s) will dictate the size of the US deficit. The military dictates the size of the military budget and the Arabs the price of oil. What’s Murph going to do? Put price controls on carrots and peas? Cut Social Security and Medicare to fund Medicaid and state public sector worker benefits at everyone else’s expense?
posted by: Bolder63 | August 8, 2011 10:53am
Plus, S&P explicitly cited “GOP intransigence and unwillingness to consider tax increases as justification for the debt downgrade—not Obama. ” Did you read S&P’s statement? or just get the highlights from MSNBC? For the most part they called for a reduction in spending and reducing the deficit.