Sunday, April 09, 2006

Lieberman the Independent

Joe Lieberman mentioned today in Windsor that he won't rule out running as an independent should he lose the primary. From ConnecticutBLOG:
LIEBERMAN: Will I always be a member of the Democratic party? I hope there's not a primary. I'm confident if there is one, I'll win it, but I'm not gonna rule out any other option for now because I feel so strongly that I can do better for the State of Connecticut for the next six years in the United States Senate that I want to give all the voters a chance to make that decision on Election day in November. I want to do it as a Democrat. If I didn't want to do it as a Democrat, I would choose to run in some other party, trust me. But I want to do it as a Democrat because I believe in the Democratic party, so really the choice is up to my fellow Democrats...
Really, despite the glee this causes in the Lamont camp, this is nothing new. Lieberman has declared before that he intends to be on the ballot regardless, party be damned.

So which is more important? The party, or the man? Joe Lieberman has an answer, which may not be the one he had thirty years ago. Ned Lamont and his supporters have another answer.

George Washington had an answer, too.

The reality is that Lieberman is already an independent, a member of a political party that doesn't exist. He isn't a Republican, but he's not quite a Democrat either. There are many others like him. John McCain. Joe Biden. Jodi Rell. Rob Simmons. Olympia Snowe. Lincoln Chaffee. Bob Casey. Chris Shays. Do I need to go on? Moderates have always existed, but they've never had their own party in modern American politics. Sometimes, they've dominated their respective parties, but this has not been the case since Bill Clinton left office.

If both parties' leaders continue to move away from the center, there exists the possibility that someday they will. An American Kadima could be born. It isn't likely, we like our two-party system... but it's a bracing and radical thought. American politics would be remade. The world would shift.

That, however, is the future, and an unlikely future at that.

In the here and now, however, Joe Lieberman seems to be finding it harder and harder to stay a Democrat in a party whose faithful don't seem to want him. Where will the breaking point be?

13 comments:

Genghis Conn said...

I work Sundays. It's too bad--I especially wanted to go to Derek Donnelly's announcement in Suffield as well as the Windsor thing.

If Lieberman thinks he can win running as an independent then he probably will do so. And why not? If the Democratic Party doesn't want him anymore, then why should he care whether he's helping or hurting them?

The two party system works fine, most of the time. One party is in power for a while, gets used up, and is replaced. This is the way it should work. But now it seems like neither party has anything of substance to offer. There's nothing new, at least not that I've seen.

More than anything else in this election I'd like to see change. I think a lot of Americans fo.Maybe Lamont can offer that. Maybe an independent Lieberman can. Heck, maybe Alan Schlesinger can. I don't know.

Don Pesci said...

GK

Interesting. Why do we not have a third party by now? The parties have been disestablished for many years, partially the result of apathy and partially the result of reforms. Unaffiliated are simply breakaway Democrats and Republicans. Why has it not been possible to organize the disaffected into a third party? Part of the answer is to be found in a comment made by Beat Shays: “We need Joe to win as a Dem, or we are going to lose everything.”

Lieberman is a party; so is Dodd; so are most incumbents. They have their own permanent staff, their own financing mechanisms, and their own principles (such as they are). What moderates do not have is an ideology -- a coherent body of political ideas. What we are witnessing in the Lieberman/Lamont race is a clash of old time politics with the “new thing.” The new thing is candidate centered politics. The truth is that political parties – especially in states, like Connecticut, that are moderate – exist only as elaborate Potemkin Villages – formidable on the outside, with nothing inside.

Gabe said...

turfgrrl - No supplication to any anti-war ideology would have been necessary to avoid this discussion; a simple, "I hope I am the Democratic nominee, but, if it is not me, I will support the Democratic nominee." would have avoided this whole topic.

While much of the angst over Lieberman is due to his unwavering support for the war, the larger issue for a number of Democrats is his seeming willingness to work against his party. This debate is indicitive of the latter, not the former.

tparty said...

GC wrote:

If Lieberman thinks he can win running as an independent then he probably will do so. And why not? If the Democratic Party doesn't want him anymore, then why should he care whether he's helping or hurting them?

Joe has every right to throw away his 36-year association with a party that nominated him for vice president, and cut and run like a coward from a primary election he might lose. Doesn't say much for his character that he would consider doing this. But he has every right to.

But Joe has NO RIGHT to keep on calling himself a Democrat if this is his plan.

He has NO RIGHT to ask Democrats for his vote if he doesn't plan on accepting the outcome of that vote.

That's the height of cynicism and megalomania.

Aldon Hynes said...

Don,

While our political ideologies may differ, as may some of our views about the underlying nature of the political system, I think your comment is one of the best ones I’ve read here in a long time. “Why do we not have a third party by now?” You cite apathy and reforms as two of the reasons.

I think apathy is a clear part of the problem, and I offer refer back to Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone where he talks a lot about the decrease in civic engagement. Personally, I think that some of this apathy comes from so much of politics over the past few decades as being broadcast oriented. For too many people, politics has become a thirty second advertisement that everyone wants to skip over on their Tivo.

I think this relates to an underlying issue. Perhaps the two party system isn’t so much about left and right, or Democrat and Republican as it is about incumbent and challenger. The incumbent system uses rules and reforms to try and maintain power. Look at the rules about third party cross endorsements in Connecticut, or how third parties got treated in the campaign finance reform package.

Yet I think there is another important fundamental that isn’t being addressed. My game theorist friends argue that a simple winner take all system will naturally promote a two party system and that if we want to open up the political dialog, we need to move to preferential voting systems such as proportional representation or instant run off voting.

Of course, such a move would challenge the incumbency, so bringing about that type of reform may be particularly challenging. The question then becomes, what should a challenger do to succeed in such a system? I’m not so sure it is about ‘candidate centered politics’, or that the idea of candidate centered politics in necessarily such a new idea.

I’ve argued extensively elsewhere that interesting shift in dynamics is from broadcast style politics to a post-broadcast style politics that re-engages people in the political process. In many ways, post-broadcast politics is similar to a return to the old pre-broadcast politics where shoe leather and social networks prevailed.

I think we saw this beginning to emerge in 2004 and it will be interesting to watch whether this cycle will further a return to civic engagement.

tparty said...

Lieberman doesn't need the Democratic party as much as the Democratic party needs Lieberman.

Congratulations, you've just boiled down Lieberman's re-election platform to its very essence.

Gabe said...

turgrrl -

Respectfully, you left out some of the context of that quote. Here it is with the preceeding and subsequent bits:

Will I always be a member of the Democratic party? I hope there's not a primary. I'm confident if there is one, I'll win it, but I'm not gonna rule out any other option for now because I feel so strongly that I can do better for the State of Connecticut for the next six years in the United States Senate that I want to give all the voters a chance to make that decision on Election day in November. I want to do it as a Democrat. If I didn't want to do it as a Democrat, I would choose to run in some other party, trust me. But I want to do it as a Democrat because I believe in the Democratic party, so really the choice is up to my fellow Democrats... [my emphasis added]

Also, as to your point that the voting record between Dodd and Lieberman are the same, so Lieberman is not working against the party:

-Lieberman on Hannity attacking "hard-left" Democrats. Hannity graciously offered to host him a fundraiser.

-Lieberman stated his willingness to work with President Bush on Privitizing Social Security (sorry that this link is now behind the Times firewall)

- Lieberman says that dissent to the administration is hurting the country.

Dodd has never taken positions such as the above. Nor does he go on Hannity's show and sits by as Democrats are based (or joins in, for that matter). None of those are votes, which reveals the danger of only looking at voting records in evaluating candidates.

Here are two votes where they differed to chew on:

The cloture votes for the bankruptcy bill and for the confirmation of Justice Alito.

For the record, the bankruptcy cloture vote is where I started to have doubts about Lieberman and that was confirmed in the Alito Confirmation cloture vote.

Finally, even accepting your argument, I fail to see how any of it means that the anti-Lieberman forces required some "crazed anti-war rhetoric." It seems they required a level-headed statement that he would, as a Democrat, accept the results of the Democratic primary, win or lose.

Aldon Hynes said...

ctobserver: You are right in observing one of the issues with a proportional representation system, which is why it seems that most of the talk these days about preferential voting systems seem to lean towards an instant runoff voting solution instead of a proportional representation system.

Gabe said...

Aldon - an argument (incorporating some of what your game theory friends argue) that there is a strong structural impediment preventing a viable third party from forming. I would love to discuss at length, but I don't want to hijack the thread.

Gabe said...

turfgrrl - scroll down on the link to the Alito confirmation vote to the cloture section (I apologize for the clunkiness of that website, but I couldn't find it anywhere else for some reason). Dodd voted against cloture, Lieberman voted for it.

Also, while the description of Joe Biden as a "liberal stalwart" may be debatable on some issues, it is catagorically false on issues related to credit card companies and banking. The good Senator from MBNA votes with his campaign contributions.

Who really cares what Lieberman says on a talk show?

Voters in a Democratic primary (i.e. Democrats) care if a Democratic Senator badmouths Democrats on national t.v. and gives bad Republican legislation "bipartisan" cover by being the only Democrat who supports it.

He said he wants to run as a Democrat. why isn't that good enough?

Because he is running for the Democratic nomination and he implied that if he loses (or fears a loss) he will sever his ties with the Democratic party and run as an independant. Do you not believe that whether the nominee plans to remain in the party might be important to primary voters?

Gabe said...

Turfgrrl - As I stated above, the vote that made me think about voting against a sitting Democratic Senator in a primary was the vote against cloture for the bankruptcy bill.

Don Pesci said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Don Pesci said...

“Perhaps the two party system isn’t so much about left and right, or Democrat and Republican as it is about incumbent and challenger.” – Aldon Hynes

Give that man a cigar. Apathy and the kind of changes in have in mind concerning political parties are a chicken and the egg phenomenon: impossible to say which comes first. Are people apathetic because they know the system’s books are cooked; or does apathy produce an incumbentocracy that is self directed and therefore anti-democratic in a profound sense? Is it the lack of ideas in the parties that produce self directed – and appanently impregnable – politicians; or does the stranglehold incumbents have on elections produce barren political parties? In any case, they feed off each other. My answer to sclerotic parties is term limits – but nobody wants that, certainly not incumbents.

Most of the arguments throughout this whole thread can be reduced to two points: 1) Lieberman does not represent the interests of his party and must go; 2) If Lieberman goes, the Democratic Party will have lost a draw on its ticket, thus giving an advantage to the Republican Party. Point 1) envisions an idea centered party; point 2) envisions a candidate centered politics. Both 1 and 2 play out at the same time. However, you cannot have parties without ideas; but you can have incumbents without ideas. And you can have incumbents without parties. Pratically every strong incumbent in the state has parted with his party sometime or other – not just Lieberman. Here in Connecticut, we call it moderation.