The Big Day

Today, Tuesday, August 8, 2006 my little Blue State is the center of the political universe.

As Chris Matthews (who will be broadcasting from New Haven tonight) writes:

Connecticut gets to do something Tuesday that the rest of us can’t: vote on the Iraq War.

[snip]

But the voters up in Connecticut will have a decisive say this year. On Tuesday night they get to say where they stand on the American decision to invade Iraq.

If they vote for Lieberman in the primary, they’re saying one thing. If they vote for Lamont, they’re saying another. Try complicating it if you will, but that’s the way the world will read it.

As the British say, a vote for Ned Lamont is a “no confidence” vote on the Lieberman, Bush, the decision to invade and occupy Iraq.

Every vote counts. Whoever wins and by how much will be an international story reported and analyzed around the world.

I know it seems politically naive to raise this issue, but I wish a reporter would ask Joe Lieberman why he wants to be a United States Senator from Connecticut.

In 2000 he ran, simultaneously, for Vice President and US Senator. He lost the former but won the latter. Then, at the beginning of his new term, he promptly packed his bags and left Connecticut to run for President.

His showing in the 2004 Democratic presidential primary was humiliating for him and for the state. You have to question the political instincts of a man who didn't know when to "get out with dignity" and who failed, utterly, to comprehend the message his party's primary voters sent him on the Iraq war.

Two years later, he's back in Connecticut, wondering where the love went.

Joe Lieberman used to be a political institution in this state. But his humiliation in 2004 and his desperate efforts in this campaign have made him seem small and insignificant.

And when his divine right to elected office was challenged he presented as craven and self-serving. Even after his party's big guns came up to stump for him, he shamelessly declared that he'd run as an Independent if he lost the nomination. (He was still singing that Independent tune as recently as last night on, of all places, Fox News.)

I'm not a Democrat (Deo Gratias) but I have voted for Joe Lieberman in past elections. Should his name show up on the ballot this November -- either as the Democratic nominee or as an Independent -- I'll pull another lever.
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Update:

Sabotage!: Lieb's website gets hacked:

[...] The senator's official campaign Web site, Lieberman2006.com, has been down since 7 a.m. Tuesday.

Lieberman's camp is claiming that the Web site has been sabotaged by hackers who support his challenger Ned Lamont for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate.

"They have totally attacked our Web site and e-mail system," Lieberman's campaign manager, Sean Smith said. "If Ned Lamont has a backbone in his body, he will call on these people to cease and desist."

According to the Lieberman camp, the site has been hacked so thoroughly that the senator's campaign can't even use e-mail.