He thought it couldn’t happen. The Senate, a veritable “who’s who” of patrician demi-royalty, has a way of fomenting hubris in its members. They delude themselves into thinking they are invincible, infallible–entitled.
Lieberman obviously felt this way, blinding himself to the danger coming in his rearview mirror until it was entirely too late. He had little by way campaign organization to speak of–why should he have one, after all? He had been a senator for decades, had been a vice presidential candidate that won the popular vote, and even a presidential candidate himself. Who would dare challenge him?
He didn’t see Lamont coming until he had practically run Lieberman over with his campaign bus, a bus fueled with the pent up outrage of liberal bloggers and other Democrats who detest the policies of an administration gone terribly wrong. Lieberman chose to facilitate, accommodate, and apologize for the Bush machine and thus ensured his own defeat. His comeuppance was not the downfall of bipartisanship, it was the renunciation of a refusal to provide principled resistance when the nation needed and demanded it.
Having seen the truth too late, Lieberman now stubbornly refuses to admit defeat. In strident words before national television he sounded like a petulant child who had just been expelled from the playground:
“As I see it, in this campaign, we’ve just finished the first half and the Lamont team is ahead — but in the second half, our team, Team Connecticut, is going to surge forward to victory in November.
“I am, of course, disappointed by the results, but I am not discouraged. “I’m disappointed not just because I lost but because the old politics of partisan polarization won today. For the sake of our state, our country and my party, I cannot and will not let that result stand.”
It’s time for Lieberman to accept defeat and step out of the race, as this refusal to admit defeat looks ungracious and willful. If he really cares about his party and about the possibility of its gaining a majority in November then he should avoid a potentially divisive election that might actually hand a Democratic seat to a Republican candidate due to splitting of the Democratic vote.
He would also do well to reflect on what happened to him. He was sent to the Senate to represent his Iraq-weary consituents instead of to powder his patrician wig. He forgot that, and his voters have now called him to account.
Good-bye, Joe.
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