A fork in the road for the Dems

Tuesday's primary election in Connecticut, which ousted three-term Senator Joe Lieberman, has been analyzed endlessly on the cable shout shows over the last couple days. But the real questions are whether this primary means that Democrat (and possibly all) voters are fed up with pro-war incumbents and will kick them out when given the opportunoty or whether the Democrats are doomed to repeat a previous mistake and allow the left flank of the party to dominate over an issue that may have been necessary for moderates to support. The war issue, which has been central in the debate since 2003, is poised to become even more troublesome for Democrat candidates who seek the presidential nomination in 2008. Most notable is Sen. Hillary Clinton, who has been an outspoken supporter of the war and a deliberate moderate.

Slate has a great and thoughtful analysis of the situation. The article states that Democrats have been at this crossroads before, and the Demos suffered politically for decades as a result.

The Lamont-Lieberman battle was filled with echoes and parallels from the Vietnam era. Democratic reformers and anti-establishment insurgents weren't wrong about that conflict, either. Vietnam was a terrible mistake for the United States. But like Iraq, Vietnam was a badly chosen battlefield in a larger conflict with totalitarianism that America had no choice but to pursue. In turning viciously on stalwarts of the Cold War era like Lyndon B. Johnson, Hubert Humphrey, and Scoop Jackson, anti-war insurgents called into question the Democratic Party's underlying commitment to challenging Communist expansion. The party's Vietnam-era drift away from issues of security and defense—and its association with a radical left hostile to the military and neutral in the fight between liberalism and communism—helped push a lot of Americans who didn't much like the Vietnam War into the arms of Richard Nixon.

On the other hand, some could argue that the ouster of Lieberman -- and of Georgia Rep. Cynthia McKinney -- means Democrats have finally grown a backbone and are willing to toss out an incumbent with whom they are dissatisfied in exchange for a candidate they feel they deserve. In 2004, Democratic primary voters flirted with a very desirable candidate, Howard Dean, but ended up with what many considered the more stable, more electable candidate, John Kerry. Perhaps in 2006 and 2008 voters are now fed up and will vote for the candidate of conscience. Of course, they may just be self-destructing as in years past.

-- Wenatchee, Wash.