The Grass in the Machine

After a great effort in Connecticut, Ned Lamont succeeded in ousting Democrat-turned-Bush sycophant Joe Lieberman. Establishment Democrats must be scratching their heads with fury and confusion and they should be. These Pandercrats still don't get it even if most of them have now superficially endorsed Lamont. They likely believe they just have a mild case of dry scalp which a little rhetorical pine tar shampoo can cure. They don't understand that the body of the Democratic party has sprouted grass.....and it's growing.

Lamont's defeat of Lieberman is part of a continuing change of the political landscape from a desert of disaffected voters to a valley of fertile political activity where the elected will be held accountable to the electorate. Across the nation, grass roots candidates and political outsiders have begun marching towards the fallow ground of the Democratic elite.....and they are taking root. Organizations such as Democracy for America (DFA), a major Lamont backer, and others, have candidates running for and winning seats all over the country at all levels of government. This is a fight the grass roots plan to win even if it is an uphill battle.

The DLC and the mainstream media are obviously unhappy about Connecticut. This morning's airtime was dedicated almost solely to Lieberman's whining about Lamont's supposed distortion of his record. (Hey Joe, how stupid do you think we are?!!!) When they should have been covering Lamont and focusing on a Democratic win in November, they were, instead, licking their wounds, admitting the co-opted nature of the Democratic elite and buffering Joe "Bush-Loves-Me" Lieberman for a run as an independent that jeopardizes the Democratic ticket. But, for some reason, we are still supposed to believe that Joe is a REAL Democrat and Lamont is an "insurgent" lunatic. Well, Lamont is an insurgent, as Newt (a former insurgent himself) so tersely put it, but the good kind. Read more about Lamont's background in The Nation. (Didn't it strike the 48-odd% of Democrats in Connecticut strange that Newt was weighing in for Lieberman?)

In coming years, we will see more grass roots challenges from the left fighting for the soul of the Democratic party. Hopefully, as liberal ideas creep back into the mainstream, more liberal candidates will take the place of "centrist" Pandercrats. It is time that the left again had a chance to implement the policies that have worked so well in the past. The Right has repeatedly proved that its ideas are bunk, but the Pandercrats still won't act. The result has never been worse. Joe Lieberman is not a victim of anti-Iraq war sentiment. He is a victim of arrogance and complicity. The grass is in the machine and it is up to the people to keep watering it.