August 2006 -- On the 5th, a few days before the primary, the Washington Post wrote the following head and subhead: 

Conn. Race Could Be Democratic Watershed
Loss by Lieberman May Embolden Critics of War

The paper's well known staff wrter, Dan Balz opened the piece with : The passion and energy fueling the antiwar challenge to Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman in Connecticut's Senate primary signal a power shift inside the Democratic Party that could reshape the politics of national security and dramatically alter the battle for the party's 2008 presidential nomination, according to strategists in both political parties.

What follows is an essay assembled from the observations of a man who was born during the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt, six weeks before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.  Out of such distant and fading reflections, a story about America's immediate future formed.  You may find me wobbly on a date here or there, but I suspect the underlying story will settle nicely in your mind.  This business with Lieberman struck a chord with this old man.

A man who has been around for a while makes both enemies and friends.  Lieberman is the big tree in the Democrat Connecticut orchard.  The political systems from the grassroots up are shaped to re-elect him forever.  His enemies, thus, are primarily from someplace else. The Democrat move to defeat this Democrat senator is not an inside job.  Yes, he faces, and may be whipped in the primary by, a local fellow named Ned Lamont.  But no, the rise of this opponent isn't a spontaneous and volcanic eruption tied to a massive internal state party rejection of Lieberman.  Once more, this is an outside, not an inside, job.

This piece is being written just before the CT primary. It runs counter to the trumpeted barrage of anti-Lieberman main street press coverage, but we think he just might win this primary.  Or come so close to doing so that his numbers, when added to the substantial numbers of CT registered Independants who will be supporting him in the general election, will return him to the senate in the fall.  (As a brand new Independant, himself.) 

This is about George McGovern

Wild-eyed liberal Democrats get cranky when they lose.  When they win, the election is always a fair one.  When they lose, the election is always the result of fraud by Republicans.  The Democrats opposed to Lieberman are definately wild-eyed liberals.

Many years ago, there was a time known as the Sixties. Another U.S. Senator, named McGovern, a fellow from the wide and lonely northern prarie lands of the midwest, became one of the symbols of a new, post-Truman, kind of Democrat.  Old George was a liberal wind out of the Dakotas.  All problems could be solved by government. America was destroying the planet.  Originally voting for the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution that history credits as a beginning of the American involvement n Vietnam, he later turned against that war. 

A massive split began to form in the Party.

It was during this era that a university-fed noveau egalitarian socialist sickness began to appear on the campuses, and later the streets, of America.  Anti-capitalism and the early melodies of  radical feminism merged with the black freedom movement, using its valid power for their own purposes.  Some of the big media sorts whose faces and names are familiar to you, today, were in college, then.  The experience radicalized them.  Their journalism became an art, not a craft.  Their job was to promote an ideology, not report a fact. 

In 1968, the Democrats held a convention in Chicago.  George McGovern acted as a surrogate standin for Bobby Kennedy.  He stood for the more radical, anti-war elements of the Party.  Hubert Humphrey, an old line liberal was selected and subsequently lost to Nixon..  The convention attracted controversy having to do with the two (conventional or traditional liberal versus radical) Democrat factions. It was here that the old Democrats were confronted by the new Democrats. You could say that all hell broke loose.

Now, to condense this story, George McGovern, the fair-haired boy of the Radcal Leftists who were taking over the Democrat Party in those days, got to be the presidential candidate in 1972.  He was defeated  by the man all Radical Leftists believe to be the most evil man ever to walk the Earth -- the incumbent in that election, Richard Milhous Nixon.  Mr. Nixon credited his wins to a "silent majority," or segment of the American population which didn't make noise in the streets, had a job and a family and believed in traditional American values.  The McGovernites denied it all.  Many of us credit the beginning of conservative power in America to this liberal disdain.  We think the present administration's election victories, and the shift in power in congress, are direct reflections of the rejection of the McGovernites by that silent majority.

So, now you know

These days, one senses the Phoenix-like rise of urban radical leftism in America.  Foreign liberals with loads of money, young American liberals with websites and the higher education crowd have merged with the Big Media liberal superstructure, and they are all casting about for a new McGovern.  Like the old one, this new McGovern will have many liberal facets.  Of all these facets, the most important one will be his dislike of American military power.  He will hate the military. 

Lieberman, doesn't.  He is like the pre-McGovernite Democrats.  His legacy is Roosevelt, Truman, JFK and LBJ.  He is a big government liberal who understands the need to use the military to defend the freedoms of this and other nations in the world.

If this new wave of Sixties radical leftism is to succeed, this time, it needs two things.  Another George McGovern and the elimination of people like Lieberman.  If you wonder about that, study Cuba or North Korea.  Those who fail to follow the Party Line must be winnowed from the herd.  Those who wish to gain access to political power via the Party must understand the importance of ideological purity.  Free and independant thought is deviation.  Purity of thought must be maintained.  The will of the great leaders must be the total directive force for the workers.

The McGovern movement in the Sixties ripped the Democrat Party in half.  It introduced themes into the Party structure which were so repugnant to the standard Democrat that they drove droves of them into the arms of the conservatives.  Pay attention, here.  The Sixties accomplished the impossible.  That decade and the one to follow broke the total stranglehold the Democrats had on the American South.

It is the reason that since the late Sixties, two Democrats have lived in the White House.   During the same period, five Republicans have resided there.  Four if you don’t count Ford, who wasn’t elected to the office.  More than three and a half decades, and only two Democrats – one of them for a single term.

And, during this period, the six decade Democrat lock on the congress was broken, as well.

The crux of this is simple.  Joe Lieberman is a kind of flag to those of us who have lived enough years.  What is happening to him is, to those of us who have seen it before, as clear as day.  His coming wins or his coming losses will be studied closely.  In them, we expect to find signs which indicate that we are looking once more at the suicide of a political party.

Radical leftists did it before.  There is no reason to believe they aren’t fully capable of doing it, again.

Postscript: midnight, August 08.  Lieberman lost, then announced he will file and run in the general election as an Independant.  Don't write him out of this. This was a closed primary.  Only Democrats could vote for Democrat candidates.  Primary voters are of the activist sort.  They represent core elements of a given party.  

The turnout in the general will be much, much higher, and Independants will no doubt be favoring Lieberman.  Pundits have written off the Republican as having no chance, at all, so the race will again be between Lieberman and Lamont, with some Republicans jumping to Joe..

I think the result of the general election will be the opposite of what happened, tonight.  Even if I'm wrong about that, but Lieberman in a losing effort makes it a close one, it will signify a Democrat weakness on national defense issues that bodes ill for the next presidential contest..

(LL)

© 2006 Oregon Magazine