Rise of the McGovernites

“This shows what blind loyalty to George Bush and being his love child means...This is not about the war. It’s blind loyalty to Bush.”
- Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL)

With Ned Lamont's victory over Senator Joe Lieberman, the McGovern wing of the Democratic Party is firmly back in control, and the inmates are running the asylum.

In the end, this Left-wing triumph of singlemindeness over service will turn out to be a pyrrhic victory. The Liberals defeated the Moderates, but at what cost? People all around the nation have watched what has happened in Connecticut. The single-issue zealousness of Lamont and his supporters triumphed over Lieberman, who tried to make the primary campaign about more than just the war. But in the end, the Lamont folks turned out the left-wing of the party and they won...barely. The Democrats problem at the moment is that such left-wing rhetoric will stir up liberals to vote for them, but how many moderates will now stick with Republicans? How many conservative Democrats will abandon the party? The more you look at this, the better news this is for common sense and the Republican Party. Especially since Michael Moore is on the job:

To every Democratic Senator and Congressman who continues to back Bush's War, allow me to inform you that your days in elective office are now numbered. Myself and tens of millions of citizens are going to work hard to actively remove you from any position of power.

As Pejman Yousefzadeh notes:

Basically, this whole dynamic resembles nothing more than the ostracism suffered by the Scoop Jackson Democrats in the 1970's. That ostracism brought about the Reagan Democrats and the leader who lent his name to their demographic. A victory by Senator Lieberman as an Independent in the general election will do little to stop this dynamic from playing itself out. At the end of the day, movement Democrats have told the Lieberman Democrats that the latter are no longer welcome at the table. The Lieberman Democrats cannot be expected to take this lying down, and they won't. The result of this clash will likely look hauntingly similar to the clash over the Scoop Jackson Democrats in the 1970's. In politics, there is rarely anything new under the sun, after all.

And the Democrats know all too well what happened in 1972...