Lamont and Lieberman: what's the meaning of it all?

I haven't really mentioned anything on this blog, but yes, I've been closely following the Connecticut Senate race, and I am thrilled by the result.

I met Ned Lamont a few weeks ago at a meet-and-greet we co-sponsored for Mark Warner, the former governor of Virginia, who is running for President. He was in the neighborhood, and I had the chance to chat with him for about ten minutes or so. Lamont is a good, decent, honest man, very unpretentious and humble; he's in this not to sell Connecticut to Hezbollah, but to give voice to the overwhelming feeling in his state that we have gone badly off track, a feeling shared in every state of the Union.

Joe Lieberman, by contrast, has raised whoring the Bush agenda to an art form. This kind of bipartisanship we can no longer afford; not as Democrats, not as Americans. The voters of Connecticut, who came out in record numbers for this election, agreed. Lieberman's brand of bipartisanship is the kind practiced at Munich in 1938 - appeasement. We can't have that, not with the repugs hellbent to leather on destroying the constitution, freedom and democracy.

Lastly, I don't view elections as purges. Elected officials serve at the pleasure of, and are responsible to, the people. I've always looked askance at those who claim that they ignore polls, such as Lieberman (or Bush, for that matter); what that translates to is not an aversion to the fickle mob, but a repudiation of the democratic sovereign.

And that, in a democracy, our would-be kings and aristocrats do at their peril.