ConnVille
(Updated at the bottom of post)
Back in the summer I watched with amazement as a grassroots movement, spearheaded in large part on the web by folks like Ms. Hamsher and Ms. Harden-Smith at Firedoglake, helped defeat an unabashed Bush supporter named Joe Lieberman in the Democratic primary for Senate in the state of Connecticut.
Yes, you read that right.
An unabashed supporter of George W. Bush and his nakedly aggressive war of choice in Iraq who also happens to be a Democrat.
Not to mention a sitting member of the U.S. Senate for the last 18 years.
And, as many of the the most thoughtful of the Netroots denizens also pointed out, there were actually tons of reasons why anyone with even a single progressive bone in their body had no business supporting Mr. Lieberman. Just one example was his cooperation in repressive anti-choice legislation and policies.
Anyway, the point is, I saw this defeat of Lieberman as a great victory against an incumbent with all the money and all the power who had turned his back on his constituency.
The only trouble is that now that Mr. Lieberman has been completely unleashed from that constituency he is running hard, with Republican backing, as a so-called Independent.
And, as such, he stands a good chance of prevailing in the general election tommorow.
Which would be bad enough on it's own.
But what if the numbers were to come out as Greg Morrow, at Democratic Space is predicting?
| SENATE |  |  | |
| REPUBLICAN | DEMOCRAT | INDEPENDENT | |
| PRE-ELECTION | 55 | 44 | 1 |
| CHANGE | -6 | +5 | +1 |
| PROJECTED | 49 | 49 | 2 |
The thing to remember here is that a tie does not go to the runner in the U.S. Senate.
Instead, it goes to the Vice President of the United States, Richard B. Cheney.
So how those two potential Independent votes go is absolutely vital.
One of those independents is a progressive from Vermont named Bernie Sanders.
The other is Mr. Lieberman.
So if Lieberman were to vote right and force a tie on, say, a plan to get out of Iraq that the Sanders supported......
Well, that would bring the thing back to a tie.
Which likely means that direct democracy in Connecticut may have, at least temporarily, given control of the Senate to a malevolent misanthrope with the metronomic monicker of 'Big Time'.
All of which goes to show, while irony may not be dead, it just may get shot in the face if it goes out duck hunting tommorow.
OK?
_____
Unless, of course, the 'Get Out The Vote' initiative pushes the real Democrat in the race, Ned Lamont, over the top. I, amongst billions of others on this good earth, have my fingers crossed....
Have to point out that a truncated version of this screed is in the comments thread to a post by Mahigan on the weekend over at POGGE's place when he first brought up Mr. Morrow's predictions (which were pretty much spot-on in Canuckistan's last federal election).
Update, Election Eve Afternoon: The real Dean of US Political polling John Zogby on Air America is calling it big for Democrats in the House (Congress) but is very pessimistic about the Senate, as he believes that Rhode Island and Montana are swinging to the Republicans.
Double-Secret Probation Update: How can a party even pretend that it is upholding the principals of freedom and democracy if one of its chief election day strategies is to keep people from voting?
Triple-O Sausaulito Update: Greg Morrow has now updated (late Election Eve) to 50R/48D +2Independents in the US Senate. In away, this would be even worse, because it would take the pressure off Lieberman.
Quadruple Bypass Surgical Update: Greg Morrow was good enough to send us his absolutely final Senate prediction from 11:59pm Election Eve - He now has it 51R 47D 2 I.....but looking at the individual races that includes a dead heat between Allen and Webb in Virginia....guess he's betting on the Robo factor to win it for the guy who's goons attacked Mike Stark.
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