be the change you want to see in the world

You may not have noticed but, yesterday in the United States of America, Democracy was taken down from the shelf, dusted off, and wielded against established political power in a suprising way. In Connecticut there was a fight for the Democratic Party’s nomination for Senator in the upcoming congressional elections. In the US, party members get to choose their candidate in advance of the actual election. Imagine that.

On the one side you had the consummate Dem heavyweight, Joe Lieberman. That’s Al Gore’s VP candidate. He’s been around for a long, long time, and in US politics, it is nearly impossible to unseat an incumbent Senator. On the other side, a rookie with no party establishment backing. One Daily Kos diarist put it like this:

In one corner, you had a bunch of unpaid volunteers, Internet rabble-rousers, and an inexperienced politician whose highest post had been County Selectman.

In the other, you had the three-time Senator, former vice-presidential candidate, visible party statesman, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Harry Reid, Barbara Boxer, the other popular CT senator Dodd, most of Organized Labor, the women’s groups and the environmental groups, most of traditional Democratic party support, paid lobbyist support, paid armies of GOTV staff, the slick ad money, the top DLC consultants, and a 3 to 1 budget gap.

I’m sorry. That’s not David vs. Goliath. This isn’t even the NBA champions versus a rec league team.That’s more like an ant vs. my shoe.

And the shoe lost.

Joe’s problem was he was too chummy with George W. Bush. Apparently, the Iraq war, which Lieberman supported, is very unpopular, as is Bush. Lieberman made the mistake of suggesting Bush not be challenged on the war, which outraged his fellow democrats and the public (who happened to be paying attention).

Along came political neophyte Ned Lamont, who challenged Lieberman for the Democratic nomination, and won. He won by painting Lieberman as a Bush crony, lapdog, ass-kisser or what have you. See the campaign button above. Certainly Lieberman has never raised his shrub-luvin’ the the level of, say, Georgia Democrat Zell Miller, but Lamont’s strategy worked.

This is very encouraging. “We the People” might be waking up down south. When they do it usually means only one thing: incumbents who can be painted with whatever irritant has interrupted the sleep of the giant will be tossed out on their ear. And it appears the irritant is Bush and his tragically costly - particularly when measured in lives, lost opportunities and US reputation - war-making habits.