Spoilers? The Libertarian Party is the conscience of the Republican Party. Corruption in the latter extends past their bridge to nowhere, past their spendings, past their lost committments to small government, fiscal responsiblility, and to conservative principles nearly extinct at the Elephant wallow. People rightly concluded that the Republicans didn't stand for anything at all so they might as well vote for the real mc coy

A Nelson Muntz "ha ha?" Not very Ned Flanders of you, Zach. Anyway about that erosion of "credence given to online political agitators..."

'06 MIDTERMS

Netroots "ultimate failure":
Ct-Sen: Lieberman

Netroots "ultimate successes":
PA-07: Joe Sestak
PA-08: Patrick Murphy
CA-11: Jerry McNerney
MN-01: Tim Walz
NH-02: Paul Hodes
VA-Sen: Jim Webb
MT-Sen: Tester

The netroots had much to say about Lamont's post-primary campaign, not much of it very good. Words like "milquetost," played it safe," and "warmed-over political platitudes" were how I saw it described. His primary campaign run showed he had good gut instincts, but he tossed those aside after throwing in with the same gang of Beltway political consultants who've been watering down candidate's messages and leading Dems to defeat for the last 15 years.

The lesson here for Dems: don't be afraid to stand for something, don't run not to lose.

As for Rumsfeld: he was a team player --- Cheney's team --- so it's too bad he wasn't dragging the VP with him, kicking and screaming, as he bolted from the WH.

I should say that those negative comments on Lamont's election campaign were played in real-time (some three weeks ago in the Huff Po) --- it wasn't Monday morning quarterbacking.

One other note from me, regarding Grover Norquist's observations in the LA Times:

"When we want to go up and they want to go down, we want to go right and they want to go left, there's no compromise," said anti-tax activist Grover Norquist, a close advisor to the White House.

Norquist said the Republicans' primary goal for the next two years should be making the case for GOP control â?” not bipartisanship.

Snip

Norquist predicted that Bush would now govern largely through executive orders rather than working with Congress on legislation. The president could, for example, use orders to lighten the load of capital gains taxes by changing how they are calculated, Norquist said.

What Norquist is advocating is a sort of Washington DC "stay the course" strategy for remaining Republican lawmakers. Nancy and Harry must be thinking, "go ahead, make our day" --- that's a recipe for more big Dem gains again in '08.

HTML tags are so useless here: the above middle 3 paragraphs are from the LA Times.

Lamont's bid and primary success helped steel the Democrats' spines regarding Iraq. Bush kept calling the Democrats "cut and runners", but thanks in part to Ned's high-profile primary win, the Dems didn't allow that label to define them and turned the Iraq issue back on the president to great effect.

I made this comment in response to Josh's libertarian spoiler 2 post, but it is equally applicable here. Elected Republican Party members have behaved like a bunch of frat boys on spring break instead of taking care of business, and they have done more of the "big government" types of things with their power than I think anyone expected.

As for why Democrats ended up in control of the House and Senate, I think it was just a lack of legitimate options. People can't really effect their true voting choices, so they settle for the lesser of two evils.

The two parties are pretty much the same except for their positions on abortion rights, national defense strategy and taxes, and I'm not even sure about the Republican Party's position on taxes anymore.

The less elected government officials do that is actually for the good of their constituency, the less people believe that their government really cares about them, so they vote for whoever promises to give them the most of what they want.

And, I think people differ widely on what is "good" - to some, it's the continuation of entitlement programs that give them societal support for the rest of their lives. Coupled with that is the demand that government take care of those who either can't or won't take care of themselves, so that the rest of the country doesn't have to be bothered with them.

Sure, there are principled people who care about whether there is a dramatic moral erosion that ultimately will lead to the destruction of this country. But faced with what seems to be such an inevitable consequence, voters supported those who seem most motivated to do something different. If you believe things can't get a great deal worse than they are now, you don't have anything to lose.

And regarding the Michigan ballot proposal to finally get rid of affirmative action, all I can say is, "IT'S ABOUT BLOODY TIME!!" I am so glad the opportunity was finally available to put to rest the demand for equal treatment on one hand, and preferential advantages on the other!

Netroots did just fine, Lamont notwithstanding. (And, for what it's worth, the Lamont victory turned Connecticut's general race into Democrat v. Democrat -- as long as either one votes for a Democratic majority leader, I don't much care.)

The Hill mentions how many non-DCCC favored candidates went on to win:

"In another sign of just how high the Democratic tide was on Election Day, four candidates whose primary opponents were supported by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) went on to win anyway.

A fifth could join them if Democrat Larry Kissell defeats Rep. Robin Hayes (R) in a yet-undecided race in North Carolina's 8th District.

Democrats John Yarmuth in Kentucky, Zack Space in Ohio, Jerry McNerney in California and Carol Shea-Porter in New Hampshire were all seen as less attractive options in tough districts early on. But Space and McNerney won thanks to corruption issues dogging Reps. Bob Ney (R-Ohio) and Richard Pombo (R-Calif.), while liberals Yarmuth and Shea-Porter appeared to benefit big from the national environment."

In addition, Tammy Duckworth, Ken Lucas and Lois Murphy, the top three receipients of independent expenditures from the DCCC, all lost.

Also, given the Democratic success at the state level, I'd say Howard Dean is looking pretty good as the Democratic party chair just about now. Sure, he had a great environment to work with and Rahm Emmannuel and Chuck Schumer deserve a lot of credit too, but Howard Dean didn't "doom" the Democratic Party as many "helpful" pundits predicted when he took over; and Karl Rove/Fred Barnes' decades of Republican hegemony seems not to have materialized.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/11/9/17405/7370

It must be hard for JohnS to grasp Zach's point; a half-dozen congressional races don't add up to a victory for the netroots, any more than George Allen's self-destruction or Conrad Burns's odious corruption. Lamont was supposed to be the exemplar of netroots-led conscience campaigning, and that strategy almost failed even within the Democratic primary. After the Dean campaign, the question of whether net-leftists would be valuable members of the Dem coalition or another set of vote-losers a la the counterculture McGovernites was unsettled; after Tuesday, it's clear that running to the left still isn't the way to win. Rahm Emanuel is better for the Dems than Dean, as well as being quite possibly better for the country than any one of half a dozen reputable House GOP leaders ...

I don't think the "netroots" are so much about running to the left as they are about being aggressive. Aggressive in standing up to Republican attempts to define "the left," and aggressive in pushing candidates everywhere.

I guess I can only speak for myself, but the trouble I saw in 2000-2004 was a passive Democratic leadership that rolled over when the Republicans attacked them, coupled with a firewall strategy -- playing not to lose, instead of playing to win.

It was like watching the political equivalent Cleveland Browns trademark prevent (nothing) defense in the late 80s and early 90s.

"Lamont was supposed to be the exemplar of netroots-led conscience campaigning" That's not a very accurate read of things, I'm afraid. Rather, Lamont was supposed to be an example of getting Democrats to campaign _as_ Democrats, giving real opposition to bad GOP policy and governance, and thus not to campaign under the Liebermanesque banner of "vote for me -- because I'm not really like all those other nastyliberal Democrats". That the Lamont campaign (in particular, his extraordinarily surprising primary win) inspired many Dem candidates to do that, and that Lieberman only held his seat because the Republicans completely yielded the field, seems to me very plausibly read as a victory for the netroots.

And I am honestly mystified as to why those half-dozen or so congressional victories in question can't be counted as notches on the netroots' mouses. They are victories that likely would not have happened without that support, in races and for candidates that the DC establishment had written off or been initially unwilling to support. If the point is just that no one or no one group should get _sole_ credit for these victories, then, well, sure, but I don't think that anyone was even close to claiming _that_.

PM

"after Tuesday, it's clear that running to the left still isn't the way to win."

Is it? Tell that to Jon Tester and Sherrod Brown. And to those voters who defended abortion rights in South Dakota, endorsed stem cell research in Missouri, and rejected a same-sex marriage ban in Arizona.