Connecticut liberal voters played a dangerous game by turning on Lieberman in 2006, successfully pushing him off of the Democratic bus, but he surprised them by winning the general election and taking back his place in the senate.
This shows how an active and charged activist base can undermine the cause of a party and drag it from its center of gravity. Now that Senator Lieberman is effectively on his own, he has far more power to influence legislation than anyone else in the Senate. He reminded us of this fact this week.
At this point, with liberals actively jumping ship and Howard Dean and the White House taking pot shots at each other through the press, it's going to take more than a Beer (Egg Nog?) summit to restore unity in the party.
My observation is that Obama will be assigned the role of scapegoat, and be given the burden of this failure to carry alone into the desert.
But it doesn't need to be this way. What is amazing about the relationship between Obama and Lieberman is that Lieberman is actively assuming the role that Obama campaigned on. In reality, it doesn't matter WHAT the U.S. Congress comes up with for legislation, because if Obama doesn't sign it into law then it's all wasted time and breath anyway. Lieberman is playing obstructionist, but the Office of the President is the ultimate obstruction in passing legislation.
Obama would do well to take a lesson from Lieberman in courting the center. Lieberman knows that the current legislation in the senate is so compromised that it will never pass. The Democrats climbed the burning ladder of their agenda all summer and fall, but nobody paid attention to the true power center, the base of each party, which is the Main Street Independent voter. When the crushing 10.2% unemployment figures came in for October, everyone had to face reality with respect to the failures of their bailout policy for the last 18 months.
Since assuming power in 2006, the Democratic Congress has done nearly nothing to improve the lot of regular people who live on Main Street, USA. Petty infighting and executive ambitions, compounded with a grueling 2 year presidential election battle, have distracted them from their center of gravity. They have lost their presence of mind.
What Obama should do is move more closely to the center. He should force the Democrats to play his game, or to be absolutely useless for the next two years. Instead of asking them for what he wants, he ought to make it clear what HE refuses to sign into legislation, and to frame the boundaries of the debate. He should do this in a way that unilaterally reaches across both isles, as Senator Lieberman has done.
Frankly, Lieberman may have consigned a flawed, broken, compromised, worthless bill that gives millions to insurance agencies, does nothing to force innovation and competition in the national market, to the dustbin of history. Obama's term is fresh yet, and he can reorient his focus on job growth, putting Joe the Independent on the inside track. In time, we might even see more defectors from the ideological wings of each party, and have senators such as Olympia Snowe take a page from Senator Lieberman's book.
But it's a shame that Obama doesn't wield the power of the pen and force his party to come to the table and court his favor for a change. If he makes it clear what his standards are, and if he does not succumb to the "legislation at any cost" fever that is so typical of the beltway, he might find his liberation in Senator Lieberman's example.
