Are the Liberal Bloggers and the Democratic Party afraid they wont take out Senator Lieberman in the early August Primary for the Democratic Nomination for Senator and that Democrats wont take the Congress back. Over the past couple days I have noticed that the expectations game has been down played, the Small Scale Conflict in the Middle East could be a bonus for the Republican Party and the President. In a time when National Security is a major issue, the Democrats have a problem; just ask them about 2002 and 2004. The Republicans kept the House of Representatives in 2002 and George W. Bush beat John F. Kerry in 2004. If the war goes on, and Iraq is kept off the news, the Main Stream Media has tried to keep it in the Public Mind, see my review of an article in the Washington Post in my July 20, 2006 Blog. Also we have article by David Broder, Dean of the Washington Press Core, in today’s Washington Post, Simmering Rage Within the GOP, it states that within the Republican Party the Bush Administration is seen as out of touch and having contempt for previous Republican Administrations. Broder writes on the views of those that have served in Past administrations, “ They never reached out to us. They never thought they needed our help. Now they're in trouble. To hell with them. ” But he does state in the article that although the Bush administration might have annoyed Republicans they still Prefer Bush to the Democrats leadership in the House of Representatives.
But if you think about it, in pure politics, War, Terrorism plays in to the hands of the Republicans; the Democrats are seen as weak with the honourable exception of Joe Lieberman. But in the Modern Democratic Party, weakness is cool, lets face it they love Bill Clinton, even after a year of shame, just because he said sorry for Monica it does not matter that he wasted a year and had to compromise with the Liberals in the House of Representatives to stay in Office.
In an interesting article in the New York Observer by Joe Conason he argues that it is not the Liberal Bloggers that have caused the problems for the Senator but his own views on the War and his support for the administrations policy in Iraq, he writes the following, “ He has left the reality-based community for the never-land of neo-conservatism—and if he loses, that will be why. ” In an interesting article on RealClearPolitics, Dr. Sabato, Professor of Politics at the University of Virginia, states that at the moment the Middle East War is “ this summer's obsession ” this could hurt the Democrats as mentioned above or if the war does come to and end in a quick manner then interest will come back to the problems in Iraq and at home. In a Poll for the Wall Street Journal and NBC News both Parties faced problems, for different reasons both Parties faced high negatives, and it was not clear cut that the Democrats would have it all their own way.
In many respects the fate of Joe Lieberman and who controls the Congress are very much intertwined.