Holy Joe and Liberal McCarthyism

So today’s the day of the big primary. FireDogLake has coverage of the event, feel free to check that out. In the comments on an earlier Lieberman post, I and Will got criticized of Liberal McCarthyism by a serious GOP’er, and that got me wondering. What does that mean?

The “McCarthyism” tag implies that we’re on a witch hunt of sorts, that the wave forming against Joementum isn’t because he has actual differences in ideology that we want to get out of the democratic party, but instead people THINK he’s a traitor and want to hang him.

Now there’s a few problems with that. First off, this is a democracy. If the population suddenly decides that we don’t like Joe’s hairstyle, we can vote him out. That’s our perogative, and that’s why we have this neat democratic system.

Secondly, this implies that Joe is innocent in all of this, that it’s the big mean democrats harping on Joe for no good reason. Let’s take a look at his voting history. We find that he voted for the Iraq War, for the PATRIOT Act, against redeployment, for Michael Hayden in the CIA and Alito in the SCOTUS for starters.

Now don’t get me wrong, Joe isn’t purely redcoat. He also voted against the flag-burning and anti-gay-marriage bills, and for the stem cell research bill. On a number of civil issues, he goes the liberal route. But when it comes to the big ones, the Iraq War and who we put in charge of the CIA, he goes right along with the president.

I care about civil issues. They’re a big part of why I call myself a liberal. They matter, they’re important, and how someone votes on them affects my opinion of them. But in August of 2006, the Iraq War is costing us billions and affecting the world in a far more meaningful way than gay marriage. The redcoats call it a bad summer rerun, but that’s only because they refuse to finish the series.

Given the choice between guy A who votes with my beliefs half of the time and against them on the really really big issues, and guy B who votes with my beliefs all of the time, I don’t think it’s difficult to figure out which I would choose.

Then there’s his independent run. This is what sealed it in my mind. As I said earlier, the democratic system allows the voters to decide who they like. When the voters decide they don’t like you, they don’t like you. Losing the primary means that you won’t get more than half of your own party’s votes if you run indie, and certainly won’t get much of the opposition’s votes.

All Joe-L stands to do is Nader the CT Senate race, split the democrat votes and give the election to the republican candidate.

Then there’s his support. Aside from Clinton, not a lot of democrats are endorsing the guy. Is this out of fear? No, they just don’t support him. Meanwhile he’s the hero of Fox News and the redcoats. They’re going to bat for him like he was Jesus himself. And why would they do that? Why does the right so vehemently want Joementum in office?

To think they actually want what’s good for the Democrats is simply absurd. The right adores Joe simply because he’s the kind of democrat that shows up on TV and says we shouldn’t criticize the president during wartime and endorses most everything Bush does. He’ll show up on Hannity and Colmes as their “liberal guest” only to agree with Hannity about everything.

Joe doesn’t represent the left, and they’re using their votes to prove it. Apparently the redcoats can’t understand the concept of voting based on someone’s policies as opposed to their label.

[tags]lieberman, lamont, republicans, democrats, election, senate[/tags]