Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

Connally initiated wage and price controls during the height of the recession despite protests from the Republican Party's traditional conservative wing.  When it was time for Nixon to launch his 1972 reelection campaign the new "Democrat" on the team was asked to perform a key campaign role.  

The Texan agreed to chair the Democrats for Nixon group, and from this point forward comparisons between that campaign and Lieberman's current situation become prospectively applicable.

Karl Rove called Lieberman following his loss to Ned Lamont and offered his condolences.  Rove's political idol, as noted many times here and elsewhere, was Richard Nixon.  Rove, a leading Nixon authority, is assuredly well versed on Nixon's 1972 landslide triumph, the most overwhelming of his career, as well as the dynamics then in play.

Connally's Democrats for Nixon group played a key strategic role in Nixon's victory as the former governor trumpeted his candidate as the worthy choice for discerning Democrats.  He noted that the Democrats had embarked on a dangerous leftward swing under McGovern that was taking his party well outside the mainstream of American political thought.  The key campaign issue of 1972 was the Vietnam War.  

The Connally campaign episode was revealed as a canard shortly after Nixon's landslide victory.  Connally promptly announced that he was changing his registration and becoming a Republican; so much for the Democrat-to-Democrat heart to heart talks he had engaged in only a few weeks earlier with his "fellow party members" about the best course for America.

Had the Watergate scandals not produced an eventual whirlwind resulting in the only presidential resignation in American history, it was clear to knowledgeable Beltway insiders that Connally was Nixon's heir apparent.  It was being speculated that Nixon, provided a Republican like Connally could win the 1976 presidential election, might even be selected as a nominee for Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

After reflecting on this lesson from history the question that emerges is whether such a Rove strategy might be currently in place for Joseph Lieberman to eventually join the Republican Party.  It would also have to be asked if Lieberman had adopted at least as a fallback position of a party shift even before his August 8 defeat.  

A case in point is Lieberman's comments while being interviewed by Sean Hannity.  In a discussion that included a ringing endorsement in the Connecticut senatorial race from the avid Fox News right wing commentator, Lieberman expressed his sad dismay that so many of his Democratic colleagues do not understand family values.  

As Lamont campaign manager Tom Swan put it, "After kind words from Dick Cheney and a condolence call from Karl Rove, it took Senator Lieberman less than 48 hours to adopt the Republican playbook for his ... re-election campaign."  Before the election Lieberman, in waving a bloody Iraq War flag, referred to forces opposing him as "anti-security."  

It was no surprise that in the aftermath of Lieberman's setback Republicans in the mainstream media and elsewhere decried the Connecticut result as a defeat for the two party system.  

In the manner of the Nixon-Connally 1972 election strategy, crocodile tears were shed over the Democratic Party veering to the far left despite national polls revealing that as many as 72 percent of Americans would like to end the Iraq War this year.

It was hilarious when Tony Snow, Cheney-Bush press secretary puppet of the moment and a recently departed mouthpiece from Rupert Murdoch's television adjunct of the Republican National Committee, Fox News, warned that the rejection of Lieberman presented the danger of the Democratic Party being hijacked by "left wing extremists."  

Forget that Snow's current employer invaded a nation contrary to international law via false information, engaged in preventive detention, initiated detention camps with torture a staple, and abducted citizens from various nations, only to send them to such camps and other jail outposts.  

Is this in the best tradition of Washington, Jefferson, and Madison?  Are these centrist and mainstream applications of the Bill of Rights?

On the subject of the economy, what about a rapidly spiraling national debt that is the largest in the history of the planet?  It currently stands at more than $8.4 trillion for a per citizen share of over $28,000.  Is this sound mainstream American economy?

Tom Swan has pondered the aforementioned scenario.  In seeking funding for Lamont's fall campaign he speculates "it won't be long until Republican money starts completely funding his (Lieberman's) campaign."  

Lieberman has performed Trojan horse duty for the Cheney-Bush Junta in the past by repetitiously articulating the position that the Democratic Party has been straying from the course and occupying a far left position.  His expanding recent appearances on Fox News have advocated this position, in turn making the Cheney-Bush regime appear, within that context, relatively moderate.  

It is time for Democrats to sharply attack this position if they expect to win elections.  The current administration is the most reactionary in American history based on its own record, including points raised above.  It is absurd to think of the Cheney-Bush regime as operating in any kind of traditional American mainstream context.