Reading through the Des Moines Register this morning on the way out of Knoxville, I came across David Yepsen's column entitled "Parties pulled to extremes." Excerpt:
Two events of the past week - Joe Lieberman's defeat and a foiled terrorist plot - will alter American politics in the weeks ahead.
Neither is likely to help Democrats. They could even foul what should be a good year for the party.
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It didn't get as much attention as Lieberman's defeat, but GOP conservatives in Michigan denied renomination to a moderate congressman on Tuesday. In the GOP, these folks are dubbed RINOs, or Republicans in Name Only. In Lieberman's case, he was called things we can't print in a family newspaper.
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The hijacking of American politics by people at the extremes is something that contributes to the alienation most Americans feel toward both parties. (Try being a pro-choicer in the GOP today. Try being a pro-lifer or a hawk in the Democratic Party.)
Instead of a dialog between the two parties about our problems, we have shout-a-thons and Internet incivilities. It's liberal bloggers versus conservative talk-show hosts. The pragmatic, civil politics of the Jim Leaches and Leonard Boswells are out. Steve King and Al Sharpton - who conveniently posed behind Lamont Tuesday night - are in.
For many Americans, it becomes too much. They tune out. And that's fine with the politicians. Political consultants in both parties urge their candidates to instead "fire up the base" and engage in "turnout-suppression" efforts against opponents. So, Democrats step up their anti-war rhetoric. Republicans bash gay marriage.
The trashing Lieberman took for his views brings to mind the anti-Vietnam War activism that savaged Hubert Humphrey in 1968. Humphrey was as good and decent a liberal as you could find, but the anti-war movement just couldn't stomach him because he was Lyndon Johnson's vice president. Enough people on the left stayed home, or did little to help him, that the country got Richard Nixon as its president. Which was not a good thing.
So will the ascendant anti-war movement today become as impractical and counter-productive as it became in the 1960s and 1970s? If so, the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008 is likely to be won by a candidate so far out on the fringe he (or she) can't appeal to America's mainstream.
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For the last two election cycles, Republicans have convinced voters they would do the better job protecting the nation from terrorists. Can the Ned Lamonts do that? We shall see.
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