This is a watershed moment. The message has been sent loud and clear -- Democrats can no longer ignore their own constituents and constantly run to the right. They must be wary. This is a good thing.
Before this election, Democratic bigwigs felt free to not only ignore their own supporters but show open disdain for them. The only pressure they were receiving was from the right. So they crept further and further to the right to try to appease Republicans. Now they must take heed. If you ignore your own people long enough, there will be a price to pay.
There is nothing scarier to a politician than the idea of losing their grip on power. Before, the only possibility this would happen was if the Republicans came to get you, like they did to Tom Daschle. This caused all the Democratic Senators to drift rightward out of fear. They were intimidated. A little fear and intimidation from the other side is a great remedy to cure what ails them. Hopefully, this should help to restore balance to the endless rightward drift.
The message has been sent. Get back to the middle. Get back to your voters. Get back to the principles we believe in. Stop cowing down to the Republicans. Otherwise you will have to answer to us. There will be a day of reckoning. Lieberman's day was today. And it felt great.
The best thing we can hope for the next time a vote like Sam Alito's filibuster or the Iraq War resolution comes up again is for the Democratic Senators to think, "Well, I don't want what happened to Joe to happen to me." Mission accomplished!
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