It's a Great Day to Be a New Democrat

How many more times could I or dozens of other progressive bloggers beg the inside-the-beltway Democrats to please, pretty please with sugar on top, stand up and fight? How many more times could we whine for Beltway Democrats to stand up and catch up with the majority of Americans and the vast majority of Democrats who want out of this obscenely disastrous war? For weeks leading up to the spectacular Lamont victory the same centrist Democrats that have lost us the last several elections were whispering to outlets like the Times and the Post that a Lamont victory would be an unmitigated disaster for the party. According to them it would prove that the unwashed, hysterical rabble had hijacked the Democratic party and, like the Jacobins, wouldn't rest until every head, including their own, were severed and lolling in a basket.

For years now I just could not wrap my head around Beltway Democratic timidity. Bush's poll numbers started sliding to around Saddam's job-approval rating among the Kurds and yet still so many Beltway Democrats treated him like the reincarnation of Eisenhower. Then it hit me. Those timid Beltway Democrats must be suffering from "Stockholm Syndrome." They have been captured and subjugated by Republicans for so long that they can no longer imagine a world not under Republican control.

I'm hoping that today's Lieberman loss will jolt them back to reality. The people demand nothing less than a coherent, defiant stance on Bush's awful war and they will reward the bearer of said message with victory.

Today's Democratic grassroots win is the beginning of the end of Republican hegemony and Democratic centrists need to either snap out of their stupor or prepare for their own forcible retirement.