A Hot Cup o' Joe

Final results: Lamont 52%, Lieberman 48%.

A few thoughts on the late evening election coverage:

1) CNN seems like they could care less about this race. They've been covering the Israel-Lebanon War all night with only the rare hiccup of acknowledgement that there's something going on in CT. When they finally cut in, well after Joe's concession and Ned's victory speech, Anderson Cooper and Candy Crowley spin two themes: (a) blogger power; (b) the death of political moderation. They especially like the latter. They don't seem to have realized that moderation and bipartisanship died somewhere between 1994 and 1998, and that everything after that is just aftershock. I say this, as most of you know, as a former admirer of Sen. Lieberman and a longtime Democratic centrist: pro-Clinton, pro-DLC, pro-Israel, etc. This was not a race of left vs. right, it was a race between those who understood the new reality and those who did not.

2) FOX had far better coverage than CNN, at least until you got to the commentary from top political reporter, Carl Cameron, who should have been fired two years ago for making up and then reporting phony John Kerry quotes to suggest that he was gay. Cameron's predictible spin: this is a sad, sad day for bipartisanship in American foreign policy; Lieberman's voters were blue collar, Lamont's were rich "intellectuals" and "elites."

3) C-Span gave the story more coverage than anyone else, although for my taste they spent a bit too much time with the call-in line (they're not really a "news" station, after all). They had three lines to dial: one for Dems, one for GOPers, and one for CT voters only. While I was watching, all the Dem and CT callers talked about how Joe had betrayed his constituents by cozying up to Bush and the national media, how he had sold out the Dems on issue after issue (not just the war), and how maddening it was that he vowed to run as an independent if he lost. Meanwhile, all the GOP-line callers talked about how much they looooved Joe, and how sad a day this was for America. With friends like these. . . .

The questions now are these: First, will Lieberman sink like a rock because he's been tainted as a loser, or will the narrowness of his defeat embolden him? Second, how much pressure will national Dems now put on Lieberman to drop out of the race, and will it prove effective? Third, will Lieberman formally turn Republican during the race, after a loss in the general, after a win in the general, or never?

My guesses are 1) embolden, 2) some, but not effective, and 3) well-after the election, but only if Bush's approval numbers recover somewhat. He's too mentally balanced to pull a full-on Zell, but he's too oblivious to ever make amends and come home. So long, Joe.