Thursday, July 06, 2006

Three Democratic Senators have announced that they will campaign for Senator Lieberman's re-election campaign. The trio of campaigners includes a liberal (Boxer), a moderate liberal (Biden), and a moderate (Salazar).

Now a rational person would look at this and see that this shows Lieberman gaining support from people spanning the entire Democratic spectrum. Of course, Kos and other Lieberhater bloggers instead used this as a rant on how Democrats who support Lieberman are attempting to "subvert the will of the people" and must "value power above all else" because they plan to campaign for Lieberman.

These kinds of comments started off as annoying, but now they're just amusing. Biden and Lieberman have served together in the Senate for 18 years and are obviously colleagues and friends; the same holds true for Boxer, who has served with Senator Lieberman for over a decade. Why is it so unreasonable for one friend to come to the aid of another? Should people only befriend and come to the aid of people who are their political brethren? Hopefully, the Lieberhaters don't really believe that. But if they do, they might want to look in the mirror the next time they call someone "out of touch."

Even more amusing is the Lamont campaign's response to the announcement, with campaign manager Tom Swan saying that "people are fed up with Washington" and dismissing Boxer, Biden, and Salazar as "Washington politicians."

Um...Mr. Swan? Isn't Lamont trying to go to Washington and become a Washington politician? Maybe someone should show the Lamont campaign a map. They might not realize that the Capitol building is not, in fact, next to his Greenwich mansion.

5 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

If this is the best you've got, you're in trouble, dude. First you say:

Now a rational person would look at this and see that this shows Lieberman gaining support from people spanning the entire Democratic spectrum.

A few sentences down, you say:

Biden and Lieberman have served together in the Senate for 18 years and are obviously colleagues and friends; the same holds true for Boxer, who has served with Senator Lieberman for over a decade. Why is it so unreasonable for one friend to come to the aid of another?

Those are mutually exclusive arguments. Does Lieberman have these Senators support because of his broad appeal across the Democratic spectrum, or just because they're his pals?

You want to beat up bloggers like Kos from every direction imaginable, even if your arguments don't agree with each other. Who is "out of touch" here, at least with the rules of rhetoric and logic?

I suppose you could argue that your second line of reasoning is your "insurance" in case the first line doesn't work out for you.

7/06/2006 9:54 AM  
Blogger Matt Smith said...

Haha...not quite. My point was actually that Lieberman has the support of people across the Democratic spectrum not because they agree with him, but because in Washington, personal relationships can matter as much as political ideology.

They aren't contradictory arguments at all; the point was actually that people from three very different points on the Dem spectrum support him because his appeal is NOT limited to political ideology.

7/06/2006 10:09 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"point was actually that people from three very different points on the Dem spectrum support him because his appeal is NOT limited to political ideology"

Which is a completely different argument than saying these three support him because of personal relationships. I can't see why you keep insisting otherwise.

7/06/2006 10:15 AM  
Blogger Matt Smith said...

I'm confused as to where you see the contradiction. My point was that people from across the Dem spectrum were backing Lieberman - obviously NOT because of his political ideology, because he obviously cannot be ideological brethren with all three of those Senators.

Here's my line of logic (forgive me for the setup...I'm an LSAT instructor):

1) "Personal relationships" have nothing to do with political ideology.

2) Consequently, a candidate who has support based on personal relationships has at least some support which is not based on or limited to those who share his/her political ideology.

My point was exactly that - Lieberman's support is obviously not limited to those who share his political ideology.

7/06/2006 10:46 AM  
Blogger low-tech cyclist said...

So far, Biden's been a no-show. We'll see what happens with the other two.

7/13/2006 10:38 AM  

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