Politics as Usual

Over a year ago, on this same page, I called for Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman to follow his political instincts and officially switch parties, thereby sacrificing his powerful political position in the pursuit of transparency regarding his motives and party status.

Yesterday, after a year in which the Connecticut senator called the McCain-Palin candidacy the “real ticket for change” and suggested his own party’s candidate did not “put country first,” the Democratic Party failed to make this change for Lieberman by stripping him of his committee chairmanship, an act that would have effectively forced him to caucus with the Republicans. Unfortunately, a tangled web of party interests among Democrats prevented this from happening.

According to the New York Times, President-elect Obama, apparently interested in promoting party unity, has “signaled” his interest in retaining Lieberman’s vote, while Sen. Chris Dodd is reluctant to weaken Connecticut’s power in the Senate.

So Sen. Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, has decided to let Lieberman keep his chairmanship of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. As that title might indicate, this is an impossibly important committee, which, according to Senate Rule XXV, deals with everything from United States Archives to the compensation and benefits of all U.S. employees.

Reid and the Democrats did revoke Lieberman’s subcommittee chairmanship, but this amounted to what Sen. Patrick J. Leahy called a “slap on the wrist,” and thus yet another empty, symbolic capitulation to Lieberman. This is a man who has committed such party sins as running against and defeating a Democrat after losing his primary and, more recently, standing by McCain’s side, a vocal presence throughout a nasty campaign.

But the value of his single vote continues to buy him reprieve. This election was supposed to be an endorsement of hope and change. But there seems to be no hope that the treatment of Lieberman will ever change; one is driven to suspect that even if he publicly claimed that he was a Republican (which he has effectively done), the Democrats would remain unwilling to cede his caucus and vote.

It’s understood that the only reason Democrats have kept Lieberman around ‘is as insurance against defeats on critical legislation. Unfortunately, the stalled progress of the liberal agenda in the last two years indicates a need not for a majority of 51, but of 60 senators, the amount of votes needed to invoke cloture.

The dust has hardly settled as we await results from recounts and runoffs, but it’s clear that the Democrats will hold between 58 and 60 seats in next year’s Senate. Thus the need for Lieberman’s vote has become significantly less apparent. Traditional moderates across the aisle, in the model of Sens. Olympia J. Snowe or Susan M. Collins, might be looked to as swing votes instead of Lieberman. Occasionally courting these two socially liberal, fiscally conservative New England Republicans seems far preferable than having to pander to Lieberman just months after he traveled the country trying to torpedo his party’s chances.

Given the crises that face America at the moment, it seems only logical that this new wave of Democrats would want to face them as a unified party. But this should also be a time of hope and change, of a new Washington, and bringing that promise to fulfillment requires the courage to upend the establishment and leave the old and fractious behind.



Robert G. King ’09-’10, a Crimson associate editorial editor, is a history concentrator in Winthrop House.