Opinion

The Water Cycle: Lieberman Does Nothing, God-Willing

By: Kevin Ferguson

I was up until two in the morning planted in front of my lap top on election night. I spent most of the night refreshing the CNN senatorial election results page to infinity, because you’d have either be a fucking moron or Karl Rove (or both) to think the GOP would keep the house. As results came I was overtaken with euphoria, Missouri had fallen and Montana and Virginia were all but ours. Triumph!

Counter intuitively, though, as things cemented, my euphoria waned. There was a dark, looming, mild mannered, Jewish shadow: Joe Lieberman (I-CT), as expected, kept his senate seat. I never liked Lieberman, not that Lamont was a godsend but at least the dude had it in him to call bullshit what it is: bullshit. Not doing so doesn’t make you a centrist so much as it makes you a twat.

Lieberman is now the most powerful man in Washington. His independent status gives him his choice of which party to caucus with, as of today, that would be the Democrats. This is ridiculously important because were he to change his mind at some point and caucus with the Republicans, senate leadership would switch back in red hands (double metaphor!) and virtually nothing could be done for the Democrats to regain the senate.

If you don’t think he has it in him, look at his language lately: On Nov. 13th he told the Hartford Courant that he’s “not ruling out” changing parties and ever since he’s been reminding other senate Democrats about the importance of compromising with Republicans. Prick. I don’t blame him, though. If I were him I would definitely have fun playing with the fears, hopes and dreams of the millions of Americans who voted for change this year.

More evidence: In May of 2001 Jim Jeffords (R-VT, tenor in the infamous senatorial barbershop quartet – The Singing Senators!) left his party to caucus with the Democrats. It was a dickface move to his party because the switch caused a change in senate leadership (OUT OF THE BAND, JIM). In other words, it happened before, it could easily happen again with Lieberman. I’m scared (SCARED!) Lieberman’s going to want to exact revenge on the Dems that left him behind this election and curry favor to the Republicans that got him into office.

Saving that, most everything else in the election had me feeling pretty good. I didn’t vote for Schwarzenegger but I wasn’t bemoaning his reelection, either. There is no relevant political party I’m aware of more frustratingly stubborn, backwards and stale than the California Democrats. Just because there’s a D by your name doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed office in a statewide election, idiot.

But Angelides centered his campaign on that D. Schwarzenegger’s victory should hopefully send a message to his party that if you want to control Sacramento, some new blood (or ideas) would be nice. Angelides, though I am sure a nice guy, is also a lifelong party bureaucrat; he was state treasurer before he was a failed gubernatorial candidate, before that he was chairman of the party, it’s gross. Perhaps Rob Reiner next time? Maybe Obama could move here? He could couch surf for a while, I’m sure.