Good friendships. Thats why democrats can not win elections.

I had enough with some democratic senators who feel that they need to support Joe Lieberman. Now, it has been announced that Joe Biden will be going to Connecticut, to campaign for Joe Lieberman. Similarly, some other senators like Chuck Schumer and Christopher Dodd, have also expressed their strong support for Joe Lieberman. Well, I think that their actions shows exactly why Democrats keep losing elections.

Here we have a senator, Lieberman, that has turned against his own party. A senator who essentially abandoned the Democratic party when he announced that if he loses the election to Lamont (as he will), he will run as an independent. A democratic senator who has no second thoughts about ignoring the election process within the democratic party. A senator with absolutely no loyalty to the democratic party. And then you have senior democratic senators like Biden and Schumer going out of their way to show their loyalty to Lieberman.

Why is that? Why do these senators support Lieberman? It can not be because they agree with his positions on Iraq, because they dont. Is it maybe because he is already in the senate? Is it because he is one of them? Their actions show that their choices to support Lieberman are not based on his positions. Otherwise, they would support Lamont whose positions are much closer to theirs, at least on the most important issue the country faces today: Iraq.

Of course, the good news is that other senators like Russ Feingold and John Kerry have refused to endorse Lieberman and have made clear that they will support the winner of the democratic primary. Hillary also commited herself to supporting the winner of the August primary. So, there are at least some democratic senators who are really principled and put their party and the democratic process above friendships and other interests.

Nevertheless, there are enough senior democrats that have endorsed Lieberman. These senators can not have it both ways. They can not be critical of the Iraq policies of this administration and at the same time support strongly the re-election of a senator who has endorsed such policies and has done his best to undermine his own party. If they want to (finally) see a democratic victory at the national level they will have to make choices that are based on principles and not on personal friendships.