Today's WaPo leads with news of yet another poll, this time detailing the growing anti-incumbent sentiment around the nation. The details of the survey are interesting, but that's not what caught my eye. This is:
The problem for Democratic candidates such as Lieberman who continue to support the war seems even plainer. Strategists wonder how many Democratic voters, like those backing Lieberman's challenger, Ned Lamont, feel so strongly about the issue that will be willing to punish one of their own who strays. "It was a problem in 2004, and it's going to be a bigger problem in 2006 if you're a Democrat who's seen as an accommodationist or a capitulationist," said Mark Mellman, a Democratic consultant.
Its amazing how little DC seems to understand what's going on out in the rest of the country. This isn't a case of Democratic voters choosing a Republican over a Democrat. It's Democrats choosing between two members of their own party, each of whom holds a different view on the single most important issue of our time. If, as polls seem to suggest they might, voters in CT tomorrow choose Lamont over Lieberman, it won't simply be about "punishing" Joe for his wayward behavior. After all, voters wouldn't want to "punish" Joe if they didn't disagree with him in the first place.
But of course members of the mainstream media, and particularly members of the media in DC, don't want to accept that. After all, accepting that this race is really about ideas and substance would mean abandoning the whole " Dems don't stand for anything" trope. And given that it was a central theme of this very same article, well....
Once set, narratives don't change easily. It usually takes seismic events for them to change. Or, at the very least, events which are interpreted as such. Whichever way things turn out tomorrow, I suspect this will be one of those.
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