This week, America’s most powerful political duo – Bill and Hillary Clinton – revealed the progressive currents that are transforming American politics. As Sen. Clinton was unveiling the “American Dream Initiative,” sponsored by a gaggle of New Democrat think tanks, her husband was traveling to Connecticut to try to fend off the New Dems’ worst nightmare: Ned Lamont’s primary challenge to Democratic Leadership Council stalwart Sen. Joe Lieberman.
The Washington gatekeepers are apoplectic about Lamont, the millionaire businessman who threatens to unseat Lieberman, an 18-year incumbent. The DLC calls it an attempted “purge.” David Brooks terms it a liberal “inquisition.” The activism of bloggers is censored as “extremism.”
In fact, Lamont poses a principled challenge to the policies and politics championed by Lieberman and the New Democrats. His candidacy is fueled by the fundamental issue of Iraq. Lieberman, who favored the invasion even before Sept. 11, is the president’s favorite Democrat, providing an “amen” chorus for every presidential lie, promise and exaggeration. Not surprisingly, Connecticut Democrats who overwhelmingly oppose the costly occupation are attracted by a challenger who wants the U.S. troops to come home.
But this is not a one-issue campaign, and Lieberman is not a one- issue Republican knock-off. Rather, he personifies the New Democratic policy of pushing off Democrats and capitulating to the right.
Lieberman peddled the corporate trade deals that have decimated U.S. manufacturing and left the country with the worst trade deficits and foreign indebtedness in history. He championed off-the- books, short-term corporate stock options that gave CEOs a personal multimillion-dollar incentive to cook the books, contributing to the worst corporate scandals since the robber barons. He supported capital gains tax cuts, and opposed rolling back any of Bush’s top-end tax cuts. He’s consistently voted for more military spending, even as the U.S. spends nearly as much as the rest of the world combined. He even touted privatizing Social Security.
Similarly, on social issues, Lieberman has consistently danced with the right, scorning affirmative action as “un-American,” supporting the use of public money for private school vouchers, even joining with then Republican House leader Tom DeLay in the shameless political posturing around Terri Schiavo’s tragedy.
And Lieberman personifies the New Democrat political strategy of trading pro-corporate votes for political contributions. In this race, Lieberman has received 80 percent of his $6 million war chest from contributions outside of Connecticut, a large portion from corporate PACs. That kiss that George Bush bestowed on his “favorite Democrat” last year was priceless.
But it may also cost him his seat. Challenger Lamont’s candidacy is propelled by the new progressive grassroots energy. This movement can raise millions in small donations from the Web for its champions – Lamont has more than 20,000 contributors, although he has the wealth to fund his own campaign. These new progressives are tired of losing elections and sick of Democrats who won’t challenge the right. And they, like a growing majority of Americans, are looking for a dramatically different direction in the foreign and domestic policies that have failed them.
Hillary’s American Dream Initiative tries to navigate these currents. It omits mention of the Iraq war or foreign policy. It tiptoes around America’s ruinous corporate global economic strategy. It focuses on areas where Democrats agree – making college affordable, expanding access to health care, home ownership, retirement security. Its proposals on college affordability have the scope to make a difference.
But while it is a welcome contrast to the catastrophic conservatism of George Bush, the initiative is characteristically cautious. Its health care proposals would do nothing for most uninsured Americans and little to control prices. It says nothing about empowering workers to organize and little about holding CEOs accountable. It skimps on its investment agenda, failing even to summon Americans to a concerted drive for energy independence.
The Lamont challenge to Lieberman suggests the limits of these politics. The Aug. 8 primary in Connecticut is now a toss-up. Whether Lamont wins or loses, it is clear that he represents a rising tide in American politics – a growing progressive movement ready to ignore the gatekeepers, shed the timid, accommodating positioning represented by the New Democrats and eager to pose bold new ideas for America’s future. What Hillary Clinton’s American Dream Initiative reveals is that this movement has a long way to go if it hopes to make the Democratic Party a vehicle for those reforms.
Robert L. Borosage is a veteran political strategist and the co-director of the Campaign for America’s Future (ourfuture.org).
