Like Digby, I'm fascinated by the segment of the punditocracy that is less pro-Lieberman than anti-anti-Lieberman, less interested in the issues at hand than whether their coalition is sufficiently free from peaceniks and bloggers. It's the Iraq War debate transposed to the domestic realm. You'd think patchouli was some sort of terminal, communicable illness by the way these folks flee from anything with the faintest whiff of hippy.
I tried to get some of this across last week, but it should be stated clearer: Politics is identity. That's true everywhere, but no more so than Washington, DC, where in addition to identity, it's life. It's a comforting fiction that the mandarins in this town sit down with the issues, or at least the poll numbers, and honestly struggle towards their eventual conclusions, but in the end, they're no less instinctual or self-obsessed than anyone else. Quite the opposite, in fact. When you define yourself by your actions and position in the political realm, the choices become much weightier, much more about who you are than what the issues are. And the Lamont challenge has awoken this sort of tribalism more so than most. Those who fear or hate the barbarians at the gates have stuck with Lieberman, seeing in his defeat portents of coming change they'd rather stem. Those who condemn the gatekeepers have thrown in with Lamont, seeing in his victory currents that could lead to their own eventual ascendence. It's a wonder either side can even recall who's running.
Because it's not, in fact, that the bloggers have a purer ideological critique than the Lieberman defender, many of whom loathe Joe with a specificity and historical memory few bloggers can even approach. It's just that many of his supporters know who they're not. They are not Ned Lamont supporters. They are not purgers. They are not hasty, or rash, or impulsive, or vituperative, or partisan. They do not see for themselves a place in the politics they assume Lamont's insurgency represents. This isn't about a mild-mannered cable executive and his surprisingly successful primary challenge. It's not about a mild-if-hawkish senator. Not on our side, not on theirs. If the personal is political, so too is the political personal, and an overwhelming number of the out-of-staters anxiously observing Lamont's race -- on both sides -- are scanning for the outcome that will validate their them, their friends, their movement. For Nutmeggers, this may be a battle over a Senate seat. For DC, however, it's about so much more.
