Better late than never

Hell hath no fury like a GOP candidate in Connecticut who gets dumped by his own party in favor of a Republican wannabe running as a Democrat, and then decides he’s not going to take it lying down. The unexpectedly strong performance of Alan Schlesinger, the official Republican candidate for Senate, may be the bolt from the blue that rescues the Democrats from their lovingly crafted fiasco-in-the-making in Connecticut.

I’d all but written off Ned Lamont’s chances of winning against Holy Joe Lieberman because of (a) Lamont’s strangely muffled performance after whipping Lieberman in the Democratic primary, (b) Lieberman’s surge in the polls and (c) the Democratic leadership’s cosseting of Lieberman despite his anti-Democratic stances on the campaign trail. First they let him keep his committee positions even after he decided to run against the designated Democratic candidate, then they reassured him they’d let him keep his seniority if he wins the Senate election. All this for a guy whose idea of leadership is to run down his own party while waiting for King George to give him another smooch on the cheek.

But if Schlesinger keeps slugging the way Lamont should have been slugging all along, he may draw off enough Republicans to cut into Holy Joe’s lead and let Lamont eke out a narrow win.

But wait, you say, that would be an unearned victory for the Democrats. To which I reply: That’s exactly right. Unearned victories are the only kind the Democrats are going to get this year. When the polls look bad for the GOP, the Republicans say, “It’s time for us to get to work.” When the polls look bad for the GOP, the Democrats say, “It’s time for us to relax.” That’s why so many members of Congress have little Rs next to their names. As long as Republicans can get elected faster than they can be indicted, the GOP will keep its coils wrapped tightly around America’s neck.

The Democrats have just about two weeks left to get their brains around that fact. Contrary to what the pundits think, this mid-term election is not going to be a referendum on the GOP. It’s a referendum on the Democrats. Because if they  manage to screw this one up — if they cannot win back at least one house from this freak show of crooks and crack-brained religious zealots  — then a lot of people are simply going to stop listening to them.