Connecticut's mixed message to Washington state

MariaCantwell, one can only hope you heard the sound that just came from Connecticut last week ... but not too much of it.

Yes, Ned Lamont defeated Joe Lieberman in Connecticut's Democratic Senate primary. As an anti-war progressive, I don't know whether to rejoice or mourn in response to this event, because its complexity throws even more doubt over our state's U.S. Senate race, a contest that poses some classically difficult choices.

Here's what you have to understand: For the Democratic Party and progressive values to reclaim primacy in America's larger political climate (not Seattle's!), it's this writer's view that civility, openness and principle need to define political dialogue and campaigning.

Put differently, the Democrats — with actions more than words, with manners more than raw reams of dry statistics — need to capture Americans' souls in order to win their votes.

Politics — at its best — is not about winning; it's about winning with honor and authenticity; after all, the only way politics truly improves people's lives is if the electorate embraces your ideas. Once that happens, you can then effect positive change in society.

This Connecticut race is so confusing, then, because it sends a very mixed message to me as I contemplate the bigger value in the upcoming Senate race between Cantwell and Mike McGavick (a race in which I'm leaning McGavick but am essentially undecided).

The choice is a tough one:

Is it more important to have a Democratic Senate, even if said Senate has not-very-principled and generally timid stuffed shirts with no moral courage or political imagination?

Or is it more important to reward principled politicians and, conversely, punish the unprincipled, even if it means that the Senate will remain Republican and thereby sustain George W. Bush's destructive and frightening hold on American governmental power?

Here's why Connecticut's Senate race sends such a mixed message: On one hand, Lamont is principled in opposing the Iraq war, which — unlike abortion — is a legitimate single-issue stance because ... well ... it's not a single-issue stance to begin with. Opposing the war means that you support devoting (and diverting) hundreds of billions of precious dollars to social services and more humane causes instead of killing other human beings.

With abortion (which, as a Catholic, I oppose), killing takes place, too, but it takes place in isolation. And ironically, if more money were available for — bingo! — social services, we might see fewer abortions take place in America, anyway. Opposing the war in Iraq is a much more legitimate litmus test of a politician than his/her stance on abortion. For that reason alone, Lamont was and is worthy of support.

But everything else about the Connecticut race was repulsive. Lamont, while being principled on the war, is a policy lightweight with paper-thin credentials. Furthermore, his campaign — by seizing on a cosmetic detail (a shot of Lieberman being kissed by George Bush) — appealed to the worst instincts of American political campaigning: the Karl Rove school of negative association.

Say what you want about Lieberman, but no one — especially not Democrats — should ever accuse him of being unprincipled or, worse, traitorous. Lieberman has been the same politician throughout his career: a foreign-policy hawk and a social progressive on domestic issues.

Yes, I disagree with him on Iraq, and I do view an anti-war position as primary in a political race these days, but Lieberman is an ideal example of what a United States senator should be: dignified, thoughtful, civil, collegial, authentic, beyond easy categorization. He's right from the Founding Fathers' playbook, and he did not deserve to be assailed and insulted the way he was by Lamont zealots.

You might now realize how this all connects to the Cantwell-McGavick race: Do I vote for the unprincipled pro-war Democrat who is engaging in disgusting Hillary-style triangulation, and whose early TV ads have the stale, empty rhetoric of a nakedly posturing candidate who clearly has nothing to say to me?

Or do I choose a Republican (ewwwww!), but a Republican whose pro-war stance can be accepted as more authentic (given the GOP's subculture) and who possesses a non-abrasive and measured manner reminiscent of ... well ... Joe Lieberman?

It's as though Cantwell has all of Lamont's negatives without his principled anti-war stance, and McGavick has all the profound negatives of any Republican, but with Lieberman's positive attributes.

See why I'm undecided? Thanks, Connecticut — you've made life much harder for me.

Matt Zemek of Seattle is the author of "Liberalism the Right Way," published by Booklocker.com. E-mail: mzemek@hotmail.com