Democracy is about voting. It seems however that Joe Lieberman has decided that the electorate is a rubber stamp, to be avoided if it does not deliver the appropriate result. The word from Connecticut is that at a 1PM press conference, Joe Lieberman declared his independence of the voters, and will run in the primary, and regardless of whether he wins or loses the primary, will run again in November.

The power brokers in Washington DC, including Chuck Schumer who has backed an anti-choice Democrat in Pennsylvania, lost a bruising primary in Montana, and is pushing a quixotic challenge to all but nominated Elliot Spitzer in New York - have repeatedly left the option open of backing Lieberman in the fall should he lose the primary. Senator Dodd, running for President, supports Lieberman.

For those who need to know what is most broken about our election system, it is not electronic voting - though the problems with electronic voting machines continue to be documented - nor in vote counting of paper ballots - which alters the results of very close elections. Nor is it even in the systematic disenfranchisement that occurs in various areas of the country - which alters the face of our political landscape in more subtle ways. No, it is the primary system which is broken, because there is where voters should have the most choices about who is to represent them, and, instead, find they have no choices.

Lieberman's move to the "I" column follows a logic which is outlined by Joe Trippi - if a nominee from a party bolts to the independent column, it splits the party, and creates an implied threat: pull out or I will sink the election. This mechanism is the reverse of the protest vote. In a protest vote, ordinary people are so upset with a major party nominee that they are willing to chance throwing the election to the other party to register their displeasure. In the case of Lieberman it is the reverse: Lieberman is so disgusted with the Democratic Party voters, that he is willing to chance throwing the seat to the Republicans in order to hold power.

The irony is that the top down party apparatus, and not the "grass roots activists" are the ones creating third party runs, and creating the structure of end running party voters and primary elections.

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In Lieberman's case the attempt is not far-fetched. With a base of support which is largely in the Republican, and not Democratic, Party, and with the implied "bring home the bacon" vote already supporting him - including major unions - Lieberman could well win the general election by plurality in a three way contest. The response from the political establishment has been muted, but it is expected that the beltway insiders of the Democratic Party are set to back Lieberman, and by doing so, sink any chance they have of making significant gains in the fall. The establishment is set to pour money that could be used in attacking a Republican seat, to put a Senator who strays farthest when it matters most back in his chair.

The response from bloggers such as Chris Bowers has been sharp and immediate:

If the DSCC backs anyone except the Democratic nominee, they better be prepared for real consequences. Do not abandon your own party and break your own rules and then expect the plebs who have been playing by those rules to sit quietly and accept it.

Private comments have been even harsher, with some wanting Howard Dean, Rahm Immanuel and Chuck Schumer to come out and "support the primary system". The primary system is a hard won freedom, which has been opened by a string of Supreme Court cases, and tough floor fights at the national convention. That the voters, and not the donors and hacks, should determine the direction of a party is, at this point, a settled issue. That the Democratic establishment wants to reopen it points to two important facts.

The first is that the Republican hegemony over power is crumbling, and those who have lost election after election waiting for the moment when the money ran dry can smell that their chance to back into the playoffs has arrived.

The second is that the electorate, particularly the politically active electorate, does not want "That Other Republican Party" in power, but a new direction for the country - one that, specifically, does not take us farther into Iraq. It was such a moment the broke the hold on power of the FDR coalition over Vietnam - a disillusioned military, a working class angry at price pressures, and a party establishment that thought it always knew better. If there is any single theme of the Republican Party in the last 6 years it has to be "we ain't wrong, we ain't sorry, and its probably going to happen again". However, the Republican establishment of that moment, without the ideological and popular vigor required, could do little but put a corrupt also ran in the White House with 40% of the vote. Only persistent failure by the Democratic Party led to a permanent shift of power.

As the opposite moment arrives, it is ironic that, just as there were internal wars in the Republican Party which took, more or less, a decade to resolve, that the Democratic Party of today is facing the same bloody process of determining whether it is the party of the powerful, or the party of the people.