I don't know if it is off-topic to offer a reaction to the Ed Kilgore-Matt Yglesias-Matt Stoller discussion, but I will anyway.

As an old fart (well, almost 50 y.o.), I am both more radicalized -- scared really -- by what's happened in the last ten years, as well as convinced that civility and bipartisanship are needed more than ever. And I think that's part of the problem for us classic liberals. We want what may be two contradictory things: to have our side on the issues prevail -- a society that is less warmongering, more just and supportive of the poor and middle class, more friendly to the environment -- and to have a polity that's more thoughtful and civil. We want the latter because we believe that that will inevitably lead to more of a consensus on the former. Unless we can have both, we lose as a nation.

Where I think we might have gone wrong is in behaving as if civility and deference/patience are the same thing. We need to be civil, thoughtful, nuanced, but also tenacious and persistent in our pursuit of what is right.

Yes -- and I think Paul Krugman's column today (sub req.) is pointing us in the same general direction.

Sheila in CT

Of course, most in the blogs express progressive values much of the time, so it's just odd that they are so shy of admitting it matters in places like the Lamont race...

First, as you note elsewhere in the article, Ned Lamont doesn't really seem to be a progressive. He's a centrist Democrat who happens to meet the two key criteria for left-blogosphere support: he strongly opposes both the Iraq War and Joe Lieberman's obeisance to the Bush Administration's pre-Enlightenment theories about executive power. This particular campaign really is more about partisanship than ideology.

Second, unlike previous generations of movement progressives, the current generation generally appreciates the futility of third-party politics and electoral nihilism. We could conceivably spend 30 years and millions of dollars, build progressive institutions, and wait for the world to grow so thoroughly dystopian that the median American voter is ready for a hard Left turn. But we care too much about our country and the world to let things continue to slide.

After 5-1/2 years of Bush and Cheney, it's impossible to maintain the Naderite fiction that there isn't a dime's worth of difference between the two parties. In order to win elections NOW, and drag our country back from the fever swamps of the Right, we need to play an active role in a Democratic Party that is ideologically broad enough to win national elections.

To wit, we need to throw out our single-issue litmus tests and replace them with a more sophisticated pH meter. We can accept a broad range of political leaders, provided they oppose the radical right and support us when it matters most.

I'm old enough to remember when bipartisan cooperation sometimes brought about positive changes in this country. And perhaps those days will return. In the meantime, the Democratic Party has to understand that the current Republican leadership cannot be trusted any farther than we kick them. This is the lesson Joe Lieberman failed to learn, and this is why he is going to lose on Tuesday... Not because of a progressive coup in the Democratic Party, but because he lost the trust of rank-and-file Democrats.

What seems to be happening is a gap opening between... I'm not sure about the right terminology here, and don't want to be rude -- ?consultants/partyhacks/operators/processpeople -- and voter-idealists. These days I'm in the "voter-idealist" group and what I see in the Lamont insurgency is less an embrace of Ned Lamont as the realization that he has offered a perfect opportunity to clarify the battle and the goals.

Clinton was good for his time but this is no longer his time. The DLC was exciting when it was defining goals for the '90's, but it's a pain in the butt now -- full of people who cling to their old positions even as they're being dragged perceptibly to the right. No more right turns. We want to return the center to where it was. We laugh when we're called "leftists." Many of us were the old centrists; and many of us were the old progressives; and we used to get along quite well (though we progressives never dressed as well as you centrists and found you a little, well, ambitious, slick!).

Fifteen years from now we'll be the old slickies, the old hacks, pushed out of our comfortable positions by the newer progressives.

That is, if we manage to get this thing on track. And we don't have much time. But why am I saying "we"? I'm no longer a Democrat, having backed off in disgust after a lifetime of loyal votes. I'm not convinced by Lamont either and have contributed only to Brown and Sanders and other progressive candidates. It seems quite a lot of Democrats are doing the same thing -- supporting the good candidates, not the failed party.

But Lamont's uncertain ideological profile -- clearly contrasting with a Paul Wellstone of an earlier political generation

Yes, I find this disturbing as well. It seems that what folks are doing is voting against Lieberman rather than for Lamont.

What does Lamont stand for what are his beliefs?.  The only factual thing known about him that is non-partisan is that he is the great-grandson of JP Morgans banking partner. Which means the man is wealthy. So, where does that leave us in terms of his ideology?

How unreasonable is it to thing that the banking industry is funding Lamont..big time?

I do not percieve a man with Lamont's bkgrd as being 'progressive' politically.

What worries me is that the lure of the Republican economic vision (every man an entrepeneur or a speculator) is so attractive to the average American voter that they continue to reject any type of sustainable national economic policy.

I worry that it's going to take millions forced into the streets, and the old and the sick dying uncared for in huge numbers, for people to remember that the New Deal was a successful response to problems on the ground, not the wet dream of some big goverment liberal. And, with American significantly weaker economically in 2006 than in 1936, it may be too late to fix things again.

Polls have shown that the majority of Americans are not only registered Democrats, they are left of center on issues that affect the quality of their lives - health care, the environment, affordable higher education, social security etc. Doesn't it make sense for Democratic candidates to speak to those issues? It makes sense if those sentiments determine voter choice, but there are indications that they don't necessarily. In fact, it can be shown that epithets, smears and the usual bag of dirty tricks can carry the day in the voting booth. It would seem then that the party platform should deal with those quality of life issues while individual campaigns should resort to smears, epithets and dirty tricks. Covering all bases is usually a winning call.

There certainly seems to be no evidence that Americans are longing for a leftwing move.

Yes, I am looking for this evidence too! I don't see anyone giving any evidence, I just see people in the liberal blogosphere telling each other in echo fashion that Americans are craving them

It's just a question of defining terms. National polls do in fact show that Americans are in a clear majority, uneasy with Iraq. This expresses itself, depending on the question/framing, as a call for pull-out, regret over going in the first place, or a simple disapproval of the way Bush is handling Iraq. Is this a move to the left? I don't think so. Pat Buchanan has been against this war from the start. I don't think it reflects pacifism or neo-isolationism. It is specific to the Iraq and Bush's selling/handling of Iraq.
To take another issue, look at health care. Polls show a majority support some form of universal health care. This is like being for clean air, it's easy for the other side to turn the tables with a 'Big Brother is Coming' campaign.
This is neither a leftward drift nor a new paradigm nor any other New Republic/Weekly Standard featured article buzzword. Republicans have been in power for six years, things are bad because of sins of commission (Iraq, reckless tax-cuts, the environment) and omission ( healthcare, the environment). People are ready to listen to new ideas, if the Democrats are smart and consistent in their conception and presentation of solutions.

As for blog triumphalism, prominent wild-eyed crazies like Kos and Atrios both frequently state the obvious: the internet is a means of communication, like the telephone or direct mail. I've never heard anyone call Richard Viguerie a "direct mail triumphalist". He figured out a way a means of communication could be used effectively for communications and fund-raising. Now we have the internets tubes. Step back, take a deep breath, that's what the "netroots" is.

Paul Wellstone was a legitimate leftist, he would have recognized Lamont and Ho Dean as the fakes that they are and run them out of town on a rail.

The Incredible Lightness Of Ned Lamont's Credibility...

This week has provided some revelation about the honesty of Ned Lamont. Earlier today I posted about his sudden case of amnesia when one of his key blogosphere supporters decided to use race-baiting to attack Lieberman on Lamont's behalf. Now it appears that Lamont only sought to exploit a protest against Walmart to for political gain, because he didn't mention that he himself and his family profit from Walmart's driving down wages and destroyng American jobs, worker's rights and protections, of refusing to provide health care benefits and forcing the struggling middle class to have to pick up the tab.

Connecticut millionaire businessman Ned Lamont, who sharply criticized the employment practices of Wal-Mart this week in his campaign to unseat Sen. Joe Lieberman in the Democrat primary, owns stock in the company, Senate records reveal.

"This is about waking up Wal-Mart, and this is also about waking up corporate America," Mr. Lamont said Wednesday at a Bridgeport rally against the retail giant, hosted by many of the same liberal bloggers who have boosted the former cable executive far ahead of Mr. Lieberman in the polls... a wealthy cable executive who has no compunction about outsourcing his worker's jobs to glean more profit off the backs of workers in an economy that offers them little to no chance of replacing their jobs. How a man who is reported to be worth 90 to 300 million dollars (jeez, why isn't he willing to just come out and admit how much he has? Looking to avoid paying taxes?) and claims to adhere to progressive principles would rationalize this is beyond me.. it's indicative of a politician who feels he is entitled to lie to get elected.

But Mr. Lamont and his family are part owners of Walmart, according to financial disclosure records he filed earlier this year with the secretary of the Senate. Mr. Lamont, his wife and a dependent child own as much as $31,000 in Wal-Mart stock.

Mr. Lamont and his wife jointly own two accounts containing as much as $16,000 in Wal-Mart stock. Their Wal-Mart holdings spin off as much as $3,500 in annual dividends. In addition, a trust fund he set up for one of his children contains as much as $15,000 in Wal-Mart stock and spins off as much as $1,000 in dividends.

In his remarks at the anti-Wal-Mart rally this week, Mr. Lamont NEVER mentioned his shareholder status in the company. He did, however, criticize Mr. Lieberman for not doing more during this three terms in the Senate to help the workers he says are so mistreated by Wal-Mart.

These purchases do not come from a market fund or retirement portfolio. The Lamonts deliberately purchased Wal-Mart stock for themselves and their child. One presumes that the Lamonts did so because of Walmart being profitable to their stockholders, those willing to make a buck off the suffering of slavelike sweat shops in third world countries and conditions, and the erosion of American worker's jobs...all of which come from the same business practices that Lamont publicly blasted this week.

It gets worse. While Lamont and his family continued to get thousands of dollars in dividends, Lamont supporters castigated Lieberman at the event for taking a one-time donation from Wal-Mart's PAC of $1,000. Lieberman says he sent the money back, but will Lamont's supporters now demand to know what their candidate did with his Wal-Mart money???

Lamont bills himself as a new kind of politician, but from what we've seen this week, he looks like the same old model we see too often in Washington republicans... dishonest and hypocritical.

Lamont's campaign accused the Lieberman camp of desperate political tactics in criticizing his holdings of the Wal-Mart stock. "This is a pathetic attempt by someone who's clinging to power to make an issue where there is no issue," Lamont's campaign manager Swan said.

Of course though, Swan said Lamont has no plans to sell either the Halliburton or the Wal-Mart stock. Why should he, after all the fascistic neo-left certainly don't expect their pet candidate to have any more ethical standards than they do..

From another post by Kilgore on the New Donkey site:

=== And I plead innocent as well to the charge, made by Kevin elsewhere in his rather angry post, that Democrats whose formative experiences were in the 1980s and early 1990s are obsessed with the need to play off lefty excesses to establish their mainstream credibility ===

This is what I love about Kilgore and his buddies: they aren't in any way responsible for what they wrought. Clinton signed the Telecommunications Act of 1994 without so much as a whimper, which led directly to the utter inability of anyone to the left of Lieberman (or perhaps McCain) to get any press coverage today. But it is still the "wild-eyed lefties" fault, and he and the current crop of Democratic Party insiders bear zero responsibility for the consequences of their actions.

It will be very interesting to see the look on their faces when Lamont is sworn in in January.

sPh

How much his family's money and style will affect Ned Lamont, I don't know, but having grown up next door, I can at least remind all of us that his great uncle Corliss was a famous socialist and humanist and contributed mightily to Columbia.. and to some of the family's discomfort!

The Lamont generations since Thomas Sr. are as diverse as those of your family's and mine. Look at Howard Dean's background -- same stuff. Lordy -- FDR. Some of the best people on the left are rebels who use capital gains to put a leash and muzzle on capitalism. There are interesting accounts of Ned Lamont's business and his earlier political experiences. Certainly between the time he did his first fumbling interviews about his Senate candidacy and an interview the other day -- I guess it was with Al Franken -- he has grown in confidence and savvy.

  but having grown up next door, I can at least remind all of us that his great uncle Corliss was a famous socialist and humanist and contributed mightily to Columbia.. and to some of the family's discomfort!

OIC..was the discomfort due to the ideals he was financial funding?

 Some of the best people on the left are rebels who use capital gains to put a leash and muzzle on capitalism

I agree. The Kennedy's as well. My problem is I have not read anything about his beliefs othan than he is anti-war.

Do you know his political views?  Not as if, I live in CT. But since the focus seems to be on building a consensus as a party..then his positions will affect the Democratic party unity.

Does Lamont support the American Dream Initiative.?

=== Where is your responsibility for the lies and hypocrisy of the Lamont campaign? ===

I really don't even understand what that string of words is supposed to mean. But I have seen nothing, including your prior posts, that indicate that Lamont could in any way be worse for the Democratic Party or the nation than Joe Lieberman. Lieberman's procedural vote for the bankruptcy bill alone outweighs anything that you noted about Lamont.

sPh

You see Lamont as merely not being a "perfect" candidate... so that means that the issues really don't matter to you.. that the lives of children, their families, workers, women and so many others are just ripe for the sacrificing to your agenda.. a pipe dream.

Then that means that you are not in any way credible as anyone to listen to regarding elections and candidates.

BTW, thanks very much, a friend will be able to use your post in a letter to the editor in her local newspaper in Connecticut

What I share with Ed Kilgore is that the fights from the early 90s, when the Dems last had control of Congress, are likely to return with a vengenace very soon.

Yep. And the heated divisions in our online forums will give the lie to the notion that the ""blogosphere" is a lockstep group of lefties.

The problem here is the general uselessness of the Left/Right dichotomy in explaining American politics, particularly as these terms are used by the punditocracy. Some "centrist" voters are progressive on economic issues and conservative on cultural issues. Some are the other way around. Some just simply don't like either party and want to hear "straight talk" and "new ideas." Democrats do not necessarily need to "Move Left" in any meaningful way in the process of adopting a tough, unified stance against the Republicans. There are also several different ways to "Move Left," and some are preferable to others.

Americans, in general, are not craving Paul Wellstone-style liberalism. However, a solid majority of Americans do seem to be craving an exit strategy from Iraq--a view that Paul Wellstone would certainly share, and which lies well to the "Left" of all the Republicans and a significant number of Democrats on Capitol Hill.

Americans, in general, are also unhappy with our health care system, and in 1994 they did not oppose national health care when it was first proposed... it took a series of political missteps and a slick, deceptive, multi-million dollar corporate ad campaign to kill the idea.

Any Democrat who thinks America is crying out for 1970s-style liberalism is deluded. But a robust Democratic Party that includes economic progressives and cultural liberals as team players within a broad coalition is, I think, a quite realistic goal. America is more than ready to take Clinton back. The catch is that the centrist Democrats need to understand that this isn't the 1990s. They can't win by attacking the Left, compromising with the Right, and standing for nothing but pragmatic flexibility.

America may not want Wellstone-style liberalism right now, but (judging by the approval ratings for the President and Congress) America is ready to reject Bush-style conservatism. And the motivating factors for this rejection are the Republican's foreign policy failures and their elitist economic policies. We'd better be prepared to offer a serious alternative on foreign policy and economic issues... not just a NARAL and NAACP-friendly spin on the status quo.

Don't know why your post reminded me of this, but it made me think of the Henry Fonda movie "12 Angry Men". If you've forgotten, or never saw it, its the story of a jury deliberating on murder charges for a poor teenager accused of stabbing his father to death.

http://imdb.com/title/tt0050083/ 

Fonda starts out alone as voting for acquittal, but patiently and steadily keeps raising inconvenient facts or contradictions until, one by one, he gets the others to change their votes as reasonable doubt mounts.

I guess that's the kind of civility -- tenacious, thoughtful, fact-based and persistent-- that you meant.

A lot of the government programs aimed at righting social wrongs simply misfired, or, worse, made the problem worse that they were supposed to fix. That's what the country remembers about Democrats, and we've got to convince them we're not going to make the same mistakes again.

What I believe is that Lamont's "call" for anything is just talking the talk. His record IRL indicates that he won't be walking the walk.. which is what is significant.

Lamont wants power and the influence it provides, his voting record in Greenwich shows that he voted with the republicans there on virtually everything. Great standards you have, or are you just in denial that you've been duped?

Do you not research a candidate before supporting him, or perhaps you just eat what you're spoonfed?

I always thought the discomfort had a lot to do with the fact that he wouldn't shut up and play nice at teatime, if you catch my meaning! In other words, "go out, dear, and be a rebel, but don't embarrass us in front of our friends"! But he would insist on bringing his tracts to the dining table!

The idea of building a consensus within the Democratic Party makes me laugh. The Democratic Party more attractive than its opponents now that its opponents have developed a lock-step. After a while, the sound of their heel-clicks and their boots hitting the ground on Main Street with terrible uniformity is turning away even some of the most devout Republicans. No "Heil Hillary" please!

From Time Magazine August 4

Lieberman's campaign lambasted Lamont for the Halliburton holdings last spring, until it was revealed Lieberman himself owned mutual funds that held stock in the corporate giant. Lieberman spokesperson Steinfels said the Senator has no stock in Wal-Mart, either held directly or in mutual funds. His [Lieberman's] financial disclosure forms do show mutual funds that continue to hold Halliburton. [My emphasis]

Investors in managed or mutual funds generally do not select which stocks the funds hold.  That's the job of the managers.  $31,000.00 is approximately 3 hundredths of 1 per cent (.00034) of the lower valuation of Lamont's fortune. Lamont's response seems perfectly appropriate under the circumstances.

aMike

OMG!!!

they are now stealing local PRIMARY elections.

when are middle-class WORKING Americans going to demand the right to vote!!

How dare they turn away all these folks who come after work to vote.

Wow. Not to be missed. Terrific commentary on the "meaning of Ned Lamont" has been written by Billmon, here.

Mary from RI,
Do you really think that progressives are so immature as to be swayed in their support because a candidate they like is wealthy and owns stocks in America's large corporations? We are not children. We know how the world works and the compromises it imposes on us.
Besides, some of the greatest progressives in the history of Western Democracy have been wealthy patricians. Hello FDR??? George Soros, Teddy Roosevelt, etc...

It's not what you were born into that determines who you are, it's the choices you make that reveal your character.
Lamont has made good choices and is paying it back, we appreciate and support that.

Bush and Lieberman on the other hand have made some bad choices ...

What's going on, is a profound political re-alignment. No political viewpoint, style or worldview is going to attract more than 20% of the electorate. Political parties are necessarily coalitions. And, they are coalitions of political identities, not political issues.

The Great Depression allowed FDR to forge a Democratic Party out of a relatively huge coalition of political identities. Identification with the Democratic Party ran above 40% of the electorate (compared to 25% for Republicans) right thru Reagan's first term. But, it was never a ideologically coherent coalition. Real political power, in terms of policy-making, rested with a mildly progressive, pragmatic and bipartisan group of politicians.

Bipartisanship suffered a mortal blow with Whitewater, and died with Bush's election.

Bipatisanship -- and the facts that power rested in bipartisanship, and that bipartisanship in the 1990s excluded progressives are now just history.

The task, now, is to build a Democratic Party capable of BOTH taking political power by commanding more than 55% of the electorate and governing by forging policy and political compromises over policy WITHIN the Democratic Party.

The Democratic Party has to admit the rational, decent and secular refugees from the increasingly insane Republican Party. That is how the Democrats get to 55+% of the electorate.

And, power -- real policymaking power -- has to center in the Party, not in bipartisanship. All the groups across the whole ideological spectrum of the Democratic Party are going to have to change their behavior, for POWER to center in the Party, at the same time as the Democrats secure their grip on the electorate.

The shift of policymaking Power to a center within the Party is a rare, almost novel event in American politics. And, it is not something, which anyone is doing for the sake of the Democratic Party. If anything, it may be stressful for the Party. It is something, which must be done for the Country. Bipartisanship is dead, because the Republican Party has gone nuts! Compromise over policy with Republicans is no longer possible. Compromise with insanity and you get insanity.

The New Democratic Right is filling up with Lamont, Kos, Webb, etc. They are bringing with them the potential for electoral dominance. They are doing so, not for the sake of the Party, but to save the Country!

Progressives and liberals will still have to compromise with conservatives over policy, but power will be within the Party, and progressives will have access to Power in a way that was denied to them by the increasingly pathological bipartisanship of the 1990's. But, recognize that electoral success and power are coming to the Democrats, because the Republicans have lost their minds, and not because of any great Democratic virtue.

Outrageous!

At one precinct voters who had been standing as long as two hours were stunned when an election official escorted the son and daughter in law of a local Republican official past them and up to the front of the line. People left the line in anger and went home.  

Where were the precinct officials?  The Poll Watchers?  If the Democratic Party had none here, why not?  Somebody should have been on the cell phone calling the media and the local police screaming bloody murder.

aMike

An intriguing and thoughtful response, especially your vision for what the dominant party of the future will look like;and so long as the neo-cons maintain their stranglehold on the current administratiion, it's probably safe to assume that the dominant party will be the Democrats. I take issue with two of your points, however, and that is the existence of a "New Democratic Right" and that Lamont is part of that segment.
Lamont first: Perhaps it is simply a matter of definition, but I think by most people's standards a man who supports full GLBT rights, including marriage, is considered to be on the progressive end of the political spectrum. Lamont supports both civil unions and the right of gays to marry so I wouldn't call him part of the "New Democratic Right".
Secondly, I disagree with the premise that there is a "New Democratic Right". In the years that I've been voting (many) and the years that I've participated in political blogs (only a few), I have noticed only a handful of individuals that I would call extreme left liberals. The rest of us have an assortment of views, many of which we share, but some of which would be thought of as Republican views or even extreme right views.
The ones we share I'll call the "Basic Democratic Ideology", but even within the BDI we differ in how best to achieve those goals. I, for example, want a single payer health care system similar to the Canadian system. Others want employers to continue to provide employee health insurance with the states picking up the balance of the uninsured. In other words, I think universal health care is part of the BDI, but how we arrive at it will be determined, as you suggest, by compromise within the party rather than between the parties.
The only real "New Democratic Right" are the Republicans who currently have nowhere else to go right now, and they will return to the fold once the Republicans eject the neo-cons. Kos and Webb are simply Democrats who started out being Republican, but they are definitely Democrats. Do they have some views that aren't to the extreme left end of the spectrum? Sure, but then so do I, and so do many Dems. The key is, I think, that on the Democratic issues we are really Democratic and not just lukewarm Democratic.

Re: Yet this was very short lived. By 1980 Americans started twleve years of Republican presidencies and ulitmately took control of the Congress.

History often hinges on details. If Ford not Carter had won the election of 1976 the GOP not the Democrats would have been blamed for the griefs of the late 1970s (most of which were troubles that Nixon and Ford's mistakes had laid the groundwork for) and the country would have turned firmly left not right in 1980.

Re: it took a series of political missteps and a slick, deceptive, multi-million dollar corporate ad campaign to kill the idea.

Moreover Americans rejected only the specific plan proposed by Hillary Clinton (which did have some serious weaknesses). They did not reject universal healthcare or gain any new fondness for the curernt system. It was the GOP Congress which promptly shut down the debate, while tossing out a few bones like HIPAA and the CHIP programs, not the American poeple as a whole.

From the Advocate, an alternative weekly from CT, on why Round Hill is a racist country club and why it is legitimate to reference his statement on the subject in the NY Times.

Ned Lamont, in a brief phone interview last night, called the fliers dirty politics.

Lamont campaign manager Tom Swan, in an e-mail exchange late last week with Greenwich Time/The Advocate, said he advised his candidate to leave Round Hill. Swan said he was concerned Lieberman would "run a dirty campaign" and "try to make an issue of membership in a club that might not be considered to have an adequately diverse membership."

Club management did not return phone calls but a member, Republican state Rep. Livvy Floren, defended the institution as "very family oriented" and ethnically diverse.

"We live right next door to it. All four of my children grew up there," Floren said. "I was really dismayed, frankly, that Senator Lieberman would choose to even think about making something like that an issue. It was offensive. É He's trying to make Ned look elitist."

Located at 33 Round Hill Road, the country club was founded in 1962 and is well-known for its connections to the Bush political dynasty. President Bush's grandfather, Prescott Bush Jr., was a member. And the president's father and mother -- former President Bush and former first lady Barbara Bush -- met on the grounds.

Lamont's campaign has portrayed Lieberman as being too closely connected to Bush, but Swan in his e-mail said "the Bushes were absolutely no part of our discussions."

Swan wrote that Lamont and his family joined the club in 1990 because it is four minutes from their home and they love to ride bikes, swim, play tennis and golf there.

Greenwich Time reported Lamont had decided to leave the club in an April 2 interview.

"I just didn't need that to be an issue in the campaign," he said at the time. "I'm representing all of the people in the state of Connecticut, and we'll leave it at that."

The issue resurfaced in mid-July, when Lamont, in the New York Times story, was quoted as saying he quit the club because it was "too white and too rich" and he did not want it to become a campaign issue.

Greenwich's country clubs gained national notoriety in the early 1990s when Lawrence Otis Graham, a high-powered corporate attorney, who is black, fudged his resume to work for a week at Greenwich Country Club on Doubling Road as a busboy. His subsequent expose, published in the Aug. 17, 1992, issue of New York magazine, portrayed the club's members as racists and anti-Semites.

"That was such a sham. Hurtful, untrue, and everybody knew it. But it sells magazines," Floren said.

Graham did not respond to an e-mail request for an interview for this story.

Last month, another exclusive Greenwich club, Belle Haven, reached a settlement with three neighborhood families who alleged they were denied admission because they are Jewish. As part of that settlement, the club agreed to include a nondiscrimination policy in its bylaws.

Preliminary attempts by Greenwich Time/The Advocate to determine whether any such complaints have been filed against the Round Hill Club were met with limited success.

According to the Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities, a discrimination complaint was filed against the club in October 2001 by a fired employee but withdrawn in August 2002 so the complainant could pursue a lawsuit. A commission spokesman said it was the only complaint against the club in its database, which dates to 1999.

The state Anti-Defamation League did not return phone calls for this story, and a spokeswoman for the UJA-Federation of Greenwich declined to comment. Scot Esdaile, president of the Connecticut NAACP, said he has never heard of the Round Hill Club.

Floren said words such as "private" and "membership," when associated with clubs, cause people to speculate. But Floren said the Round Hill Club has never discriminated, adding the club recently hosted a marriage in which the groom was black.

Asked how people can join the Round Hill Club, Floren used her son and daughter as an example.

"They had their sponsor -- lifelong friends," Floren said. "The people on the membership committee, men and women, would make themselves available (for interviews). And once they met enough people, they got in. That's all it takes."

That and a lot of money, according to Greenwich resident Eric Knutsen. Knutsen in 2001 published a book celebrating Innis Arden, the Tomac Avenue golf club he joined in the early 1970s. He is not familiar with the Round Hill Club but said Innis Arden's initiation fee is $55,000.

"We'd jump at the chance to accept a black member," Knutsen said. "It's just they don't come live in Greenwich."

I think patience is a form of tenaciousness and persistence. And I think it is patience--or at least the impatience of Bush--that is responsible for our seemingly rising political hopes today. Bush's pushes for social security transformation, for a unitary executive, for a right-wing judiciary, for military adventures in the middle east--those have all galvanized people against him. What enrages moderates and liberals against Bush is his attempt to make irreversible change.

In the face of that, I must agree--to hell with civility. We must never allow society to fall backwards. We must never the allow the democracy, freedom, or dignity of the American people to retreat. Lockstep partisanship is absolutely what the situation required.

But should the Democrats take power, the situation changes. People fear change. Especially irreversible change. We shouldn't expect to implement our entire agenda immediately--we should expect to implement the agenda slowly--refining it as experience englightens us. We should act like we expect to maintain power for a very long time. Not like we're trying to pull one over on the American people--like Bush and his "political capital" instituting radical changes in Social Security immediately after the election.

We should act like we want to restore the natural order of America--liberals in front leading the way, conservatives grudgingly agreeing with our objectives but sounding a quiet note of caution over our means. The two sides compromise, and we slowly move towards a progressive ideal. The most efficient change is that which is closest to equilibrium.

That is why patience and tenaciousness are the same thing--patience demonstrates to people that our party can be trusted with the reins of power. Patience demonstrates that we have faith in the people, in democracy--and this faith is a required premise of most progressive policies. Civil libertarianism requires trusting your neighbor, economic progressivism requires trusting your fellow voter.

Bush has ruled like this is the last chance the GOP has to implement their objectives. In doing so, he has made it more likely that this will be the case.

I was with you in that post BB until you got to here:

And how you can have an American Dream initiative in the middle of a war without discussing the war is mind-boggling. A real American Dream initiative would be making higher education freely available to every American and bringing the kids back from Iraq NOW while they are still alive and whole to go to school. That's my American Dream. It has no party. And we "movement" types still have 30 years left to vote!

Are you familiar with the American Dream Intiative which is focused on issues that are pro-middle class like health insurance, minimum wage, education and tax incentives? It is a democratic platform of ideas for the upcoming election. More on ADI

Maybe more Americans want something like Wellstone-style liberalism than you think because Wellstone wasn't your typical liberal. I mean how often do you find a Jewish liberal populist? It was the populist side of Wellstone that won him the election.

Consider the difference between Lieberman and Wellstone. Lieberman is urban. He faces the world looking out across the Atlantic with his back turned to America. He takes liberal internationalism to the neocon extreme. He wouldn't even campaign in Iowa.

Wellstone was happiest in the smallest of Midwest towns. He could connect with veterans easier than John Kerry. Like Humphrey, his passion was fun, engaging, focused on YOU not on him, drawing you in, convincing you to see things a different way, showing you a different future and always, always, always connecting with everyday people.

If Democrats don't find a way to capture that compassionate, future oriented, main street, liberal side of populism, you can bet the right is going to embrace its dark side.

Mary from Rhode Island has not provided a link to the original article from which she has quoted extensively.  Here it is:  The Advocate:  August 2, 2006 It strikes me that there are three  things important to do.  First, to separate out the part of the article which is about the Round Hill Country Club from the part which is about a country club which has no connection with Lamont.  Why the original author included it I don't know.  Second, evaluate whether what the Advocate reporter calls "limited success" falls within a reasonable definition of "success" at all, and third, read the whole article.  The last third of it which Mary does not quote is critical of Lieberman and Supportive of Lamont. 

By now, I suppose everyone who reads in TPM Café has a fair idea about the qualities and capabilities of the candidates.  For those who might want to read further, I suggest an Article by Alison Cowan in the New York Times:  Lieberman Uses Rival’s Wealth as Issue in Race (August 3, 2008) a backgrounder by Susan Haigh appearing at CT Central entitled Deep-pocketed, political novice looks to take Lieberman's job  another backgrounder entitled See Ned Run from by Brita Belli in the New Haven Advocate, and an editorial from the Journal Inquirer entitled Grace of Office.  

aMike

When one posts the same cherry-picked article without linking it, and the same poorly reasoned, incorrect conclusions throughout several threads, isn't that considered SPAMming?

Thanks to aMike for putting up the link for others. I have rarely seen such dishonesty at TPM Cafe as Mary's post has proven to be.

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Y'know I think a much better username for you would be drone.. all you basically do is serve one purpose.. hardly comparable with work ;)

What's the matter, is it too strenuous for you to use a search engine? Try using the string Connecticut Advocate Lamont Round Hill (I forgot to include the url), were you not such a pathetic propagandist, I would have googled it again and included it.

But what I posted wasn't some kind of cherry picking, it was an entire section from the two page article that dealt with the very real fact that Round Hill country club was and is a racist country club, and it didn't bother old Neddy one bit until he decided to move on up to some equally racist establishment once drones like yourself provided him the opportunity to consider it. He won't get the chance, but even if he were, it wouldn't trouble the racist, classist oinks who make up the Lamontster contingent.

Try anger management.

I didn't need to google, I have the Stamford Advocate right here on my desk. That is why I put the link up in the other thread you spammed this cherry-picked and misleading selection on.

It was hardly representative of what the article actually said and at this point, obviously dishonest. If you do not want folks calling you on this type of thing, simply avoid doing it.

BTW," Lamonsters" and" drone" show that your level of discourse is rather at the gutter level. Sure you're a Democrat? Usually it''s the GOPUSA operatives that use first names like carol, or judy--or mary. They are generally quite shrill and dishonest, too. Is there a class you people take?

I really don't understand who you think you're fooling.

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Sight correction. "The Other Club" was accused of being anti-semitic, not racist. Round Hill has no history of any types of actions against it except by one ex-employee. Whether the complaint had to do with race wasn't stated.It had nothing, however to do with membership.

Maybe you ought to read the whole article. Not just the parts that suit your agenda.

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Is no one aware that the Democrats lost the last three elections only because the electronic voting machines were rigged?

Yes we are aware. I have believed that the only reason the Dems are quiet is because they now know how to rigg the election and win.

the view that seems 50 years out of date is that the club was exclusive. It wasn't. Just expensive.

Hardly. Financial affordibility (expensive) has long been a bar to foster and  maintain racial and social exclusivity and is quite common even today so as to only have members of a certain family bkgrd and/or financial status.

Even Lamont acknowledged that.

Afterall, 55K for membership is waaay mroe than expensive, it is downright exclusionary. Which was the entire point of the flyer. i.e. the Lamont family does not even socialize with people not of their 'social status' for things like 'summer camp and swimming and tennis' or what you refer to as Y activities.

The membership screams social elitism. Since blacks have not ever been considered part of the monied social elite, it would not seem wise to endorse a candidate that can't even be bothered to socialize outside his own insular monied exclusive country club existence.

That might be true if Joe was anything approaching "independent."

He's a kiss-ass. So, yeah. You folks don't know Connecticut.

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Let me make a small correction.  The $55,000.00 initiation fee is that of Innes Arden Country Club.  Round Hill might be even more expensive for all I know.  All of this confusion can be traced back to the original article, which conflates examples from a number of Greenwich country clubs.  In fact, of the three principal examples, none of them happened at Round Hill:

• The initiation fee mentioned was Innes Arden's
• The Essay by Lawrence Otis Graham in 1992 concerned events at Greenwich Country Club
• The alleged anti-Semitism happened at Belle Haven Country Club

Why the reporter did this I don't know.  It may simply be that Round Hill was inaccessible to him, and he felt the need to add a few "facts" to give his story a sense of authority.

You're absolutely right about the elitism, though.  However, without evidence, we can't say how much of this is race and how much of this is class, pure and simple.  The black moneyed class is undeniably small, but it does exist. Bob Johnson and Debra Lee of the Black Entertainment Network are hardly typical of Black America.  PBS produced a very interesting documentary, People Like Us, which tracked the parallel social structures in white and black America. 

But then, for that matter, Ned Lamont or Joseph Lieberman or any white member or wanna-be member of the Senate is economically typical of White America.  There's a reason why Congress is sometimes referred to as the Millionaire's Club.  The point is that while every American Politician tries to come off as "jes' folks", few of them fit the bill.  I think Lamont got caught through his own inexperience and the inexperience of his campaign manager, rather than because of any special malevolent spirit on his part.  He'd have been smarter simply admitting to money, showing the good things he's done with it, and refusing to rise to the bait.

Anyhow, if this story has legs, some reporter more enterprising and persistent than Brian Lockhart will disentangle the real story about Round Hill and present conclusive evidence about its diversity (racial and ethnic...nobody expects a country club to be diverse in class) or lack of same.  There are some wealthy black families in Greenwich... not many, but some.  The American FactFinder is a useful source for ferreting out information like this, Factfinder has mapping capabilities by race and income at the census bloc level.  Comparisons of the resulting maps gives some rough indication of where families fitting certain demographic characteristics live. 

aMike

 The point is that while every American Politician tries to come off as "jes' folks", few of them fit the bill. 

I agree with that entire post Mike.

amike - this is what moderate, reasonable skepticism looks like.

Mary, take notes.