Not to be forgotten as the Connecticut Primary votes are counted

(Written after the polls closed in CT, but before the votes were counted.)

Tomorrow morning's Conventional Wisdom--no matter whether Leiberman or Lamont wins the CT Democratic primary--will be about bloggers, Iraq, the 1968 and 1972 elections, and other usual suspects. (TJ righteously excoriates The Big O for echoing the kind of analysis that Beltway Insiders are perpetuating simply--as Gov. William J. LePetomaine would say--to protect their phony-baloney jobs.)

But, First Amendment kind of guy that I am, I am compelled to point out an important theme in the Connecticut Democratic primary, one that's getting far too little play. A Lamont victory over Lieberman--hell, simply the fact that Lamont has already clearly scared the bejeezus out of a 3-term Senator and former VP candidate--represents a backlash against the pernicious power of incumbency in national-level politics. And a good thing, too.

Part of the reason Lieberman is looking at the very real possibility of a primary loss tonight (as well as the reason he's claiming he'll run as an Independent in November--in a party named after himself--if he does lose) is because members of Congress, as well as their Beltway cocktail party confreres, assume that once they've been elected to office the position is theirs until death takes them.

Quoth Glenn Greenwald in yesterday's Salon.com:

There are few positions that offer greater job security than being an incumbent member of the U.S. Congress. The reelection rate for incumbents in the House is now 98 percent, a figure that would create envy even among 1970s Politburo members. It is extremely rare for a three-term senator to lose an election, let alone lose to a primary challenger from his or her own party.

For some time now, this has been one of the greatest and most frustrating contradictions in our political system. Americans are overwhelmingly dissatisfied with, even contemptuous of, Congress, yet they continue to reelect the same representatives over and over, making reelection effectively automatic.

It is not hyperbole to describe a Lieberman defeat as an earthquake for the political establishment -- which is why virtually all members of that establishment, from both political parties and from its pundit class, have been enthusiastically supporting Lieberman. More than any other factor, what enables elected officials to be so unresponsive to the views of those whom they ostensibly represent is that their incumbency advantage effectively eliminates the fear of being removed from office.

The supremacy of incumbency has given birth to a more or less permanent Beltway class that views its power as an entitlement, something that its members have the divine right to possess until they choose to relinquish it. It is that aristocratic mindset that explains the bizarre sense of anger and offense triggered among the political and pundit classes -- and within Lieberman himself -- by Ned Lamont's aggressive primary challenge. The effort to defeat Joe Lieberman was considered to be improper, uncouth, even somehow undemocratic by those most entrenched in our stagnant, plodding, virtually immovable political structures.

Beyond striking a blow against the Iraq war and the neoconservatives who are responsible for it, a Lamont victory would deal a hard blow to the power of incumbency and the entitlement mindset it has spawned. It would be seen, rightfully so, as a repudiation of the Beltway pundit and political classes that, from the start and with virtual unanimity, viewed the Lamont challenge with scorn, as a distasteful rebellion by the crazed, dirty, unenlightened masses. The most important impact of a Lamont win is that it would shake the foundations of a self-contained Beltway political structure that is as unresponsive as it is corrupt at its core.

I support measures to limit the incredibly lopsided advantage of incumbency, starting with publicly financed elections. And, truth be told, I support giving free air-time to qualified candidates, to the horror of radio and TV stations who make a fortune selling publicly-owned airwaves back to us in the form of campaign ads every 2 years. (It is, I grant you, a comfortable position to support since it will never, ever, ever come anywhere close to enactment.)

I don't support term limits, even though they're generally enacted in the name of equalizing the playing field, because in fact they throw the baby out with the bathwater. If you're tired of seeing the same people elected over and over, lower the barriers to entry for viable challengers, rather than forcing out office-holders without regard to whether they still have their constituents' support.

And that also means--as shocking as this evidently is to Cokie Roberts, Joe Lieberman, and the editors of The Oregonian--allowing Democrats to challenge other Democrats in Democratic primaries.

Shocking thought.

Especially since polling results indicate that incumbency may not be the great deal-breaker it's been for sometime now:

Especially worrisome for members of Congress is that the proportion of Americans who approve of their own representative's performance has fallen sharply. Traditionally, voters may express disapproval of Congress as a whole but still vote for their own member, even from the majority party. But 55 percent now approve of their lawmaker, a seven-percentage-point drop over three months and the lowest such finding since 1994, the last time control of the House switched parties.

Members of Congress actually having to defend their phony-baloney jobs. What a concept.