In the Southern Connecticut Newspapers, Mark Ginocchio writes about the difficulty Diane Farrell created for herself when she joined the legions of Connecticut's Democratic power brokers endorsing the re-election of Senator Lieberman
In her failed attempt to unseat Republican U.S. Representative Christopher Shays, Farrell relentlessly criticized Shays' support of the war in Iraq. Farrell is doing the same in her repeat effort to beat Shays.
Farrell is being criticized as hypocritical for supporting Lieberman:
"She loses some legitimacy" by endorsing Lieberman, said Ken Dautrich, a professor of public policy at the University of Connecticut. "She lost an opportunity to make a real statement."
Gary Rose, professor and chairman of the department of government and policy at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, said the endorsement makes Farrell appear inconsistent.
"This could be perceived as a flip-flop and could potentially hurt her" in the election, Rose said.
Farrell justified endorsing Lieberman by saying she and the senator agree on many other issues:
"Joe is a longtime friend and he has endorsed me and my campaign in the past," Farrell said in a telephone interview last week. "We'll have to agree to disagree on the war . . . but we agree on so many other issues" such as women's privacy rights, the Family Leave Act and fair wages.
The far left wing of the Democratic party is making a huge mistake by trying to intimidate the party into a unified and dissent free anti-war fringe group. Those criticizing Farrell for supporting Lieberman are doing the Democratic Party a disservice. If the Democratic Party becomes the single issue, anti-war party the extreme left wing wants, it may well face another massacre like the failed McGovern presidential campaign.
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