Vote for Lieberman?(on the right)(Joseph I.Lieberman)

NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 26.

THE question most frequently asked in Connecticut of rightwing voters is: Whom do you intend to vote for on November 7? There are only two patriotic answers to that, but hang on as the drama unfolds.

Voting is what you do every two years--and then, mostly, repine, wondering whether democracy really does anything for you beyond giving that little throb of tactile pleasure in recording your enthusiasm for one candidate or--and this pleasure is very keen--your loathing for another candidate. That last is a vital contribution to democratic hygiene, effected by candidates who arouse every hate gland in your withered frame, thereby offering a pure draught of remedial youthful joy, and you leave the voting booth humming "John Brown's Body."

The all-time generator of negative conservative satisfactions was Lowell Weicker. He was first senator from Connecticut, then governor. He was the King of Schadenfreude: dispenser of the nectar of health & satisfaction when we conservatives had a chance to vote against him. It is a prime chapter in this narrative that the man who defeated Weicker in 1988 was none other than--Joe Lieberman. That adds up to a huge debt to Lieberman felt by Connecticut conservatives.

Now three alternatives are offered to the voters in November. One of them is to vote for the Democratic nominee, Ned Lamont, who defeated Lieberman in the primary.

Ned Lamont hasn't been around long enough to generate true 100 proof animosity. But he is off to a very good start. He has criticized everything President Bush has done and said respecting our presence in Iraq and has associated himself with the national left-wing opposition to a foreign policy that seeks to confront anti-American activity abroad and to intervene where necessary to interrupt the evolution of terrorism.

This makes the critical difference in contemporary politics, in Connecticut and elsewhere. Irrespective of one's position on the Iraq campaign, do we want to endorse a neoisolationist removal from the world scene? Such a movement as would satisfy MoveOn.org? Those are the people so enthusiastic about the defeat of Lieberman, which practically speaking can't be done without electing Lamont.