Centerfield

Here is a problem that I have with the analysis of Lieberman. It's easy to say that the "nutroots" made a mistake in taking Lieberman out. Personally, I would have voted for Lieberman myself. On the other hand, if you are strongly against the war and the vast majority of the party is against the war, why wouldn't you want someone that reflects the preferences of the party--especially if the war is increasingly unpopular throughout the general population?

I understand the argument that you shouldn't fixate on a single issue. But, what if that issue is integral to your conception of the party? For example, what if a GOP candidate in a liberal state ran (explicitly)on a platform of bashing business and advocating increased regulation. Wouldn't the party loyalists be justified in saying, hey, this guy isn't really a Republican and we don't want him representing the party?

It seems to me that the problem here is that most people at this blog either support the war or,at least, are ambiguous about it. But if you really think the war is a terrible mistake (and, despite what some here thing, you don't have to be a radical leftist to think so)and out of line with the party generally, is it really so awful to say, this guy is so wrong on a major issue that we have to dump him.

I don't like the netroots and, as I said, I would probably have voted for Lieberman even though I think the war is a mistake. But, frankly, I can understand why a lot of people (not just netroots) wanted him out. That's called democracy. It is possible to be right on most things, but so wrong on one big issue that it cancels everything else out. (E.g., when Grady Little left Pedro Martinez in against the Yankees, he deserved to be fired even though he probably made a lot of good decisions.)

Posted by: Marc at August 17, 2006 03:10 PM

Bad analogy. If you watched almost every game of the 2003 season like me, you'd know that our bullpen sucked for most of the season, and that leaving your best pitcher, although just about out of gas, in the game in a tight spot was a pretty defensible move. No one ever remembers that in the next 2 batters Pedro Martinez faced that 1)Matsui hit a pretty good pitch, and 2) the game tying hit was a weak blooper that fell in.

This has been compounded by the idiocy of showing a recreated "what if" game that the Red Sox "won" by replacing Pedro with Mike Timlin, using probability data. 2 points here:

#1 Mike Timlin is not so great at preventing inherited runners
from scoring, his strength is pitching one scoreless inning.

#2) if you used probability to run a zillion simulations that asked "what if Grady Little left Pedro in the game," they'd also show that we won. Because outs are more likely than hits. The actual outcome of the Yankees tying the game was itself improbable. But improbable things happen. Boo hoo. I never blamed Grady Little or Pedro. It was either fate or luck, which are likely the same thing. Besides, 2003 made 2004 undeniably sweeter.

Most fans didn't see it that way. The right reason to fire Grady Little was because you can't fire the fans.

Bobby, if you are listening, how do you guys like Grady Little? I always thought that he was a pretty good manager, and in particular, I thought that he had an extremely good sense of when a pitcher was done, and seldom hesitated with the hook. This held true until over the course of a season's worth of wretched bullpen failures, he came to rely more on his starters. Not because he wanted to, but because it was the superior option from among the crappier ones available to hope that his starter had enough gas left to get another couple outs.

Posted by: bk at August 17, 2006 04:27 PM

Marc,

As a war-supporter this analysis may be a bit biased, but I think the idea that opposition to the war is enough to throw out a seasoned, principled leader who supports all the key issues, for an untested amateur is appalling to some of us. The single-issue candidacy lunacy is not something easily overlooked. Of course, there are clear exceptions.

But, as I think about it, perhpas the real problem really is that the Democratic base has chosen the anti-war side. Perhpas the problem isn't how the choice was made, but the choice itself, and why it was made. Has the Democratic Party really become the anti-war Party, at least in Connecticut? Who knows?

Posted by: Rafique Tucker at August 17, 2006 04:30 PM

You know what, on second thought, I think the real problem (at least as far as I'm concerned), is not that the Lamontites are opposed to Iraq, but reather how intensely they are opposed, without alternatives. It's not rational, IMO. Again, I'm pro-war, so I'm biased, but I don't think most of the country is reflexively anti-war, and that's Lamont's constituency.

Posted by: Rafique Tucker at August 17, 2006 04:37 PM

Does anyone else think that Grady Little sounds like Forest Gump? I'm sorry, off topic I know, but I could listen to that guy for hours and not get bored.

Again, I'm pro-war

I love that kind of honesty, Rafique!

Posted by: Mathew at August 17, 2006 04:53 PM

I like Grady Little, although it's hard to say that he's really had much of an influence over the wins or the losses. It's hard to argue against his style or any of his particular managerial decisions. During our 1-13 post-All Star break slump, it was hard to isolate any particular decisions that he had made and blame the loss on him. On the other hand, in our 17-2 post-slump renaissance, it's hard to find individual decisions he made that can credit him with turning a defeat into a victory.

In LA, at least, he's done an admirable job of using his bullpen-by-committee (something that I know he wasn't fond of in Boston), making good use of Takashi Saito, Jon Broxton, and whomever else he happens to have on any given night. And, with regards to starting pitchers, if anything, he's probably been criticized for pulling them out too soon rather than too late -- mosrt recently with Greg Maddux in his six inning no-hit performance against Cincinnati and in his 68-pitch eight shutout inning against the Giants. In both cases, though, a reasonable case could be made for the hook (in the first, there had been rain delays and Maddux asked for relief; in the second, there was a runner in scoring position in a 0-0 game and the pinch hitter had a reasonable chance of bringing home the winning run... of course, he didn't because, as Brian points out, outs are about twice as likely as hits, even when the league's best hitter is at the plate).

As for the whole anti-war movement, I understand their anger and frustration, I just think they're extremely misguided and that their "solution" (i.e., an immediate withdrawal) would cause far more strategic problems than it would solve. Thus, to me, Lamont and the other wizards of the anti-war movement are much more demoagogues peddling false hope than they are advocates of a sound strategic alternative to the Administration.

Posted by: Bobby at August 17, 2006 07:16 PM

I wouldn't read too much into those Democratic "endorsements" of Lamont. These people are merely giving lip service to the nutroots so as to not infuriate them further (and a few Democrats have presidential ambitions to boot). I don't expect them to do much if anything to help Nutroots Ned.

They will focus their energy on competitive Senate and House races.

Let's face it: Lieberman was always going to win this seat, and as a liberal Democrat I am furious the left fringe decided to backstab and undercut an established senator by way of lies and character assassination.

Posted by: Susan Nunes at August 17, 2006 07:36 PM

Thans for inside scoop Bobby. If it comes up again about Grady,. and someone says he has a quick hook NOW in the wake of the Pedro controversy, tell 'em you have it from a reliable source that it aint so. Grady has a good sense of red flags with starters, and if he's comfortable with his other options, he'll go right out and get a guy if, say, he shows signs of losing his command. IMO, that's the big red flag. When a pitcher starts to tire, the command usually goes first, because he has to try harder to get the same velocity, and that throws his mechanics off. Personally,. I like a manager to start looking at a guy with a careful eye when he reaches 80 pitches, So for example, if a guy has thrown 94 pitches in 6 innings and then he walks the first guy in the 7th inning including a pitch or two that missed badly, or if the guy worked a walk after 10 or 11 pitches, just go get him. He's done his job.

I also agree about the manager getting too much blame or credit. It's usually the players, but jockocracy critics love hindsight-fueled manager nitpicking. I have the same sympathy for baseball managers that I come to have for most presidents, whether I personally like them or regard them highly. Everyone else is watching, and everyone else thinks they can do better.

Posted by: bk at August 18, 2006 09:15 AM

Well, it's true the Red Sox bullpen had pitched poorly for most of the season, but it had been pitching much better at the end of the season and in the playoffs. Pedro by that time was pretty much known to be a 6-7 inning pitcher after which his effectiveness declined substantially. I understand that Little was reluctant to take out his ace for a bullpen that was still questionable, but it was pretty clear that you were going to have to go to the bullpen at some point anyway.

Posted by: Marc at August 18, 2006 11:56 AM

The thing that always gets me is the "team chemistry" bit. We know it's there, but we don't know how to measure it, and there's tendency to overvalue or devalue it based on what might otherwise be talent.

For example, when the Dodgers were in their 1-13 slump, Brad Penny gave up six straight hits, went into the dugout, and yelled at Kenny Lofton for not fielding some of those hits. ESPN and the other sports commentators blared it across their highlights and demonstrated how the Dodger team chemistry had evaporated and that Little had lost control of the team.

Literally days later, the Dodgers would go 17-2 and now no one's talking about the whole "team chemistry" bit. It's like one of those catch-all forumulas that commentators use to justify their positions, and that's why it's amusing to hear people talking about it definitively.

Posted by: Bobby at August 18, 2006 12:09 PM

The democrats could win every single senate seat in contention as well as add thirty house seats and we still wouldn't be out of Iraq before next June. The Bush administration isn't going to suddenly pick a democrat as his secretary of defense to run the war simply because they take over the congress. The one thing that a switch in power will accomplish is that it will force the administration to actually perform competantly or else explain why they couldn't to a sceptical audience. The Republicans in congress have given the administration a free pass. This isn't exactly a rare view, as even sizeable minorities of republicans believe that Democrats are more likely to hold the administration accountable for their mistakes in Iraq.

As far as lieberman goes, his support has been dropping among independants and democrats, losing 10 and 26 percent respectively. As endorsements from Hannity, Coulter and the RNC keep pouring in, they'll continue to drop as they reinforce the most effective attacks against him from the primary. The thing putting him in the lead right now is the fact that he is getting upwards of 80% of the Republican vote.

While criticising single issue campaigns is fine, the war was only the most important issue of the race. Other issues came up, but were rightly seen as less important. However, just because these issues were seen as less important than the war does not mean that they didn't exist. Less than half of the Lamont vote was solely motivated by the war. Instead it was a combination of factors including Lieberman's behavior in 2000, the bankrupcy bill, and weakness on social security and judicial nominations.

Posted by: Chris P at August 18, 2006 01:43 PM

Well, I think that a majority of anti-war politicos-- from either or both parties-- in the House/Senate could adversely affect our strategic interests, since they control the purse strings, could set time tables, and send conflicting messages abroad (among other things). Moreover, as the only regular on this blog whose actually involved with the overseas mission, I think there's a very mistaken tendency for Americans to think the Administration is playing all the cards when, in fact, much of the hands are being dealt to-- and therefore "reform" needs to occur at-- the operational and tactical levels. That would be true even if/when the Democrats had/have control of both legislative houses and the White House-- you'll see. I find it sad (if somewhat amusing) that people honestly think, say, MG Odierno's insistence upon pursuing a conventional strategy or LTG Petraeus' focus on classic counterinsurgency strategy are things that are being dictated by the White House or the Pentagon.

But that said, my bigger fear is that the 2006 elections will sweep in a lot of anti-war Democrats, sending a signal to the Democratic Presidential candidates that they need to to tilt Left in order to win their party's nomination. That could force the country into voting for the popular position-- which is our right as a democracy-- but let's not fool ourselves into thinking that the popular decision is always necessarily the strategically wise one. It's not. Interestingly, when it comes to strategy (unlike natural disasters), catastrophes are usually a cumulative development and not something that emerges overnight. So, in my opinion, pretending that an anti-war House and Senate will create no strategic vulnerabilities is downright naive.

But what do I know.

Posted by: Bobby at August 19, 2006 12:44 AM

Marc;

I can understand why a lot of people (not just netroots) wanted him out. That's called democracy. It is possible to be right on most things, but so wrong on one big issue that it cancels everything else out.

I always look for opportunities to point out when we agree. I agree with you on this one. I'd probably spin the so wrong part by saying those voting felt it was wrong. Son of gun, politics "rears it ugly head again" but hey, that's the way the system works.

AS the for the polls, its been said far too many times but the key "poll" comes up on the 1st Tuesday of November. Doing post-mortems now should alway engender that classic Monty Python line

"I'm not dead yet!"

Posted by: c3 at August 19, 2006 01:39 PM