Classical Values :: Activists say "buy!" (But people aren't buying.)

Activists say "buy!" (But people aren't buying.)

Even though the activists are telling people to buy the book, Sean Kinsell is not terribly impressed by New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey.

One wonders whether this joker has any deep convictions at all.

Well, at least he was secretly for gay marriage before he said he was openly against it (but only because he "had" to).

According to Monica Yant Kinney (whose previous column on McGreevey I praised), the McGreevey book is doing more poorly than expected, and I don't think it's because of "mean-spirited homophobia," but because at least as many people find McGreevey's opportunism distasteful as find the details of his sex life boring.

McGreevey conned everyone, and now he's trying to con them again. Why a corrupt ex-governor should morph directly into a "gay leader" in spite of his corruption escapes me completely.

People aren't buying. No surprise.

Then there's Senator Lieberman's ten point lead. I wonder.... Might this be the Schwarzenegger factor again? Might that be a phenomenon that isn't limited to either party? Might it arise spontaneously as a result of seething discontent over conventional politics? Whatever is happening, the voters aren't buying what the activists want them to buy:

Lieberman, a three-term Democrat running as an independent after losing the party nomination in a primary, is favored by 49 percent to 39 percent over Lamont in the three-way race. Republican Alan Schlesinger trails with 5 percent.

The race has tightened slightly since an Aug. 17 poll that showed Lieberman leading 53 percent to 41 percent.

"Ned Lamont has lost momentum," said poll director Douglas Schwartz said. "He's gained only two points in six weeks. He's going to have to do something different in the next six weeks or ... Lieberman stays in for another six years."

The race is seen as many as a referendum on President Bush's handling of the Iraq war.

Really? I don't think it's a referendum on the war so much as a referendum on political partisanship. More and more ordinary Americans are sick to death of of activist-dominated politics (characterized as it is by vicious infighting and ad hominem attacks) and it strikes me that this is one of the few times they've been given a chance to say so.

A recurrent theme in American politics is that people don't like being had. But they're also wary of being told that they've "been had," because that's just one more way of being had. More than one huckster has been elected by exploiting anti-incumbent sentiments, and I think Connecticut voters see through the latest variation on this theme.

MORE: Roger L. Simon has an interview with Senator Lieberman. (It's been linked by Drudge, so keep trying.)