A brief scan of the political news these days makes clear that politicians and pundits in Washington are getting very frightened about the grassroots activism boiling outside the Beltway - and now they are getting really desperate. David Broder and David Brooks now regularly use their columns to attack activists who have the nerve to get involved in their own democracy. And now, today, we see New York Sen. Chuck Schumer (D) is jumping into the fray as well.

Schumer, a consummate Washington insider, is now using his position as head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee to try to crush his own party's activists in Connecticut. According to Time Magazine, Schumer has pressed Senate candidate Ned Lamont (D) to abandon his run against Sen. Joe Lieberman (D) - the Democratic incumbent who has repeatedly and destructively undermined the Democratic Party for years. Schumer has also said he would consider backing Lieberman's bid for re-election even if Lieberman leaves the Democratic Party.

None of this is surprising. Schumer's been a Washington politician for decades - and grassroots energy frightens people like him. But what is surprising is how Schumer has become so desperate, he is now flinging out wild stories to justify his actions. Time reports that "Schumer has told colleagues he thinks that if Lieberman lost the primary, it would send a bad signal to moderate voters and might hurt the party's chances of winning Senate seats in places like Montana and Missouri in November."

One of two things explains this comment - either Schumer is even more out of touch with American politics than previously thought, or he's so desperate he's resorted to fabricating patently laughable stories to justify his nauseating behavior. It is definitely possible Schumer is totally and completely out of touch - he's made similar comments in the past that expose him as having positively no understanding of anything that goes on outside his insulated world in Washington. And self-important politicians and political operatives in our nation's capital do have a tendency to believe ordinary voters are super keyed into the minutia of politics - often making these insiders look particularly stupid and more out of touch.

But I believe Schumer's just desperate, and thus resorting to open dishonesty - because I just can't believe he could be so intellectually impaired that he actually believes Joe Lieberman losing would imperil Democrats chances in states thousands of miles away from Connecticut, with totally different political dynamics. The idea that a voter in, say, the critical swing area of Yellowstone County here in Montana is going to vote against Jon Tester in November because Joe Lieberman was defeated in a Democratic primary in August is beyond the scope of what can even be called "totally absurd" - it's an out and out lie, and one that could only be mouthed with a straight face in a place as sadly comical as Washington, D.C. is today.

Here's the deal: what's going on in Connecticut is good for the Democratic Party and good for democracy. No politician - not Joe Lieberman, not Chuck Schumer - owns a congressional seat. We the people do, and thankfully, at least some courageous Democrats like Sen. Russ Feingold (D) understand that and are willing to use their position to give voice to that truism (he was on TV today talking about the Lamont-Liberman primary). When incumbents get challenged by courageous people like Ned Lamont because those incumbents are selling out America, that's democracy in action. And any politician or political operative who tries to thwart that contest shows an ugly contempt for the democratic tradition our country was built on.

chumer claims to be concerned with winning elections - but what he's really concerned about is holding onto his and his insulated colleagues increasingly dwindling hold on power. What will help Democrats win elections will be a surge in grassroots energy and a reengaged corps of activists who are working to take their party and country back - energy like we are seeing in Connecticut. What will hurt Democrats ability to win elections is New York Senators sitting in their comfortable offices in Washington, D.C. embarrassing themselves by making statements that show their isolation from America's heartland and using their quickly fading power to try to depress the grassroots energy that makes all the difference at the ballot box.

David Sirota is a writer and veteran political strategist. He just completed a book for Random House's Crown Publishers entitled "Hostile Takeover." Sirota is currently the co-chairperson of the Progressive Legislative Action Network (PLAN). - a position he took after finishing a two-year stint at the Center for American Progress. Sirota is currently a Senior Editor at In These Times magazine, and a regular contributor to The Nation magazine.

© 2006 Working Assets

###