Articles by David Roberts

Blair’s rigged energy review

Remember the comprehensive energy review (PDF) done by Tony Blair's UK government about a month ago? The one that concluded that nuclear power is peachy, which coincidentally was a position Blair had been propounding for months beforehand?

Well, check this out:

More on Lieberman stuff

Last night I wrote about Lieberman's loss, the growing split between interest-group-based "checklist liberalism" and progressive movement-building, and the implications of both for environmentalists.

Today, Garance Franke-Ruta adds some thoughts:

What would a Lieberman loss mean for enviros?

So, Lamont won (because, Lieberman said somewhat comically, of the "old politics of partisan polarization." Partisans in a Democratic primary? Forfend!).

Lieberman will run in the general as a third-party candidate. Conventional wisdom before the primary was that Lieberman could easily win a three-way race. Then as Lamont gained, CW shifted a bit, saying if Lieberman got creamed he would be abandoned. But Lieberman didn't get creamed, he lost narrowly. So no one knows what will happen. If Lieberman can persuade a few high-profile Dems to keep supporting him, it could work. But if they all publicly abandon him, he could flame out badly.

I won't get too much into What It All Means. There's been reams of commentary about this race -- more than it warrants, probably, and most of it, especially from the Beltway media establishment, insipid. You can find plenty with a simple search. For a sober and insightful take, check out Mark Schmitt's posts on the subject.

One thing Schmitt says -- echoed in this NYT commentary by Noam Scheiber -- is that Dem candidates can no longer get by on "checklist liberalism," the careful cultivation of the disparate interest groups that make up the left (at least those that happen to concentrate in a given candidate's state). Lieberman said:

Lamont wins Connecticut Dem primary

At the moment I write this, with 96.79% of precincts reporting, Ned Lamont leads Joe Lieberman 51.85% to 48.15%, which means the Connecticut Democratic primary is effectively over, and Lamont is the winner.

The non-political junkies among you are likely wondering, "who cares?"

Well, it's a huge deal on the left. No one has yet speculated on what it might mean for environmentalists. I shall fill that vital punditry gap later this evening.