Campaign Watch: Incumbents Beware

from Conservation Council insider:

2006 is not the year of the happy camper electorate. Not just one, but three Congressional incumbents went down in party primaries around the country this Tuesday (one each in the very different states of Connecticut, Georgia, and Michigan).
The Democratic primary defeat of incumbent Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT) was certainly the most intensely-watched race of the week. Three-term (18 years) incumbent Lieberman, his party’s nominee for vice president just six years ago, lost his bid for re-nomination to businessman Ned Lamont, a political unknown just three months ago. Among the national pundits there has been much weeping and wailing about the voters’ attack on "bipartisanship" in Lieberman’s woes. The other side has responded bluntly that voters should not feel obligated to back a candidate who so strongly departed from their views on a central moral and practical issue of the time (in this case, the Iraq war). In either event, though, the outcome in a fairly high-turnout party primary spoke much of the strength of voters’ anger with the quality of their current representation.
Yes, we are aware that Lieberman has now filed a petition to run as an independent in November, despite losing his party’s nomination fight. And in Connecticut, where more voters list themselves as unaffiliated than register with either political party, he could win. However, trends indicate that voter attitudes are not heading that way at this point.
Instead, political observers suggest that polls are showing an increasing trend toward a "throw the bums out" year. It’s fairly typical for voters in responding to polls to express dissatisfaction with Congress while approving of their own Congressional representative. The difference this year is a rising degree of disapproval by polled voters of their own representative, especially in the 48 or so potentially competitive House races around the country.
The implications to national environmental policy of a shift in control of the House are enormous. The current House leadership has represented a nightmare in environmental issue terms of a degree that has not been seen or imagined in decades. With almost three months to go in the campaign season, however, it is too soon to project whether such a dramatic shift will take place.