Oh, Lord! Connecticut's Gonna Blow!

So says Michael Scherer, who apparently feels scenes of mass rioting are just around the corner. He says so in a post on Salon's War Room Blog today.

Meanwhile, Democratic activists in Connecticut continued to focus their political fury on one of their own, pushing the party ever closer to a repeat of the self-immolating 1968 nominating convention in Chicago. As Lieberman campaigned at a Fourth of July parade in Willimantic, he was dogged by chants of "traitor" and "shame on you."

One can only imagine all the celebratory BlackBerry messages bouncing back and forth between Karl Rove and Ken Mehlman.

This has a long-suffering tone of sorrow to it. Could Scherer be one of those who honestly believe "unity" is the much-sought key to Democratic victory? Possibly. But those two paragraphs are simple hyperbole, and I bet Scherer knows it. The only thing in Connecticut threatened with immolation is Lieberman's congressional career. And let's be honest, that's not exactly a tragedy. I don't care what anyone thinks about Lieberman, the fact is he's spent the past five years burning the Democrats time and time again. That Democratic voters in Connecticut are angry is understandable. They're paying attention. They're holding him accountable. Well and good. Lieberman says he wants a chance to argue his case to the voters. Also, well and good. I have no problem with any of this.

The fact is, the process is working the way it should. Except .... well except for the fact that the DSCC had to hint that its members would put the political future of a buddy ahead of the interests of the Democratic Party. That was wrong, and they've since corrected their stance by saying they'll support the Democratic nominee. All is as it should be at this point.

But note what Scherer does here. Whether deliberately or not, he's playing to a stereotype of Democratic activists as wild-eyed radicals. If there's anything Rove and Mehlmann love its this sort of stereotyping because it supports their efforts to marginalize liberal activists. He compares activists in 2006 in Connecticut with activists in Chicago in 1968. By doing this he plays to a media-created caricature of the activists of the '60s and then ties that caricature to politically active people in the Democratic Party today.

Beltway conventional wisdom holds the Democrats divided, but the majority are speaking with one voice. And what would Scherer? That the majority silence their criticisms in the name of unity? That the majority force the minority into silence? Either would prove far more destructive to the principles and values of the Democratic Party than a little dissension.

The trick here is not to engage in hyperbole. The goal must be to bring people together based on common values and interests. Any attempt to rally the troops with a cry to bring down the Republicans at any cost is going to fail, and in the process demoralize the majority of Democrats who know what their values are and desire to cast their votes for candidates who hold those same values.

Those Democratic activists in Connecticut appear to be making that happen. That's all to the good and what elections in America are, or should be, about.