By now, Joe Lieberman is a cautionary tale. While headlines across the nation were last week splashed with news of a Connecticut primary turned wildly incomprehensible, the Democratic Party is now left to consider what the defeat of a powerful and nationally prominent Senator bodes to the future of the party.

Simply put, it doesn't bode well. Ned Lamont owes his defeat of the established incumbent largely to the efforts Political Action Committees like Moveon.org. Unfortunately, these PACs sunk to the same dirty tactics the Democrats found so reprehensible in President Bush's primary race against John McCain in 2000 and again in the anti-John Kerry Swift Boat Vets for Truth campaign of 2004. Moving to the extreme of the party, Lamont and Moveon attacked Lieberman for being too moderate, too compromising. Lamont attacked on one issue - the war in Iraq - and in the end, that was enough to put Lieberman's formidable career in limbo.

What this bodes then speaks to more than the future of the Democratic Party - it tells of the entire nation's political climate. More and more, politicians win by making the fringe of their party the base of their elections, but representative government wasn't made for ideologues unwilling to compromise.

For example, take Lamont. Assuming the anti-war campaigner makes it to Washington (and, understand, that's a big assumption), as a freshman senator, he will hold not a fraction of the power Lieberman would have had. No matter how deep his conviction against the reprehensible war may go, he cannot end it alone. The people of Connecticut will have someone speaking for them on this issue, but without a strong voice, how far will that message go?

And while the war in Iraq remains without question an enduring political ill, while the issue demands a resolution because it plays a large role in our nation's problems at home and abroad, it is ultimately but one issue. What the Democrats have won in anti-war rhetoric, they have lost disproportionately in power. Lieberman is a social liberal, and his long tenure in the Senate has won him friends across the aisle and the ability to pass progressive legislation. The price of this one plank may mean a great blow to the rest of the Democratic platform.

The Democrats are admittedly at the disadvantage, with a minority in both houses and facing increasing pressure from their base to resist being bulldozed by the Republicans. But the solution cannot be to elect fresh faces angry and untainted by that particular smear of compromise that comes from any productive career in Washington. Nor can they continue this progression to make the war in Iraq a litmus test for politicians, lest they risk losing more of their most powerful allies. From preliminary polls, it appears that Lieberman the independent has a strong chance of re-election. And where would that leave the Democrats, having betrayed one of their most-respected leaders, only to have him reclaim the seat but this time, without any party obligations?

Primarily, Republicans are the ones who have been guilty of this in the past, and they too must understand the dangers of pushing too far and too passionately from the center. True, both parties have to hold fast to their core values, but they also need to recognize that representative government comes with certain logistic realities. Neither party can survive, much less govern, as a one-issue malcontent.