Lieberman — Ned Lamont
There’s a “pass the popcorn” moment going on in the Connecticut primary race suddenly, which is taking place as it has dawned on Lieberman that he just might lose the damned thing. I can’t quite pin-point the precise moment. I think it’s Lieberman’s new line of attack, which goes like this:
“The only public record this guy has, he voted time and again like a Republican,” Smith said. “Why would we support that?” He said Lieberman would not promise to support Lamont, because the businessman voted frequently with Republicans as a local official in Greenwich.
The irony is loud and thumping. And so Lieberman’s opening for running as an Independent is a heavy-handed misdirection trip at his opponent’s partisan credentials.
John F. Droney Jr., a former Democratic state chairman who helped Lieberman unseat Republican Sen. Lowell P. Weicker Jr. in 1988, said Lieberman should make his case for re-election to all voters in November.
“I think to be terrorized through the summer by an extremely small group of the Democratic Party, much less the voting population, is total insanity for a person who is a three-term senator,” Droney said.
And so the electoral process becomes a sense of mighty forebears believing they have a god-given right to rule over us all. What does this Lieberman-fan think of that which we call “the base”?
“Every single weirdo in the left wing will be there,” Droney said. “That’s what the Lamont strategy is all about.”
For the left-wing weirdos of Connecticut, I believe you can place Ned Lamont’s Republican dalliances next to Lieberman’s Republican dalliances and come out clean. (Although to be sure, Lieberman’s Republican dalliances are really a sort of Democratic danglings of the wrong type, but that’s another story.) What was Ned Lamont’s elected position, again? Something or other in Greenwich? School council seat or something like that? This line of attack starts looking kind of insane.
I remember reading that Ned Lamont had signed up Bill Hillsman to create his political ads — Bill Hillsman of Jesse Ventura, Paul Wellstone, and Ralph Nader fame. I don’t know whether his fingerprints were over the ads that came out a while ago, say — Ned Lamont in his living room and a bunch of supporters, including most auspiciously Markos Moulitsas, running in. I sighed when I saw those ads, believing them to be quite lame. Such that it is, Lamont did move on and is cutting Lieberman’s lead, so I suppose they did some good. I definitely approve of Lamont’s latest ad, which pushes the correct buttons and one can easily cut and splice the pieces of jujitsu Lamont is pulling with it.
The latest news of the race are: (1) According to Hotline On Call, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said that the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee “fully supports” Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT) in his primary bid against Ned Lamont (D), “and he refused to rule out continuing that support if Lieberman were to run as an independent.” And so we enter into Hell. The chips that the Congress-critters collect and trade amongst each other cannot, shall not, and will not be disrupted by this unruly rabble that make up your goddamned political party, the peons who should be genuflecting before almighty “three-term” Lieberman. I was theorizing that an Independent Senator Liebrman would be burning everything and everyone and would be 10 times worse than what we have now with Lieberman, but maybe that the Democratic Machinery is blessing it means it will be just as bad. (2) The latest Rasmussen poll, with a ridiculously high margin or error, shows Lamont… trailing behind Lieberman… such that it was recently twenty points and before than something astronomical: 46 to 40.
So there you go. The answer to the question of who the Democratic Party will be supporting if they are in the awkward situation of an Independent Lieberman against a Democratic Lamont.