Fresh off of refusing for the umpteenth time to categorically rule out his candidate leaving the Democratic party, much maligned Lieberman campaign manager Sean Smith talked to Ned Lamont's hometown Greenwich Time at length for their lead Sunday article on the race.

Smith has apparently abandoned his previous stints as both a stand-up comic and case study in psychological projection, and moved on to a new occupation - playing the expectations game:

"We think it won't be a problem for [Lamont] to get 15 percent of the delegates," Smith said. "He's been working at this for several months, and he's been bragging about his grass-roots army."

"We expected (Lamont) to do well in his hometown, as he should," Smith said.

"This is a competition," Smith said. "He's going to win some, and we're going to win some. We're confident that there's a lot of support for Senator Lieberman amongst the delegates and we'll end up on Row A."

It's more than a little pathetic for an eighteen-year incumbent senator to be playing this game at this early point. But, then again, Lieberman's campaign as run by Sean Smith has been more than a little pathetic so far.

So Joe Lieberman will try to claim "victory" as long as half of the representatives of a state party largely indebted to him financially and politically for three decades don't stand up on tables and boo him in May. That's not just pathetic, it's also laughable, and the media had better not let him get away with it.

Just as they had better not let a candidate with megamillions in the bank and chits galore to call in get away with claiming poverty:

"I think Ned Lamont's house in Greenwich is worth more than the $4 million cash on hand that we had, so we need to keep at it," Smith said. "This is a guy who may try to buy this seat."

Joe Lieberman, apparently, is now the outsider insurgent in this race.

Did I say Sean Smith had given up his fledgling career as a comedian? I stand corrected.