The headline of tomorrow's piece on Ned in the Danbury News-Times is "Lamont: My appeal goes beyond bloggers."

This is a ridiculous lede for an article about a candidate who is at 40% in the polls, and is scaring the crap out of an incumbent 18-year senator to the point where he thinks he stands a very good chance of losing the primary.

Of course Ned Lamont's appeal goes "beyond bloggers." How many of us are there, anyway? Ask Joe if his internal polling tells him Ned's appeal goes "beyond bloggers."

While the press would rather focus on the process and strategy of this election, the only fact underlying this race that matters is that Connecticut Democrats - and, increasingly, all Connecticut voters - think Joe is doing a very poor job as senator.

He is incredibly unresponsive. He does not answer letters. He is never in the state. And most importantly, he does not represent their positions on any number of policies. As Matt Stoller wrote today, it's Lieberman's support of failed conservative policies that is turning Connecticut voters to Lamont. In contrast, Ned is a desperately needed breath of fresh air.

Connecticut voters think Joe is failing at his job. And the more they see of Ned, the more they love him. That's the only reason this candidacy has been at all viable. And that's the only thing that will matter in August and November.

Update: Not five minutes after posting this, Harold Meyerson "columnizes" something very similar at the Washington Post:

No great mystery enshrouds the challenge to Lieberman, nor is the campaign of his challenger, Ned Lamont, a jihad of crazed nit-pickers. Lieberman has simply and rightly been caught up in the fundamental dynamics of Politics 2006, in which Democrats are doing their damnedest to unseat all the president's enablers in this year's elections....

Lieberman's ultimate problem isn't fanatical bloggers, any more than Lyndon Johnson's was crazy, antiwar Democrats. His problem is that Bush, and the war that both he and Bush have championed, is speeding the ongoing realignment of the Northeast. His problem, dear colleagues, is Connecticut.