Disclosure: I worked for the Lamont campaign doing web design and production and some writing for the official blog (from 9/5/06 to 11/07/06).
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Wednesday Morning Round-Up
- A new Courant poll has the race tightening. NewHavenBoy at MLN has some great analysis. In short, there is a lot of room for movement in the final weeks, especially with the Schlesinger wild card. To me, the most interesting number is this:
The poll suggests a potential upside for Lamont, a cable-television entrepreneur who has been arguing that an outsider's willingness to fight for change in Washington outweighs Lieberman's experience as an 18-year incumbent.
By a margin of 53-29 percent, voters said they generally favored challengers and the promise of change over incumbents and experience.
This is a huge opening for Lamont to turn Lieberman's "experience" against him. Voters are disgusted with incumbents across the board this year, especially those who are not interested in real accountability for the executive and legislative leadership and don't want to lift a finger to change the broken system. - Speaking of "change," Ned will be addressing just these issues at a speech later today.
- The Courant also runs a story about Joe's missed votes. And yes, Joe criticizes Joe for going after Joe:
Lieberman's campaign staff countered with its own explanation of the senator's voting record, which - to summarize - is as follows: Yes, Lieberman missed a bunch of votes, but it was because he was running for the vice presidency in 2000 and for president in 2004.
So Joe's excuse is going to be that he was more concerned with his own quixotic run at higher office than with representing the people of Connecticut. But the facts don't even support that claim:Just 16 percent of the votes Lieberman skipped were because he was running for Vice President in 2000. In fact, after Lieberman’s Vice Presidential run, he amassed the second worst voting attendance record of any current U.S. Senator, skipping more than 300 votes. That included skipping half of all votes on Iraq, most votes on Medicare, all votes to fund the inaugural budget of the Department of Homeland Security, and a tie-breaking vote that could have brought more homeland security money back to Connecticut’s cities.
- Ned contributes more money to his campaign. I've given up on hoping the press will provide as much scrutiny to who is bankrolling Joe - who has raised and spent much more than Lamont. But at least it's nice to know that Joe himself no longer considers self-financing an issue in this campaign:
Lieberman has been condemning Lamont for spending $6.7 million of his own money to "buy his Senate seat" yet recently announced he'll be campaigning with New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a man who pumped ten times as much — over $66 million — into his reelection campaign in 2005. Bloomberg is hosting a Nov. 1 fund-raiser for Lieberman. Does Lieberman see that as a contradiction?
Asked if Bloomberg's self-financing efforts were "wrong," he said "no."
"I'm not saying that anybody with money doesn't have the right, under the law, to spend it and move themselves forward for office," said Lieberman.
So, neither candidate cares about this issue. The public doesn't care. Only AP writers care. - Speaking of Bloomberg, he'll be holding three fundraisers for Joe's lobbyist- and big-money-dependent campaign.
- Matt Stoller has a great post about Lieberman's changing position on North Korea, and how it shows his unwillingness to criticize Republicans on anything - even an issue he's been generally good on in recent years - while he goes around bashing Democrats every day.
posted by tparty at 8:26 AM 
