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Maura may be right, Lieberman may have a crack invisible ground team that nobody knows about, but it sure seems like signs of desperation and meltdown are appearing in Holy Joe’s campaign.  Yesterday at the Wake Up WalMart event the paid LieberYouth staffers started crowding and heckling Ned when he talked (and I have to mention here, local bloggers who are Ned supporters who travel with the Kiss Float are universally polite to the Lieberman staff and actually on quite friendly terms at this point).  

But today they really went beyond the pale in the nasty department when Ned appeared in Meriden:

Paid Lieberman staffers pack an event pre-appearance, put on Lieberman shirts when Ned arrives, and start screaming and acting like two year olds. Ahhh, the smell of frustration and desperation …

Of course, they couldn’t help but accost one particular Lamont supporter – a World War II hero who just arrived in Connecticut today, on his own dime.

These LieberPeople are, as Tim T. says, paid. They do what they’re told to do by the campaign, and what they were told to do today was heckle a senior citizen.

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Stoller has more:

There were only four booths and six stools in the whole place, and they were basically all occupied.  When Ned went in, all of the supporters ripped off their ‘civilian clothes’ and revealed their Lieberman T-Shirts.  

A large man, around 50 years old or so, then started screaming at Ned, "Are you an Al Sharpton Democrat, or a Bill Clinton Democrat?"  Ned was trying to answer, and the gentleman kept yelling.  The Lamont press secretary tried to intervene, and meanwhile, the people behind the counter who owned the restaurant were horrified and embarrassed.  Then Ned Lamont went up to the few people in regular clothes and introduced himself, even as the Lieberman supporters kept screaming.  He also tried to introduce himself to the Lieberman staffers, but to no avail.  The screaming continued, and it was so abrasive that he left, and the whole crowd followed him outside.

These kids poured out, and a half a dozen reporters were mostly outside.  The large man kept yelling, and was joined by one particularly obnoxious Lieberman supporter who started yelling about national security and how Lamont would endanger the country.  The messaging seemed rehearsed.  The Lieberman supporters started getting aggressive, pushing some of the Lamont staffers.  When confronted, the Lieberman staffers said that they are just doing what the bloggers did.  

In the whole affair, one photographer caught an elbow and got a bloody nose.  It seems that the Lieberman campaign is explicitly setting up their supporters at Lamont events in tense and aggressive situations, all in the presence of reporters.  When asked, the Lieberman campaign is expressing outrage at the unsavory and unruly behavior of the Lamont supporters. 

The anger is all Joe’s, and he is now paying goons to physically express it.

Classy.

(graphic by Monk at Inflatable Dartboard) 

Related posts:

  1. “He’s With Us On Everything But The War”
  2. Lieberman’s Filibuster Threats Run Counter to 2006 Campaign Rhetoric
  3. Lieberman on Point for Senate DADT Repeal
  4. Dodd: Reprimanding Lieberman is “Ridiculous”
  5. Brave New Films, Connecticut, and Chris Murphy