I think that Schlesinger is going to be key to a Lamont victory. If he can look good in debates, he’ll peel away some of Lieberman’s Republican support, and he isn’t going to take votes away from Lamont.

I suggest that the Lamont campaign emphasize principle, and talk about respecting Schlesinger as a principled man, even though he’s wrong on the issues, as opposed to Lieberman, whose only guiding principle seems to be the advancement of his own career.

Karl Rove has made it a priority to save Lieberman’s seat. Dick Cheney has publicly blasted Lamont on Lieberman’s behalf at least 3 times, and both the RNC and Bush have refused to endorse Schlessinger. It may not have a price tag attached to it but that has a lot of value.

Talk is cheap. Would the White House prefer to have Lieberman over Lamont? Sure, probably. As long as they don’t expend my money doing it, and as long as they aren’t taking resources away from a potentially winnable race to support a Democrat, I have to keep coming back to the fact that it’s just very hard for me to care.

I’m just curious because we made a decision to stand by progressive candidates to send a message to all Dems, we’ll back you if you back us. It can’t be sending a very good message to folks like Schlessinger. I understand he’s not much of a “values conservative” per se but he’s a tax opponent and a fiscal conservative.

I think we’re coming to the point that we’re going to have a fundamental disagreement over whether a “50-state strategy” is a good idea. If you guys want to spend money going after, say, Jeff Sessions’ seat, more power to you.

I should point out that in 2002 we took out Bob Smith in New Hampshire, and managed to keep the seat. We’re not adverse to this sort of thing, it’s just a matter of picking battles wisely.

On a larger scale, past this election, do you think it sends a good message to people that nobody’s going to have your back if you don’t please the party bosses? That’s a message we explicitly do NOT want candidates to absorb.

I suppose it matters whether you think it’s more important to send a message to party bosses, or win as many elections as possible. There are times when each is necessary, and there are different methods of acocmplishing this. I think a lot of Republicans are sending a message to the party bosses in this manner; by no longer contributing to the fantastically incompetent NRSC, and instead donating directly to certain candidates. The Laffey/Chafee race, combined with “The Deal” from last year has really pushed this movement forward. In this way, a message gets sent, candidates who need it get help, and resources aren’t wasted on races we have no chance of winning.

America hits new lows again.

1) King George gets expanded powers to keep us safe.

2) Electronic BALLOT machines — we don’t need no stinking paper trail. Do not worry about item #1 falling into the wrong hands Diebold secret software says Hillary did not win.

3) The HP WAY !!! includes getting phone records without approval or warrants.

4) The HP WAY !!! includes $3,700,000.00 payoff for lead counsel to resign. Maybe our next Attorney General ???

5) Chicken Hawks are tough on terror ?

This wouldn’t be possible without public education (controlled by the government) and high school football.

Leon H Wolf @
134

If you have evidence that the NRSC is financially aiding Joe Lieberman, I’ll be right pissed. If it’s just the CT GOP, it’s sadly no more than I can really expect, and not something I’m in a position to change.

Karl Rove has made it a priority to save Lieberman’s seat. Dick Cheney has publicly blasted Lamont on Lieberman’s behalf at least 3 times, and both the RNC and Bush have refused to endorse Schlessinger. It may not have a price tag attached to it but that has a lot of value.

In a year where this race was higher on the radar screen, you’d probably be seeing it. But in case you haven’t noticed, we’re defending a lot of viable seats right now, and hoping to take some others, and those pretty much take precedent over Connecticut right now. It’s not that you don’t have a point, it’s just not one that we have the energy to care about.

I get it, and you’re under no responsibility to care, I personally hate it when people are telling me what I should and should be writing about, which I’m not trying to do. I’m just curious because we made a decision to stand by progressive candidates to send a message to all Dems, we’ll back you if you back us. It can’t be sending a very good message to folks like Schlessinger. I understand he’s not much of a “values conservative” per se but he’s a tax opponent and a fiscal conservative.

On a larger scale, past this election, do you think it sends a good message to people that nobody’s going to have your back if you don’t please the party bosses? That’s a message we explicitly do NOT want candidates to absorb. Again, we learned that lesson from the right, at least I did.

On the other hand, everyone can’t blog about everything, and I do understand the conservation of resources aspect.

Leon H Wolf @
100

I fail to see how Lieberman muddying your waters should be of significant concern to us. He doesn’t muddy ours. He’s not planning to caucus Republican, call himself a Republican, etc. To the extent that he’s a “renegade Democrat” (which is your business, not mine), I leave to you guys to hash out.

Hate to break the news, but Lieberman is now running as the defacto Republican, aiming his pitch straight at Republican voters, with whom he has an 80% favorability rating and without whom he cannot win. He’s got the open support of the RNC, who refuse to back the anti-tax Schlessinger. He stopped running as a Democrat in the primary so breaking down his liberal bona fides has been off our table for over a month — he’s no longer trying to assert them.

We didn’t spend a lot of time going after Chafee (who does muddy our waters) because, well.. there are Democrats to beat in this election.

And if you could’ve forced Lieberman off the GOP’s turf and split the liberal vote, and gotten behind Schlessinger, you might have defeated one of them. Again, why can this guy Schlessinger get no love? I just don’t understand why somebody isn’t hollering about the fact that the party is working to undermine a true movement conservative against Lieberman. I get that it’s a dog — it won’t make any difference in the race — but I think many of your posts have been motivated by principle and if the shoe was on the other foot I’m pretty sure I’d be writing it. Traffic killer though it might be.

To your first paragraph, running as the de facto Republican is entirely different from running as the actual Republican – one muddies the waters on where we stand, the other does not. Also, I am unconcerned about him courting Republicans. Here in Tennessee, Republicans are aggressively courted (and relatively well, I might add) by both Harold Ford Jr. and Phil Bredesen. You would swear, if you were here, that Harold Ford Jr. was a Republican, if all you had to go on were his television ads. I’m not aware of a major push to extricate either Ford or Bredesen from the party, for the sin of being politically astute.

Again, however, as far as it goes, this is one Republican who will never support him (Lieberman); and yes, I do wish the CT GOP were a little more… focused. However, the race is (as you say) a dog for us right now, and I’ve got bigger fish to fry.

And if you could’ve forced Lieberman off the GOP’s turf and split the liberal vote, and gotten behind Schlessinger, you might have defeated one of them.

The current state of the CT GOP suggests otherwise. Even if true, I wouldn’t have really expected Democrat help if Laffey had defeated Chafee, and Chafee run as an independent. When your opponent starts an internicene war, you don’t rush in to help them out; you grab the popcorn.

I just don’t understand why somebody isn’t hollering about the fact that the party is working to undermine a true movement conservative against Lieberman.

We hollered about this plenty during the Chafee/Laffey race. That was because the national party apparatus was spending beaucoup bucks helping Chafee to run slam ads against a Republican. If you have evidence that the NRSC is financially aiding Joe Lieberman, I’ll be right pissed. If it’s just the CT GOP, it’s sadly no more than I can really expect, and not something I’m in a position to change.

I get that it’s a dog — it won’t make any difference in the race — but I think many of your posts have been motivated by principle and if the shoe was on the other foot I’m pretty sure I’d be writing it.

In a year where this race was higher on the radar screen, you’d probably be seeing it. But in case you haven’t noticed, we’re defending a lot of viable seats right now, and hoping to take some others, and those pretty much take precedent over Connecticut right now. It’s not that you don’t have a point, it’s just not one that we have the energy to care about.

Traffic killer though it might be.

Our highest traffic ever was during the Miers debacle. Criticizing the party has never been bad for traffic. It’s a matter of doing it when some good might actually come of it.

Excuse me, should I have posted the detainee bill over there? If so, let me be topical.

FUCK JOE LIEBERMAN!

Seeing that Q-Poll today started the day off bad, and I see it ending similarly.

This sucks, but I’m still fighting for Lamont here. What a day. What a dismal day in America.

Sharon – When I first heard about the Q poll I was upset, too. However there are three national polls – including the Zogby Interactive – that have Lamont down only 2 and two polls, the Q poll and Leiberliar’s polling company’s poll, that has Lieberman up 10 or so.

Personally, I don’t think the Lamont campaign has been the best it could be the past six weeks – but I also don’t think Lieberman has a whole lot of support.

I have a problem with Lamont’s campaign manager thinking Lamont shouldn’t have nationally known Dems showing up in the state campaigning for him. That’s nuts. They need to get their act together, quickly. People are looking for an alternative to Lieberman and ads about turncoats doesn’t cut it.

BTW – I volunteer every weekend for Ned.

I get that some of the dems are going for this travesty out of fear of being “Clelanded” in the upcoming election. I happen to think they are wrong. The r’s do try to set these traps, but sometimes they’re just stupid like in the Schaivo situation. I think dems like Sherrod Brown would have been better off politically as well as morally if they had called Rove’s bluff and clearly articulated why. Now they will be forever compromised even if they win in november.

It is inexplicable considering what’s at stake—but downright tragic.