My interest in the Connecticut Senate race is an idle one based on my dislike for Joe Lieberman’s various stances. Mainly, I just wanted to quote this Matt Stoller description of the campaign dynamic:
Today, I think there was a decisive shift both in the dynamic of the race and in the tone of the political environment.
It’s not that Lamont has overperformed, or that Joe has melted down, it’s that Connecticut Election 2006 has gone off the deep end. It’s not your normal white picket fence suburban election, with attack ad facing attack ad. No, this is more like a white picket fence election that suddenly gets bored with life and decides to live in the forest, take a bunch of LSD, trout-fish naked, and taunt a bear cub before ending its life suddenly and with total and inexplicable resolution on November 7. Well not really, but there’s no analogy that I can think of summarizing what’s going on. What has happened is that Joe Lieberman competed in a Democratic primary, lost, and is now competing in a Republican primary, and is losing again. Meanwhile, Lamont is finally picking up renewed steam and getting back on track as a candidate. There’s energy here, real energy.
They can talk, but Lamont is going to lose to Lieberman.
I am no fan of Lieberman (ever since he ran for VP and never gave up his Senate reelection campaign), but I think the race was over the minute he announced he was running as an independent.
MH,
I think his announcement sealed the primary – Lieberman loses. Dems in CT didn’t like that. And I think the main thing saving him in the general is that he no longer independant (or at least stating it as such). He says he’ll caucus with Dems and the establishment has not announced that he would lose committee seniority (and maybe I dont blame them, they see this as win/win). However, if Reid were to announce this weekend that Joe would lose his seniority/committee assignments in the next Congress – I think he’d be wiped out.