quote:

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Why am I running?

I am running for the US Senate because Connecticut deserves a Senator who will stand up to the Bush administration, whose policies are so harmful to our state and our country. Connecticut deserves a Senator who will turn back judicial appointees outside of the mainstream, who will fight for affordable universal health care, and who will challenge the status quo in Washington DC.

---

quote:

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If the Democratic Party wants to salvage any shred of the limited credibility that it still has, it will turf Lieberman.

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quote:

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Such an optimistic, glass-half-full view of Iraq is not shared by most Democrats in Lieberman's home state. This partially explains one of the oddest survey results of the 2006 campaign season: According to a mid-February Quinnipiac University poll, Lieberman has a higher approval rating among Connecticut Republicans (71 percent) than Democrats (57 percent). Still, most Democratic senators with overall 63 percent approval and no serious Republican opponent would be tempted to prematurely break out the election-night champagne.

Instead, Lieberman is facing his most daunting political challenge since he upended maverick Republican Sen. Lowell Weicker in 1988. Lamont -- a Greenwich cable-television entrepreneur who is the well-born great-grandson of J.P. Morgan's business partner -- impetuously entered the race when he could not find an elected official to take on Lieberman over the war. As Lamont, who may invest as much as $500,000 of his own money in the contest, put it to me modestly, "I wasn't my own first choice."

The candidate and I were chatting on a recent Saturday evening in a Starbucks in downtown Westport as Lamont waited to participate in a peace vigil. This is the heart of affluent Fairfield County and the epicenter of antiwar sentiment, but Lamont, dressed in a blue V-neck sweater over a flannel shirt, went unrecognized in the crowded coffee shop. "If you want to know my journey about why I felt this country was going off its moorings," Lamont said, still growing accustomed to candidate-speak, "it was three substantive things for me. Terri Schiavo, the 'bridge to nowhere'" -- a reference to an infamous Alaskan boondoggle in a Senate appropriations bill -- "and then the war."

...

Normally, none of this would be enough to give a little-known candidate like Lamont much hope in a state where registered Democrats declared by a 61-30 percent margin in the Quinnipiac poll that Lieberman deserves to be reelected. But Connecticut, once dominated by a formidable Democratic organization, has scant history of contested primaries. In fact, until recently a challenger had to win 15 percent of the vote at the state party convention to even be allowed on the primary ballot. Both the Lieberman and Lamont campaigns anticipate a low-turnout primary at the height of the August vacation season in which intensity of support may matter more than statewide polling numbers.

Even though Lamont plans to get on the ballot through petitions, the state party convention at the end of May could turn the national spotlight on the Lieberman primary challenge. Although the endorsement vote at the convention is largely symbolic, Lamont could conceivably win the backing of one-third of the 1,608 delegates -- a seismic rumble that would transform a contest in which the conventional wisdom is still that the incumbent will win in a walk. That is why Lieberman is now spending his spare hours phoning local Democratic chairmen and -women, while his challenger has appeared before two dozen town committees.

"I'm going to towns that haven't seen a senator in decades," Lamont boasted. When I asked whether this was also an implicit criticism of Connecticut's popular Democratic senior senator, Christopher Dodd, Lamont refused to back down. "It's a criticism of the system," he replied. "These guys haven't been challenged in years."

....

Until now, Connecticut Democrats have accepted Lieberman's hawkish views and independent gestures as part of the whole package. Clyde McKee, a political science professor at Trinity College in Hartford, expressed the traditional view of Lieberman when he said, "I think that Democrats who don't like his positions would say that he has integrity." But if Democrats get the feeling that Lieberman no longer even bothers to hear them out, their tolerance for his deviance from liberal orthodoxy could rapidly erode.

That is what Lieberman is now running hard to prevent -- even scorning the political gospel that an incumbent senator should ignore his primary opponent. "We decided to engage this guy early because the senator takes this race seriously," said Sean Smith, Lieberman's campaign manager. As a Lieberman fundraising e-mail that went out Tuesday put it, "This campaign is sure to be a tough one; my opponent has not been shy about misrepresenting my record, and has made it clear that to try to build himself up he has no problem trying to tear me down." Also this week Lieberman, who had about $4 million in campaign funds at the beginning of the year, has just begun a statewide radio buy with a soft-spoken commercial stressing his environmental record.

Yet even as he tries to extinguish the political fires of 2006, Lieberman makes no secret of his longing for an era when political passions smoldered rather than sizzled. When I asked the Connecticut senator why he has become such a lightning rod, Lieberman said, "It is something that speaks to this moment in our politics, which is very partisan and very much are you with us 100 percent or are you not with us? And there's a lot of -- I can't think of a softer word than hatred. In the Democratic Party there are a lot of people who have the same kind of hatred -- which I find is self-defeating and almost certainly wrong -- towards Bush that a lot of Republicans had toward Clinton."

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Democratic Rival Forces Lieberman Into a Primary

quote:

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HARTFORD, May 19 — A businessman with little political experience has forced Senator Joseph I. Lieberman into an August primary, surprising even his own supporters by winning more than twice the number of delegates he needed at the State Democratic Party's nominating convention Friday night.

Ned Lamont, a cable television executive from Greenwich who has opposed Senator Lieberman largely over the senator's support for the war in Iraq, won 505 of the 1,509 delegates who cast votes — about 33 percent, compared with the 15 percent required to force a primary.

Mr. Lieberman, by winning two-thirds of the vote, however, easily won the party's endorsement.

Cheers erupted as Mr. Lamont swept several small towns, where he typically fared better than he did in larger cities like Hartford, Bridgeport and New Haven, which have entrenched Democratic establishments. Some supporters of Mr. Lamont said they had hoped to win only the necessary 15 percent of the vote and many said they were thrilled to have won more.

In an appearance after the vote, Mr. Lamont said his showing would resonate beyond Connecticut. "Thirty-three percent is telling the people in Washington, we want change," he said.

Mr. Lamont, 52, once a selectman in Greenwich, has received support among liberal bloggers across the country and through a statewide petition effort. Opposition to the war is widespread in the state, and Senator Lieberman has been resolutely in favor of keeping troops in Iraq.

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quote:

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"Until now, Connecticut Democrats have accepted Lieberman's hawkish views and independent gestures as part of the whole package. Clyde McKee, a political science professor at Trinity College in Hartford, expressed the traditional view of Lieberman when he said, "I think that Democrats who don't like his positions would say that he has integrity." But if Democrats get the feeling that Lieberman no longer even bothers to hear them out, their tolerance for his deviance from liberal orthodoxy could rapidly erode."

---

• Tasini v. Clinton in New York
• Winograd v. Harman in California
• Lamont v. Lieberman in Connecticut
• Bonifaz v. Galvin in Massachusetts

In my own personal view (and that's all it is), Canadian New Democrats interested in seriously challenging the 'Go-Along-to-Get-Along' Liberals and their allies who routinely make a version of the 'lesser evil' argument should be reading what some of these Democratic challengers have to say, and--what's more--they should start daring to imagine ways to 'translate' the message into Canadian terms.

Establishment Democrats down south, like many Liberals here, will always make similar arguments: you can't ever have what you really want, so vote for the 'electable' candidate who's not as bad as Harper/Bush/Day/Cheney (i.e. for their 'lite' counterparts in the Liberal party).

Yet, as Cindy Sheehan puts it:

quote:

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And I believe that we are not going to get leaders of integrity and honesty and courage until we start voting with our integrity. It's time for us to stop holding our nose and voting for the lesser of two evils, because that person might be just a little less evil, but they're still supporting the evil policies of the Bush administration. So we have to stand up and have courage. If we all have the courage we need to vote for people who do have integrity, then we'll get leaders of integrity. And that's the only time we will.

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The stakes are simply too high to let people quietly complicit with a destructive agenda to win power once again.

[ 06 June 2006: Message edited by: sgm ]

quote:

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The walls in the auditorium of Whittier Elementary were covered with green and blue Maria Cantwell signs. A giant Cantwell banner fluttered above the stage. Given that the Saturday afternoon event was being put on by the Coordinated Campaign, an arm of the Democratic Party that lassos staff and resources to support Democratic campaigns statewide, the Cantwell decorations seemed appropriate.

However, to Democrat Hong Tran, 40, who's running a long-shot campaign against Cantwell in the primary, the Cantwell feng shui was another indication that the incumbent senator is getting special treatment from the party. Tran—an attorney with the low-income advocacy group the Northwest Justice Project—had shown up at the May 20 Ballard rally with campaign signs of her own. However, she was stopped by party volunteers who pointed to a warning they had taped up on the door: "No Signs."

"No signs?" Tran asked. "What about all the Cantwell signs?" The volunteers didn't have a response. Rather than making a fuss, however, Tran turned her attention to working the crowd, hyping her antiwar position at Cantwell's expense. ...

Despite Cantwell's liberal leanings (90 percent approval from the environmentalists at the League of Conservation Voters; 100 percent approval record from women's rights advocates at NARAL) she, like Lieberman, voted for the war in Iraq and stands by it. And also like Lieberman, she voted for the USA PATRIOT Act.

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quote:

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Originally posted by ceti:
Interesting thing is, even Lowell Weicker who Lieberman defeated in 1988 is anti-war.

---

Weicker was part of a basically extinct group, a "Rockefeller Republican" (American version of Red Tories basically). They used to be prominent in the Northeast. But I think Jeffords was basically the last one.

I just got this appeal from from Democracy for America (which has endorsed Lamont) asking people to put some additional pressure on Lieberman and to his fellow Democrat Senators to back Lamont if he wins.

quote:

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Lieberman leaving the Party?

Have you seen the news in Connecticut? Hot off a DFA-List endorsement, Ned Lamont is surging. Two recent polls show him within striking distance of Joe Lieberman in the Connecticut Senate primary. He also recently won key endorsements from teachers' unions—both AFT Connecticut and the Connecticut Education Association announced their support for Lamont this week.

Senator Lieberman knows that Ned Lamont is for real. A few days ago, Lieberman told reporters that he is refusing to rule out leaving the Democratic Party to continue his run for re-election as an Independent. In fact, he told reporters that he is not "going to close out any options." While that's his prerogative, it's still outrageous. Joe Lieberman seems to believe that he is entitled to keep his Senate seat, and he's open to leaving the party to do so.

Like the vast majority of other Connecticut Democrats, Ned Lamont has promised to support the winner of the Democratic Primary, even if he doesn't emerge victorious. Please join me and urge Senator Lieberman do the same.

Joe hasn't confirmed that he's planning to run as an Independent. But his campaign seems to be laying the groundwork, courting important Beltway insiders from both sides of the aisle. Amazingly, Senator Chuck Schumer, Chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), has said that the DSCC will not rule out supporting Lieberman if he runs as an Independent. The DSCC's mission is to elect Democrats to the Senate. Yet in this case, they would prefer to back an incumbent who leaves the party instead of a principled progressive who's proud to be a Democrat.

Primaries are healthy for the party, and Democrats in Connecticut will decide their nominee on August 8. The winner should receive the full support of all Democrats. We need to stand together in November. Please join me and ask the Beltway Democrats, including Joe Lieberman and Chuck Schumer, to do the same.

Last week, over 400 Connecticut DFA and MoveOn members came out from around the state to attend our endorsement rally in New Haven. After the rally, State Representative John Geragosian said, "I've been in politics 20 years, and I don't know anyone in this room." This is how we start a movement. Together, we're taking our country back.

---

First, Lieberman is liberal Democrat on almost every issue. The only issue he is more conservative one is defence. Lierberman is a Democrat in the tradition of Sen. Scoop Jackson, liberal at home, more hawkish abroad.

Ned Lamont by contrast is a recent convert to the progressive cause. His net worth is largely inherited and put at about 300 million. His father served in the Republican Administration of Richard Nixon and Lamont himself has been a Republican his entire life. As a member of local government, Lamont received high marks from Conservative groups and lead efforts to strip benefits from municipal employees collective agreements.

quote:

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Originally posted by Dead_Letter:
I think it might be moot. The last thing I saw on this was that even if Lieberman fails to win the primary (and he still has a comfy lead), a run as an independent would probably be successful given his name recognition, history and bi-partisan appeal...

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It's official!

quote:

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Hartford, CT – Sen. Joe Lieberman announced today that he has decided to take steps in order to ensure ballot placement in the General Election. The details of the effort, which consists of collecting 7,500 signatures, will be made public in the coming days. In his remarks, Lieberman assured Democratic voters that his campaign is squarely focused on winning the Democratic Primary on August 8.

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His internal poll numbers must look even worse than those that have been released publicly.

quote:

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On his increasingly difficult path to re-election, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman keeps getting kissed. And not lovingly.

Kisses mock Mr. Lieberman, the incumbent Democrat, all over Connecticut — on signs, on buttons, even on giant parade floats. They commemorate the one President Bush appeared to plant on his cheek after last year’s State of the Union address, a symbol, in the eyes of Mr. Lieberman’s liberal critics, of an unforgivable alliance in support of the Iraq war.

“It’s a ‘Godfather’ kiss — one of those kisses that says, ‘I own you,’ ” said Edward Anderson, a supporter of Mr. Lieberman’s Democratic primary opponent, Ned Lamont, who was distributing “kiss” buttons outside a Lieberman campaign event in Stamford, Conn., on Monday.

In an interview in his Senate office, Mr. Lieberman said he recalled only a hug, not a kiss, but acknowledged, “There has been some doubt, based on the postgame films.” Asked if there had been any subsequent kisses with the president, he said, “None that I’m prepared to talk about,” and chuckled.

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Oh well, while I'm here, I'll link to this AP article, in which Russ Feingold comments on a phenomenon that may well be principally responsible for the pending demise of Joe Lieberman.

quote:

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Feingold said voters are looking at politicians' positions on the war as a fundamental statement.

"It really suggests whether people have the judgment to make the right calls not only to fight terrorism but not make the kind of mistakes the Bush administration has made," Feingold said.

Feingold said Democrats traditionally focus more on domestic issues. Unrest over the war has changed that, he said.

"What will be different about this is that foreign policy and the whole international set of issues will be very important," Feingold said.

He added: "I don't think the election is going to be just a referendum on the war, but I think people are going to be looking for clear leadership in terms of getting us out of that situation."

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Got to love it when the house is divided!!

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WASHINGTON - Liberal activists, including some California Democrats, are furious with Sen. Barbara Boxer -- a leading critic of the Iraq war -- for her active support of Sen. Joe Lieberman, a Democrat who staunchly defends the war in Iraq.

Lieberman is fighting for his political life in Connecticut, facing an anti-war opponent, cable magnate Ned Lamont, in an Aug. 8 Senate primary. Lieberman, his party's nominee for vice president in 2000, has already announced he will run as an independent in the fall if he loses the primary.

That decision has divided his Senate colleagues and Democrats nationwide. And the Lieberman race has ignited a fiery debate among Democrats, now raging on political blogs, about loyalty, political principles and whether the three-term senator has betrayed his party and should be tossed out.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Michelle:
Still, are there Republicans that are as far left as right-wing Democrats are to the right?

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not really. and i think that's part of the point.

there really is quite a huge difference between most democrats and most republicans in the u.s. look at how the aclu or some such organisation evaluates voting records: even 'conservative' democrats like sen. ben nelson of nebraska or evan bayh of indiana will have fairly progressive voting records compared with 'progressive' republicans (of the susan collins or john sununu or olympia snowe or lincoln chafee persuasion). my sense is that it really does matter which party you choose, and that there's something really big that's been happening over the last few years that's really changing the democratic party.

... but the same polls predicts that Lieberman would still win running as an Independent.

quote:

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In the Connecticut U.S. Senate race, Ned Lamont (D) has surged ahead of Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT) and now holds a razor-thin 51% to 47% lead among likely Democratic primary voters, according to a new Quinnipiac poll.

In possible general election matchups:
• Lieberman defeats Republican challenger Alan Schlesinger 68% to 15%
• Lamont beats Schlesinger 45% to 22%, with 24% undecided
• Running as an independent, Lieberman gets 51%, to 27% for Lamont and 9% for Schlesinger.
  

Says pollster Douglas Schwartz: "Lamont is up, while Lieberman's Democratic support is dropping. More Democrats have a favorable opinion of Lamont, who was largely unknown last month, and see him as an acceptable alternative to Lieberman. But Lieberman’s strength among Republicans and independents gives him the lead in a three-way matchup in November."

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[Edited for spelling]

[ 27 July 2006: Message edited by: Scott Piatkowski ]

quote:

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One of the Democratic Party's biggest guns, former President Bill Clinton, is coming to Connecticut to campaign for Senator Joe Lieberman.

Clinton's visit, planned for July 24 in Waterbury, comes as a new Quinnpiac Poll shows Lieberman and his Democratic primary challenger, businessman Ned Lamont, in a statistical dead heat.

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quote:

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And while most progressives want his head for support of the Bush administration's Iraq war, his true betrayal was far more devastating and happened a long time ago.

The night was Oct. 5, 2000. The night the Democrats lost the 2000 election. The night that every Democratic fault of the last 20 years -- timidity, naiveté, chumminess with power, lack of emotion and policy wonkishness -- was on full view. The night when Joe Lieberman betrayed his party and his country by choosing to protect his self-image as a gentlemanly politician, instead of warning America that the man sitting across the table was a dangerous and unprincipled man. The night when Dick Cheney and Joe Lieberman had their one and only prime-time debate for vice president of the United States.

Joe Lieberman knew. It was the only night that Americans were going to see, hear or learn about Dick Cheney. And while Dick Cheney had a long career in Washington -- 11 years in Congress, secretary of defense for the first President Bush and chief of staff for Gerald Ford -- to the man on the street he was a blank page.

Joe Lieberman knew. Anyone who was anyone in Washington knew. There was a long record of controversial votes, private sector decisions, and neocon policy papers from which Joe could have chosen. During the first Bush administration, Cheney and his neocon gang were even known as "the crazies" around the Beltway. We have now seen the results.

Joe Lieberman knew. It has always been the traditional role of the vice presidential candidate to wield the hatchet and keep the presidential candidate above the fray. It was Joe's job to go for the jugular -- especially in light of Dick Cheney's' cleverly constructed persona as the grandfatherly, unassumingly reasonable old man. Dick's low-key style concealed a ruthless, uncompromising, hard-edged conservative. It was absolutely essential to Gore, the campaign and viewers at home that Joe stand on his chair and shout to the rafters that Dick Cheney was a dangerous man.

But Joe was only thinking about Joe. And nothing is more important to Joe than to show the world what a reasonable, mature, thoughtful and gentlemanly politician he is.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Michelle:
Still, are there Republicans that are as far left as right-wing Democrats are to the right?

---

Sen. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island comes to mind; he's pro-choice, pro-SSM, pro-affirmative action, pro-gun control, voted against the war, against tax cuts, against drilling in ANWR...

There are other examples: Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter, New York Rep. Amory Houghton, Iowa's Jim Leach. My (former...though as I'm registered to vote absentee, I suppose it still counts) representative, Jimmy Duncan (R-TN), is light-years from leftist, but voted against the Iraq war and the Patriot Act.

A nice collection of highlights from ctblog:

quote:

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Citing national security, Mr. Bush continually tries to undermine restraints on the executive branch: the system of checks and balances, international accords on the treatment of prisoners, the nation's longtime principles of justice. His administration has depicted any questions or criticism of his policies as giving aid and comfort to the terrorists. And Mr. Lieberman has helped that effort. He once denounced Democrats who were "more focused on how President Bush took America into the war in Iraq" than on supporting the war's progress.

At this moment, with a Republican president intent on drastically expanding his powers with the support of the Republican House and Senate, it is critical that the minority party serve as a responsible, but vigorous, watchdog. That does not require shrillness or absolutism. But this is no time for a man with Mr. Lieberman's ability to command Republicans' attention to become their enabler, and embrace a role as the president's defender.

On the Armed Services Committee, Mr. Lieberman has left it to Republicans like Lindsey Graham of South Carolina to investigate the administration's actions. In 2004, Mr. Lieberman praised Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for expressing regret about Abu Ghraib, then added: "I cannot help but say, however, that those who were responsible for killing 3,000 Americans on September 11th, 2001, never apologized." To suggest even rhetorically that the American military could be held to the same standard of behavior as terrorists is outrageous, and a good example of how avidly the senator has adopted the Bush spin and helped the administration avoid accounting for Abu Ghraib.

Mr. Lieberman prides himself on being a legal thinker and a champion of civil liberties. But he appointed himself defender of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and the administration's policy of holding hundreds of foreign citizens in prison without any due process. He seconded Mr. Gonzales's sneering reference to the "quaint" provisions of the Geneva Conventions. He has shown no interest in prodding his Republican friends into investigating how the administration misled the nation about Iraq's weapons. There is no use having a senator famous for getting along with Republicans if he never challenges them on issues of profound importance.

If Mr. Lieberman had once stood up and taken the lead in saying that there were some places a president had no right to take his country even during a time of war, neither he nor this page would be where we are today. But by suggesting that there is no principled space for that kind of opposition, he has forfeited his role as a conscience of his party, and has forfeited our support.

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If Lamont runs this stuff every day until the 8th, and if his GOTV is as good as everyone hopes/expects, he should have the nomination wrapped up.

quote:

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Originally posted by island empire:"...and you won't have Joe Lieberman to kick around any more."

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Except that he's paving the way to run as an Independent if he loses the primary (and it's now looking like he will).

[ 31 July 2006: Message edited by: Scott Piatkowski ]

quote:

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"You can't defeat an incumbent in America," says David Pudlin, a Lamont supporter. "If they want to come back, the rate of return is closer to 100 percent than it is to any other number. We remember the ones who didn't make it, and it usually involves financial malfeasance or sexual peccadilloes of a pretty unusual magnitude."

Lieberman is not in danger of losing the Democratic nomination because of any scandal, says Pudlin, a former majority leader in the Connecticut House of Representatives. "Of all things, it's about issues," insists Pudlin wryly. "That's almost un-American, if you follow electoral politics. It's simply not done."

Lieberman's years in public life have been a steady drumbeat of disappointment for Connecticut Democrats, a liberal lot who do not share his often conservative views.

....

Yet Lieberman's reputation in Connecticut is not purely that of an out-of-step conservative. It's much more complicated, and frustrating, than that. He's a serial raiser and dasher and re-raiser of hopes.

....

That's just the beginning of the catalog of gripes.

....

Covering Lieberman is a good way to understand how misleading a voting record can be. (Are you listening, Courant editorial board?) Most members of Congress vote with their parties the preponderance of the time. There are other questions to ask. Did he vote differently on a much-more-important earlier amendment or closure motion? Did he wait until it was clear his vote wouldn't hurt the other side? Are his public pronouncements strangely different from his votes?

....

That charm and affability have deserted him this summer. The 2006 Joe is one angry guy. One of the first signs was an explosion on my radio show this March. Lieberman hadn't liked a column I had written the previous Sunday, and he blew up at me. The audio clip went all over the Internet on blogs such as Daily Kos and Firedoglake, which marveled at the crack in Joe's legendary composure and crowed, "He's losing it!"

He never really got his smile back. You might call that a political miscalculation, but I don't think he can help it. Lieberman is truly appalled by the number of former friends who are now foes. He can't hide it. It's all over his face.

For years, the natives around here have been a little restless about Joe Lieberman. Shortly after 2000, I started to hear rumblings about the idea of running a progressive against him, but he was too powerful and too popular. Nobody saw the point of trying.

The New York Times and other national media outlets are right that the Iraq war -- this deeply unpopular, catastrophic adventure -- is what finally made the natives brave enough to act, and what may have ended Joe Lieberman's tenure as a senator. But people in Connecticut know the war was only the tipping point. They have long memories of everything that came before.

---

quote:

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Rasmussen. 7/20. Likely voters. MoE 3% (6/12 results)

Democratic primary

Lieberman (D) 40 (46)
Lamont (D) 51 (40)

General Election

Lieberman (I) 40 (44)
Lamont (D) 40 (29)
Schlesinger (R) 13 (15)

The challenge for Lamont isn't just to win the primary, which looks increasingly likely, but to crush Lieberman. A small victory, while better than a loss, would fuel Lieberman's claims that the primary was decided by a bunch of people not representative of the state's electorate. A good turnout and a crushing defeat (as in Tester's win in Montana) would send a different signal -- that Lieberman has utterly lost the state's rank and file Democrats.

Given the incredible press a solid Lamont victory would generate, what little support Lieberman had would evaporate. No one wants to back a huge loser. Well, except, perhaps, Connecticut Republicans. But there aren't enough of those and they'd be just as likely to back their candidate in the hopes of stealing a seat in this safe, blue state.

With such a vote of no-confidence hanging over Lieberman's head, party elders would be more motivated to lean on Lieberman heavily to exit the race.

---

that said, though rasmussen seems a little suspicious, there's apparently some support from lamont internal polls that indicate something like a 12 point lead for lamont (according to some poster on one of the pro-lamont blogs).

that said, there are several things that make me think that a lamont victory is still no sure thing.

first, joementum's campaign is apparently paying 4000 people between $60-140 a day to canvass/id voters as part of a massive gotv building operation. the people he's brought in are apparently from out of state, and he's bringing in pros from the murderous corzine campaigns to run it all. a sleazy rent-a-gotv, but probably a ruthlessly effective one too. can the volunteers neutralise the cash-money gotv? it remains to be seen.

second, very large numbers of unaffiliated voters are swichting over to become democrats, so as to vote in the primary. the number currently stands at over 7000 voters, but that will be huge, in what's expected to be a primary with maybe 130,000 participants. moreover, most of these people are switching because of cards the state's democratic party sent to every single affiliated voter in the state - ie. lieberman's folks thought they'd toss him a little independent juice. it's unclear what effect they'll have.

third, though lamont now has al sharpton and jesse jackson coming to campaign for him, enough black folks could stick with joementum that the anti-war votes fall short. why would lamont lose any black votes (given lieberman's opposition to affirmative action, among other things)? well, he faces severe financial disadvantages, and joementum's brought up a bunch of racism talk, which many folks are pretty sensitive to.

quote:

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Originally posted by josh:
Rasmussen uses a highly suspect methodology. I would trust Quinnipiac's numbers, whatever they are.

---

I'm aware that Rasmussen's emphasis on "likely voters" is controversial among pollsters (although, doesn't Zogby do that as well?). But, the methodology from one poll to the next (the previous Rasmussen numbers are the ones in brackets) is the same. And those numbers show Lamont climbing and Lieberman plummeting (gravity does tend to increase one's Joe-mentum). That said, I'm interested in seeing the Quinnipiac numbers too.

This is E-7. Man, do I wish I could take the time to travel to Connecticutt next Monday and Tuesday (then the story would become "foreign socialists flood state to back Lamont" instead of "out of state bloggers on a witch hunt against Lieberman").

[ 01 August 2006: Message edited by: Scott Piatkowski ]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLfGOShJMvQ

only the latest in an amazing series. this guy has run an amazing campaign, and the ads prove it. in case people haven't seen them, here are some of the now classics:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWSN2zbydKw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZK4Gu-dlE-k
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZjLGeZ3e0Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAQtiUn87Ac

i hope this guy wins, he would be an amazing u.s. senator.

edited to add the other six campaign advertisements so far. they're older and somewhat crappier, but they're still kind of cool. (in order):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-X5W8Fvq1s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8WxpQyLXGI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pJ4AT0au5o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2L9IIQJNZhU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJRP0yIIORk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8sSg3S262g

[ 03 August 2006: Message edited by: island empire ]

Ned Lamont on The Colbert Report (video)

Ned Lamont on The Al Franken Show (Air America Radio)

Official Lamont Blog

Lamont Blog (not affiliated with campaign)

Joementum

quote:

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To this day, Joe Lieberman still doesn't get it. The 18-year incumbent Democratic senator from Connecticut is in the battle for his political life in the Democratic primary. He dismisses his challenger -- Ned Lamont, a Connecticut businessman whose campaign is grounded on opposition to the war in Iraq, as a single-issue candidate.

But Iraq is not a single issue, it is a central issue -- both for the country and for the Democratic Party. It is a catastrophic foreign policy debacle. It has alienated us from our allies and generated hatred among Muslims across the world. It has weakened our military, forcing our troops into an extended occupation in the midst of a growing civil war for which they have neither appetite nor training. It has proved a recruiting boon for al-Qaida. It has sorely weakened our foreign policy influence, as demonstrated graphically in the current conflict in Lebanon. It has cost nearly 2,700 American lives, over 20,000 Americans wounded -- and an estimated 50,000 Iraqi deaths.

It has skewed our budget priorities. We've spent about $300 billion already -- with the estimated cost likely to exceed $1 trillion -- even as we cut support at home for the still-displaced Katrina survivors, raise interest rates on student loans and cut access to preschool for poor children. The budget is a statement of our moral choices -- and this is a deeply immoral choice.

The Iraq debacle has featured the cronyism, corruption and incompetence that is characteristic of this administration. Billions have been pocketed in Iraq by companies like Halliburton, which the Pentagon charged with contracting abuse even as it renewed its no-bid contracts. The administration cooked the intelligence to get us into the war, and then launched the war with no plan for the occupation, and with inadequate forces and inadequate equipment.

The war has undermined our own democracy, with a president claiming untrammeled powers to act above the law for the duration of a war on terror that he says will last for generations. And from this arrogance has come shameful abuses, from the torture in Abu Ghraib to the hidden prisons of the CIA to the locking up of people -- too many of them innocent -- without hearing or lawyer or charges in Guantanamo and elsewhere. America, which has championed the rule of law throughout the world, is now widely viewed as a rogue nation that views itself as above the law.

Through all this, Lieberman has been, as the New York Times termed it, the president's "enabler." He lobbied early and hard for the pre-emptive war of choice. He echoed the lies and dismissed the folly of the president's men while questioning the patriotism of those who raised sensible questions about our course.

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Momentum for Ned Lamont, the anti-war Connecticut U.S. Senate candidate, increases as he rolls to a 54 - 41 percent lead over incumbent Sen. Joseph Lieberman among likely Democratic primary voters, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.

This compares to a 51 - 47 percent Lamont lead among likely Democratic primary voters in a July 20 poll by the independent Quinnipiac University.

In this latest survey, 5 percent of likely Democratic primary voters remain undecided, but 85 percent of voters say their mind is made up.

Among Lamont supporters, 65 percent say their vote is mainly against Lieberman.

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
The poll was only among Democrats voting in the primary so asking about a three way general election match-up would have been silly.

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The passion and energy fueling the antiwar challenge to Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman in Connecticut's Senate primary signal a power shift inside the Democratic Party that could reshape the politics of national security and dramatically alter the battle for the party's 2008 presidential nomination, according to strategists in both political parties.

A victory by businessman Ned Lamont on Tuesday would confirm the growing strength of the grass-roots and Internet activists who first emerged in Howard Dean's presidential campaign. Driven by intense anger at President Bush and fierce opposition to the Iraq war, they are on the brink of claiming their most significant political triumph, one that will reverberate far beyond the borders here if Lieberman loses.

An upset by Lamont would affect the political calculations of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), who like Lieberman supported giving Bush authority to wage the Iraq war, and could excite interest in a comeback by former vice president Al Gore, who warned in 2002 that the war could be a grave strategic error. For at least the next year, any Democrat hoping to play on the 2008 stage would need to reckon with the implications of Lieberman's repudiation.

Even backers of the 2000 Democratic vice presidential nominee are now expecting this scenario. Two public polls in the past three days show Lamont with a lead of at least 10 percentage points.

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In 1998, Connecticut's senator, Joseph Lieberman, broke ranks with his Democratic colleagues and railed against the "premeditated" deception of the commander-in-chief. Back then the enduring legacy of this presidential deceit could be found on the dress of a White House intern, Monica Lewinsky. And Lieberman, who went on to be Al Gore's vice-presidential running mate, was hopping mad. "Such behaviour is not just inappropriate," he told the Senate, referring to Bill Clinton's affair. "It is immoral."

...

Lieberman's colleagues duly rounded on him. But his real crime was to give explicit voice to their spinelessness. In truth, only a handful had expressed anything but token opposition to the war and even fewer had set out a clear alternative for fear of being branded unpatriotic. They were mad because Lieberman blew their cover. What this race has really exposed is not a rift between him and the Democratic establishment, which has now closed ranks to back him, but between the establishment and both its base and the nation at large.

....

Yet while the Bush administration gives full throated expression to its supporters' pro-war sympathies, Democrats rarely find their views echoed by the party. A Quinnipiac poll last month showed 93% of Connecticut's Democratic voters disapprove of Bush's handling of the war; 86% think the war was a mistake. On this key issue their representative does not represent them.

This could be, as most of the media and Democratic establishment has painted it, a militant grassroots being restrained by a pragmatic, moderate leadership. But the truth is the views of the Democratic membership chime more closely with the rest of the country than those of its leadership. Polls show more than half of Americans disapprove of Bush's handling of Iraq, support either setting a timetable for or immediate troop withdrawal, and believe Congress is not questioning the president enough about the war. This gives the lie to the claim that Lamont's challenge represents a bid by radicals, urged on by the blogosphere, to hijack the party. If only.

Bloggers can appeal to an ideological constituency, but they cannot create one out of thin air. Addressing the meeting in Bristol last weekend, Lamont, a millionaire and heir to great wealth, could have been a candidate for social secretary at a country club. If this is the face of US radicalism, then it will reassure some to know that it is evenly tanned and neatly coiffed. Those who follow it are similarly respectable. Of the 200 or so who cheered him most were middle-aged white professionals and retirees.

The joke is not on Lamont or his followers, but on those who brand them insurrectionists. Opposing illegal wars and torture are not radical positions. These are ordinary people, indignant at the "premeditated" deception of their commander-in-chief. And, like Lieberman eight years ago, they think it is time to speak up.

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Connecticut likely Democratic primary voters back challenger Ned Lamont 51 - 45 percent over incumbent Sen. Joseph Lieberman in the U.S. Senate race, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.

This compares to a 54 - 41 percent Lamont lead among likely Democratic primary voters in an August 3 poll by the independent Quinnipiac University.

In this latest survey, 4 percent of likely Democratic primary voters remain undecided, but 90 percent of voters who name a candidate say their mind is made up.

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http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x11362.xml?ReleaseID=945

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U.S. Senate - - Dem Primary
733 of 748 Precincts Reporting - 97.99%
Name Party Votes Pct
Lamont, Ned Dem 143,363 51.81
Lieberman, Joe (i) Dem 133,323 48.19

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[ 08 August 2006: Message edited by: Paul Gross ]

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2006/08/08/anti_semitism/index.html?source=newsletter

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In recent weeks, as Lieberman supporters became more fearful that their candidate could actually lose, accusations that Lieberman opponents are motivated by anti-Semitism have become commonplace. Bill Kristol's latest column is titled "Anti-war, Anti-Israel, Anti-Joe," and Kristol claims that "Democrats have adopted a 'European' attitude toward Israel. And toward the United States. That is the meaning of Connecticut Democrats' likely repudiation of Joe Lieberman." A column on Hugh Hewitt's blog, promoted today by Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds, alleges that there has "been a disquieting whiff of anti-Semitism in the anti-Lieberman campaign." Dean Barnett wrote in the Weekly Standard: "Some Americans believe that Israel should not exist. And these are the Americans that Lamont and other Democrats have so eagerly embraced."

Marshall Whittman Monday insinuated darkly that "the degree of left hatred (sic) toward Joe sometimes betrays something deeper," and then came right out with it: "Anti-Semitism will often not speak its name directly, but there is a distinct undercurrent that may explain some of the irrational venom." The Lieberman camp itself has blamed what it claims is a "growing strain of anti-Semitism" for opposition to the senator. As the New York Times put it in a recent article: "Some of Mr. Lieberman's supporters say there is a strain of anti-Semitism in the antiwar left that could make Jewish voters uneasy about supporting Mr. Lamont."

This increasingly aggressive use of anti-Semitism accusations as a political weapon is visible beyond Connecticut. Indeed, it appears to be a prominent weapon in the Republican arsenal as the GOP battles to maintain control of Congress this year. Within the last several weeks, the Weekly Standard has been publishing articles suggesting that Jews ought to feel obligated to vote Republican because of President Bush's support for Israel and the supposedly substantial anti-Semitism on "the left."

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Another example:

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The Jihad Against Joe

To what do the attacks on Mr. Lieberman speak? As far as we can tell, to no concern more noble than anti-Semitism and racism, with a smattering of anti-Bush paranoia mixed in for taste.

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With respect to the latter point, the neo-cons should be happy because of Cynthia McKinney's defeat yesterday.

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If you question Israel you hate Jews.
If you don't like any Jewish person you're an Anti-Semite.

It's crap, but it works for some reason.

Good on Joe though running as an independant, it really shows everyone what great regard he has for the part which supported him for so long.

Lieberman voted 90% with the Dems... has a strong record on civil rights and labour issues... how does that make him such a Republican?

And Lamont... quits an almost entirely white country club because it would look bad for his campaign... and has a less than stellar record on issues.

And I wouldn't say he has that strong a record on labour issues, he's consistently voted for Trade deals like NAFTA, CAFTA etc. As for his civil rights record, that's based on things that happened fourty years ago. From what I hear he's against affirmative action, and in deriding the national party he's used prominent black Democrats like Al Sharpton and Maxine Waters as left-wing boogymen who are taking over the party from good mainstream (read white) Democrats. Also, in the beginning of the month he used a race bating flyer for his campaign.

Also, I wouldn't say Lamont is a one trick pony. Obviously there's the war issue, which isn't one single issue as it drains resources from domestic spending, and it fuels the defecit, amongst other things. But then there are other issues where he differs from Lieberman, like I cited above, and unlike Lieberman he supports universal health care coverage and noted this during their Primary debate. And should Lamont have lost the primary, he would've supported Lieberman.

Frankly I'd say he's the worst sort of politician, a hypocrite. He presents himself as a nice guy, but his actions, and the results of those actions are anything but nice. He really is Senator Palpatine.

[ 10 August 2006: Message edited by: Vansterdam Kid ]

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Originally posted by josh:
Yeah, that site is faster. I have a sinking feeling that it's going to end up 51-49 Lieberman. Even if he loses, if he can come within 5 or 6 points, he'll probably remain viable to run as an independent in the general.

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* supports stem cell research
* pro-choice and supports RU-486
* opposed Bush on tax cuts
* flag burning not a constitutional issue
* opposed SSM constitutional ban
* while not a fan of affirmative action, voted no on banning federal funds for it
* got a 25% rating from the US Chamber of Commerce for being "anti-business" and the support of major unions... 100% rating by the AFL-CIO
* investing in rehabilitation in prison
* moratorium on death penalty
* advocating broad-based sex ed in schools
* against school prayer; for condom distribution
* supports gun control
* opposes drilling in ANWR

So... no... he's not just another Republican. Does that make him a lefty? No. But the Democratic Party isn't really a left wing party in our sense of the term.

As for Lamont, here's a millionaire who quit a country club since it was mostly white (you don't even have to "read mostly white") because it would look bad for his campaign. Yet, because his major issue... and yeah, that was the only issue... he gets cheered on by us?

[ 10 August 2006: Message edited by: Hunky_Monkey ]

But to speak about Lamont a little further, one should note that he was a volunteer teacher in inner city neighbourhoods where most of the students are black, or hispanic, and are defenetly lower income. Not to mention that according to the exit polls he did win the black vote, and he got a lot of high profile black supporters like Maxine Waters, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and Danny Glover just to name a few. With regards to the country club thing, I'd say that's a strawman. It's not like Lieberman is particularly poor himself, he's defenetly a millionaire. And he's defenetly beholden to corporate intrests, at least Lamont is independently wealthy, and has taken more impressive positions, decrying the pressence of 63 lobbyists (!) for every congressperson. Not to mention the fact that of course his country club would be pretty white, most usually are for various socio-economic reasons. That's not something that's going to change over the course of one political campaign. Not to mention the fact that Connecticut is a pretty white state to begin with.

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So... no... he's not just another Republican.

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Say what? Hot off the presses, and straight out of the Republican playbook:

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Senator Joseph I. Lieberman seized on the terror arrests in Britain today to attack his Democratic rival, Ned Lamont, saying that Mr. Lamont’s goals for ending the war in Iraq would constitute a “victory” for the extremists who are accused of plotting to blow up airliners traveling between Britain and the United States.

“If we just pick up like Ned Lamont wants us to do, get out by a date certain, it will be taken as a tremendous victory by the same people who wanted to blow up these planes in this plot hatched in England,” Mr. Lieberman said at a campaign event at lunchtime in Waterbury, Conn. “It will strengthen them and they will strike again.”

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In the final analysis, though, it was up to the voters of Connecticut. And everything I've read suggests they felt that Lieberman had abandoned them. There are towns in CT that have complained that their Senator had never visited them. But he always seemed to have time to visit with Hannity on Fox News.

His campaign itself demonstrates this. He spent most of it trying to win re-election in the Beltway and the national media, not in front of the voters who would actually decide the contest. Aside from some dirty tricks, like race-baiting, he ran against bloggers and unnamed "extremists", not against his opponent and on the issues.

ETA:

And by the way, HM, that country club membership that you seem to think is so significant was inherited. I do not think it means what you think it means.

[ 10 August 2006: Message edited by: pogge ]

Hope you take the same tone if a millionaire runs for the NDP

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Originally posted by pogge:
[QB]And by the way, HM, that country club membership that you seem to think is so significant was inherited. I do not think it means what you think it means.

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A country club with a dubious history... that Lamont was advised to quit by his own campaign team.

If Al Shapton took to the streets to denounce Clinton over a similar issue, funny he didn't take Lamont to task over it.

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If it hadn't been for the Iraq War, Lieberman would have cruised to re-election in the primary.

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Originally posted by josh:

Other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?

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Originally posted by Aristotleded24:
Speaking of positions, where does Lamont stand on the issue of Network Neutrality?

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Originally posted by Aristotleded24:
Speaking of positions, where does Lamont stand on the issue of Network Neutrality?

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It's very important that you don't allow the ISPs and the large operators out there to determine who gets access to what content. When it comes down to net neutrality, this is a pipe and we're providing equal access to all of the content providers out there. And the last thing you want is large conglomerates picking and choosing who gets access to what.

I can understand where if there's some services that use up a lot more bandwidth than others, there's a tier or cost that's associated with that. But when it comes to content, when it comes to what people can see, everybody has equal access to that, and again you can't have, again, conglomerates picking and choosing and making those choices on behalf of consumers. That would be wrong, like de facto censorship.

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Yes... the Iraq War is the only issue facing the US

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The estimated cost of the Iraq War is now 0ne trillion dollars.

The cost per DAY is two hundred MILLION dollars.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11880954/

Two thousand six hundred American soldiers have died so far, and ten thousand have been seriously wounded.

Seen from the point of view of the US only, (ie. omitting the terrible destruction of Iraqi lives that has occurred) the war has been an unmitigated disaster on a scale difficult to comprehend.

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Yes... the Iraq War is the only issue facing the US

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The war was the most important issue, yes. But it was also a symptom of how sick that superpower has become. Because along with descent into war all over Middle East, Americans are gradually losing their freedoms as well as their jobs.
The war is an indicator of the now dominant doctrine of US imperialism, of scorn for UN, of pre-emptive strikes.
Lieberman has supported Bush's doctrine from day One. They may be disagree on little things, but he's just another face of US imperialism.

These candidates are:
Democrats Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, John Kerry
John Edwards.
Republicans: John McCain(ugh)

So looks like in 2 years it will be this pack of warmongers leading the race. I hope things would change.

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Originally posted by Hunky_Monkey:
[QB]Or Lamont's rather Republican friendly record in Greenwich?

Hope you take the same tone if a millionaire runs for the NDP

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He was a selectman, that's a like a city councillor. Voting for budgets that approve funding to fix potholes, or install street signs, is diffrent than never introducing legislation regarding universal health care or enabling GWB to invade Iraq with a blank cheque.

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Just a general question:
Do you know that all the bigshot Senators who are 2008 hopefuls have voted for 3 wars in 4 years????
These wars were the Kosovo war(1999), the Afghanistan war (2001) and Iraq war(2003).
Note: I didnt check how these clowns voted on Afghanistan war, but I think it was near unanimous. Correct me if Im wrong.
These candidates are:
Democrats Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, John Kerry
John Edwards.
Republicans: John McCain(ugh)

So looks like in 2 years it will be this pack of warmongers leading the race. I hope things would change.

Any thoughts?

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There were no actual votes on whether to go to war on any of those wars, even though only Congress has the power to declare war under the Constitution. However, Congress has not declared war since December 8, 1941, even tough the country has been involved in wars in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq (twice) and Afghanistan. Rather, they pass vague resolutions, Gulf of Tonkin, IWR, giving the executive the "authority" to "use force." Simply put, Congress has shirked its responsibility under the Constitution.

Having said that, however, the IWR is a totally different kettle of fish than Kosovo and Afghanistan. I don't think any resolution was passed with respect to Kosovo, and it was, in the scheme of things, a rather minor episode. Afghanistan was the closest thing to an actual declaration of war, with congress passing a resolution granting the President the authority to use all "necessary and appropriate force" against those whom he determined "planned, authorized, committed, or aided" the September 11th attacks, "or who harbored said persons or groups." While still too vague, with the Taliban government harboring al qaeda, invading Afghanistan was both legally (under domestic and international law) and politically justified. Those who voted for it should not be held to account for that vote.

The IWR was totally different because it was unnecessary and based on a lie. Those who voted for either knew, or should have known, this and, therefore, should be held to account if they voted for it.

[ 10 August 2006: Message edited by: josh ]

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Originally posted by Vansterdam Kid:
[QB]He was a selectman, that's a like a city councillor. Voting for budgets that approve funding to fix potholes, or install street signs, is diffrent than never introducing legislation regarding universal health care or enabling GWB to invade Iraq with a blank cheque.

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From my understanding, there was more than one vote which wasn't very "labour friendly".

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Originally posted by Vansterdam Kid:
You know what's intresting? Lieberman's wife is a lobbyist for a pharmicutical company - I'm sure he deals with a lot of Senate buisness that involves the pharmacutical industry. After all they've managed to keep drug prices extremely high, especially in the US of A. And yet the thrust of your argument has been that Lieberman has been a good friend of labour. And yet many average workers don't have particularly good perscription drug coverage, let alone health care. I'd say his decisions over the years have overshadowed any stock holdings in a wider portfolio, or country club mememberships, that Lamont has. Politics are a matter of degrees and compramises, but Lieberman is just far too compramised. Look, I saw Lamont's interview on the Colbert report where he was talking about Israel and I didn't particularly agree with his positions. But nonethless, the guy is light years better than Lieberman. And unlike Lieberman he won't constantly give the Republicans political cover and legitimacy in their attacks against the Democratic Party. Essentially a moderate liberal is far better than a fifth-columist.

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If you have issue with his record on labour, take issue with all the major unions that endorsed him then.

OK... a lesser of two evils then. But I really don't understand why the left here in Canada cheer Lamont on as if he's the seconding coming... and some are rather selective in their "principles". I know many on this board who would have gone apeshit over the Wal-mart thing if it had been... Lieberman... but politely ignore things if they feel the person is on their "side". Like Sharpton... who took to the streets in protest in 1992 over Clinton being a member of an exclusive country club... but made excuses regarding Lamont.

[ 10 August 2006: Message edited by: Hunky_Monkey ]

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Originally posted by Hunky_Monkey:
But I really don't understand why the left here in Canada cheer Lamont on as if he's the seconding coming...

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I think it's blindingly obvious. Normally the incumbent has a tremendous advantage in an election like this. In addition Lieberman had the money, spending three times as much as his opponent by all accounts I've seen, and the Beltway class behind him including both the DLC and the pundits. He had all the advantages and should have walked away with this.

But he lost. It symbolizes the fact that the entrenched candidates can be beaten, that given the mood in the U.S. right now incumbency isn't the advantage it normally is. It suggests the possibility that the American electorate might really be waking up and getting ready to make changes.

It suggests the possibility that the Republicans can be beaten.

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Originally posted by josh:
Yes. The Republicans already have a candidate, Alan Schlesinger, a mayor of a small city. He is not expected to be much of a factor. But to the extent that he is, he's expected to narrow the pool of voters Lieberman can target.

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Sorry, I should've used my "tongue-in-cheek" icon.

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Originally posted by Hunky_Monkey:

If you have issue with his record on labour, take issue with all the major unions that endorsed him then.

OK... a lesser of two evils then. But I really don't understand why the left here in Canada cheer Lamont on as if he's the seconding coming... and some are rather selective in their "principles". I know many on this board who would have gone apeshit over the Wal-mart thing if it had been... Lieberman... but politely ignore things if they feel the person is on their "side". Like Sharpton... who took to the streets in protest in 1992 over Clinton being a member of an exclusive country club... but made excuses regarding Lamont.

[ 10 August 2006: Message edited by: Hunky_Monkey ]

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