All Lamont, All the Time

All right, I give up. No matter where I turn there days, there sits Ned Lamont's quixotic non-campaign for Senate. I get the feeling that this race is going to consume us far more than any of the other races out there, if the explosion of media over the past few days about the upcoming primary is any indication. Some of you taking today's poll agree.

A few examples:

Denis Horgan of the Courant, whose columns I have always found very insightful, has written about the endorsement of Lieberman by almost every big-name Democrat in the state this week. The interesting part is this:

Everyone hailed Lieberman as a prince, even as nearly all disagree with him over his and President Bush's war on Iraq. (Horgan)

The personal loyalties Lieberman has spent his career building do seem to go a long way. One has to wonder if there's a breaking point, though.

A Greenwich Citizen article reports on Lamont at a Greenwich DTC meeting.

Folks crowding Lamont after he spoke included such as banker Jeffrey Blanche of Greenwich.

"I have known him for 20 years and I have liked him for 20 years and I am ready to help," he told the Greenwich Citizen. "What will you do?" Blanche was asked. He answered: "Whatever Ned tells me needs done, I'll do." Folks huddled around Lamont seemed of a like mind. Lamont appears to exude charisma. (McCormack)

Not only that, but he saying the right things.

Lamont is adamant about pulling American forces back to the periphery, and letting the Iraqis settle differences themselves. "We might keep a small reserve force in Kuwait but "let's bring the troops home," he declared, drawing a burst of applause from the crowd that packed the Meeting Room.

It was the first of many rounds of clapping punctuating his remarks. (McCormack)

As the situation in Iraq careens towards civil war, will this position become more popular?

Dan Levine reports in the Connecticut Law Tribune about the possible impact the primary could have on the governor's race.

So the central question then becomes: does increased turnout help DeStefano or Malloy?

Again, the answer isn't simple. At first blush, one would think DeStefano. Lamont will bring out antiwar Democrats. DeStefano is generally considered the more liberal of the two gubernatorial candidates, while Malloy is closer to Lieberman's pro-business agenda. A number of the moveon.org crowd backing Lamont lined up early behind DeStefano early. Also, because Occhiogrosso will be working for both Malloy and Lieberman, that will reinforce the connection between those two candidates among insiders.

But Lamont hails from Fairfield County, which Swan and Occhiogrosso agree boasts healthy antiwar sentiment. Since that's Malloy's base, higher turnout among affluent voters in Southwestern Connecticut may want to register an antiwar vote with Lamont and take a fiscally conservative stand with Malloy. (Levine).

The article also notes that both gubernatorial campaigns are pretending Lamont doesn't exist, for now.

Then there's the blogosphere. A new blog, LamontBlog, has appeared. Its sole purpose is to cover the primary, presumably from the point of view of the Lamont campaign.

My Left Nutmeg has become sort of an unofficial arm of the Lamont campaign in recent weeks. Certainly it's a prime spot for Lamont supporters to gather. ConnecticutBlog is also stridently pro-Lamont, as are other sites like the long standing Dump Joe.

There has been a glimmer of support for Lieberman on the blogs, but most of it has come from conservative sites. Even some of them seem to be lukewarm on him (quick update: Sean from CT Conservative has noted in the comments that he is not, in fact, lukewarm on Lieberman).

So that's the Senate Primary News for now. There will no doubt be a lot more to come.

I'm starting to wonder who I would support, were I a Democrat. I'm not, so it's a moot point. But I wonder. Lieberman's overly moralistic stances on everything from video games to movies and music bother me, and I'm not a fan of the war. But then again, I'm not convinced Lamont is a better alternative. His statement that we should bring the troops home ASAP seems too easy. I don't think we can do that at this point, not with the country exploding before our eyes.

Will we see more nuance out of Lamont? Maybe not. His directness may be exactly the sort of thing to rally antiwar Democrats. As for Lieberman, he may very well start floating leftwards in an effort to crowd out Lamont if he starts feeling more threatened. We'll see how the positions of both men evolve over the coming weeks.

But, as ctkeith says, I don't think we've seen anything, yet.

Sources

Horgan, Denis. "A Teeny Weeny Thing." Denis Horgan: Wanderings (Blog) http://blogs.courant.com/travel_columnists_horgan/ 24 February, 2006.

Levine, Dan. "The Two Primaries." Connecticut Law Tribune 20 February, 2006.

McCormack, Patricia. "Lamont, Darkhorse Candidate for Lieberman Seat, Magnetizes Dems." Greenwich Citizen 24 February, 2006.