Lamont and Edwards Event

First of all, in addition to CGG's pictures and video below, a few intrepid bloggers have posted video of the event: spazeboy, ctblogger, and tparty. Check out the video if you get a chance... (spazeboy and ctblogger have both promised extended video in the next few days)

The event was a day ago and the sites mentioned above have done great work writing about it (and the print media has covered it as well: NH Register; Courant), so I will just talk about a few points that stood out to me.

John Edwards is scary good at giving a speech. And, if he decides to run for President again (which he certainly seems to be preparing to do), he may find Connecticut to be fertile ground. His campaign got off to a late start and was badly outmanned in '04 and he still pulled 24% - '08 could be another story. Meanwhile, expect to see more possible presidential candidates in Connecticut before November to stump for Lamont. Like John Kerry (scroll down to the updates).

Most political speeches (at least since Bobby Kennedy) don't spend much time on poverty (unless they are based on the work of Charles Murray). It was refreshing to hear two politicians get up on a stage and speak eloquently about the scourge of poverty and how, as a nation, we are missing an opportunity to combat it. If Lamont continues to discuss the topic, it may help him continue to erode Joe Lieberman's Democratic support (check the maps to the right to see where each candidate found their support in the primary) without (IMHO) having much of an effect on Rs or Is.

I think events like this generally do more for the Presidential aspirant than they do for the Senate candidate. Here, did John Edwards stumping for Ned Lamont sway even one vote over to Ned Lamont? I think its likely that most supporters of Edwards who are strong enough supporters to be swayed by their guy's endorsement were already Lamont voters. That said, this race is a little different. Events like this have the potential to aid Lamont in that they can create buzz, generate donations, and generally put pressure on Lieberman to abandon his indy run. Of course, one event isn't going to do all that, but if we see a steady parade of national Democratic leaders coming through Connecticut, and a steady stream of contributions going to Lamont and not to Lieberman, the pressure on Lieberman to preserve his dignity will become that much higher.