Connecticut’s Democrats will make their endorsement today. Ned Lamont needs 15% of the delegates to vote for him and he will automatically be on the ballot. If he doesn’t reach 15% he will still get on the ballot but he will have to do it through signatures. Joe Lieberman is shitting bricks. And so is Al From:
“A very simple thing happened that changed Democratic politics dramatically, and that was that the war turned bad,” Mr. From said, adding of the senator’s critics: “There’s a group in our party that makes a lot of noise and I don’t think they’ve ever won an election. They’re trying to take out one of the great statesmen our party has and that’s wrong.”
Joe Lieberman is a nice man. He is not an ogre. But he is the wrong man to represent the people of Connecticut. I haven’t had much to say about Ned Lamont’s challenge because I am not tremendously interested in challenging Democratic incumbents in this election cycle. That doesn’t mean I don’t fully support Lamont because I do. It’s just a matter of focus. I can’t expend that much Nedreneline on the Connecticut primary and still have the energy to fight more important battles. I also think the netroots needs to choose its battles a little more carefully. If you want influence you need to win some of these battles, and taking down Lieberman is a long-shot. The latest Quinnipiac University poll has Lieberman leading Lamont 65 percent to 19 percent.
That being said, Lieberman could still lose this thing. The same Quinnipiac poll showed that 83 percent of Democrats thought going to war in Iraq was wrong and that could spell trouble for the war’s chief Democratic cheerleader. Lamont received the endorsements of the popular and independent Lowell Weicker (the man Lieberman beat to become Senator), and the National Organization for Women. He’s a serious candidate and he has already spent almost $400,000 of his own money to run this race. If you feel bad about that, you can contribute to his campaign here. It will make Al From cry, which is another good reason to give Ned some coinage.
The Netroots has invested a lot of political capital in the Ned Lamont race (they didn’t ask me first) and it’s important that he do well. The last thing we need is Joe Lieberman serving us our ass and the DLC crowing about how irrelevent we are.