I don't think I have been fair in documenting my arguement in an exact logical fashion. So I will tell the story in exactly one town. Welcome to Stamford. It is the fourth largest city in the State of Connecticut. It is a city that I think it could be fairly stated, a Democrat can not win statewide without. It is in Stamford that we see the full damage of the Lamont campaign and the havoc it can can inflict on the Democratic Parties candidates up and down the ballot.
Lets start in the year 2000. In that year with Al Gore and Joe Lieberman at the top of the ticket, Democrats won Stamford with 62% with Nader taking three on the left. Bush only got 34% for a massive 28 point win. Joe Lieberman himself was taking 67% of the vote in Stamford in the Senate Race. Now I am perfectly willing to conceede that a lot of things were benifiting Al Gore in the State but there is no doubt Joe was a part of that with Stamford in particular given that it was his place of birth.
In 2002 Stamford voted like much of the State to Re-elect Republican John Rowalnd by a 54-46 percent margin, being that unlike New Haven and Hartford, Stamford is indeed a bellwether for the State at least in off year elections.
Moving on the to the 2004 election a funny thing happened. John Kerry only recieved 59% this was particularly troubling given that the three percent of the left disappeared almost certainly into Kerry's colum. Bush went from a bad 34% to a respectable 40%, Stamford remained a Democratic town but slightly less so. In total about six percent of electorate switched from Gore to Bush, Why?
On the same day, Chris Shays battled with Diane Farrell, with Farrell eking out a 52% to 48% win, at this point the war had already happened and Diane was hitting Shays with it and yet, between seven and eight percent of the electorate voted for Shays, while voting for Kerry. The problem is that named brands have a lot of power in Connecticut and many voters, despite issues vote for the guy they have known for longer, people in Stamford, kind of like Chris Shays and I think also fair to say like Joe Lieberman, Does anyone think a lot of Kerry-Shays voters are looking to dump Joe because of the war?
When you take the six percent that flipped from Gore to Bush and combine them with, the Kerry Shays 7 or 8 percent, you are talking about the 13-14% of the Stamford electorate that will go a long way toward deciding who wins the race in the CT 4th and I believe without a shadow of a doubt that amongst this 14% of the Electorate Joe Lieberman has an astromtically high approval rating, probably around 70%. He is their guy, the kid from Stamford who did good.It is true they probably don't love the war. But when asked in polls, they are the group that somewhat disapproves of the President. It is clear some of them probably voted for Al Gore so Joe Lieberman could be vice-president. This is the group amongst which the Ned Lamont movement will be viewed with fear and doubt and a lack of understanding. These people aren't hip to the latest banktruptcy bill voted, or John Kerry fillibuster. Amongst these Votes, we just asked them to make Joe Lieberman Vice President and now we are kicking out of his Senate seat. This an electorate which almost kicked out its mayor for getting to ambitious, giving him only 51%. This my friends is why it is imperative that Joe Lieberman holds the Democrats banner and not an independent one come November, because if Joe goes he takes this 14% with him in every swing town across the state.
Election Results
Gore
27,430 62 %
Bush
15,159 34 %
Nader
1,148 3 %
Kerry
27,588 59%
Bush
18,866 40%
Farrell
23,063 52%
Shays
20,899 48%