Rethugs seem to have been unusually supportive of Lieberbush over the last few days. This by itself is not surprising, after all, the Rethug candidate is weak, and Lieberbush is a right-wing Rethug masquerading as a moderate/independent "Democrat". However, we have seen an increasing number of Rethug candidates from other states that have endorsed Lieberbush, particularly McGavick of Washington and Kennedy of Minnesota, with the hope that they can be seen as "independent" as well, as well as smear Democrats the way that Joe McCarthy did by questioning their patriotism for supporting Ned Lamont.
Some ideas to deal with this on the flip.
For Rethugs who are running in other states who endorse Lieberbush, two approaches seem fitting. One is to simply question what business they have in meddling in the Connecticut Senate race. For example, run an ad saying Senator Cantwell is working hard for the betterment of Washington, etc, while Mike McGavick is more interested in national politics and what is going on in Connecticut. Basically question why the Rethug is not paying attention to local issues, and question whom they care about.
The other method is to use their support of Lieberbush to link them to W, whom it seems that most of these Rethugs want to distance themselves from. Hammer home the point that Lieberbush was defeated because he supported W, and these are too close to W.
In Connecticut, I think the message should be simple. A vote for Joe Lieberbush is a vote for continuing W Administration policies, and a vote for Ned Lamont is for change. Hammer Lieberbush for using Karl Rove's playbook (this worked well in the NJ Gov race) and again using McCarthyite tactics in smearing Democrats as well as veing a sore loser who cannot abide by results when he loses. Working class Democrats are the key, a message of fairness and playing by the rules would be useful as well. Additionally, it is a possibility that Lieberbush might be simply running to impress the W regime to give him a cabinet position, a win by Lieberbush would allow a Rethug to be appointed.
Lastly we all should be hoping for (and working towards if you are in the region of RI) a Laffey victory over Chafee, which will show what kind of right-wing extremists the Rethugs are, and that they are hypocrites. I think a lot of hay could be made with that, and the Dems missed a minor opportunity by not highlighting Joe Schwartz defeat by extremists in the party.
Trivia question:
It has been stated many times in the press report that Joe W. Lieberbush is just the fourth incumbent senator (Chafee will hopefully become number 5) defeated in a primary since 1980 (in 1980, there were at least two who were so defeated, Jacob Javits(NY) and Donald Stewart(AL)).
Name the other three such senators. Two of them are fairly easy. The third one is tough.