Update [2006-7-29 13:21:10 by DemFromCT]::
[The New York Times, in an editorial published on Sunday, endorsed Mr. Lamont over Mr. Lieberman, arguing that the senator had offered the nation a “warped version of bipartisanship” in his dealings with President Bush on national security.]
There are a few local and non-local stories in the news. The big one is the money story in the Courant, documenting Lieberman's senior Senator status and the ability to bring in corporate money.
The more Lamont looks like a winner, said Swan, the more the small donors swell the coffers. He expects to raise "a couple of hundreds of thousands of dollars" more before Aug. 8.
On Wednesday alone, he said, the campaign got 100 checks from people giving small amounts. The small donations are not required to be listed in the daily filings; those contributions will be in reports filed after the primary.
The latest filings tend to mirror trends from previous months. Among them:
The local connection: Lamont continued to draw about half his large-donor money from Connecticut. Of the 24 contributions of $1,000 or more he received since July 20, 13 were from the state.
Lieberman, whose fundraising operation began much earlier than Lamont's, had been getting about 20 percent of his money from Connecticut through this spring. As of the first quarter of this year, the latest such data available, he had taken in $2.4 million from the New York City area, $1.4 million from Fairfield County and $1.2 million from Washington.
That trend has continued. On July 20 and 24, he reported receiving 143 large donations, and four had Connecticut addresses. A large number came from New York City and its suburbs.
Big money. Lieberman has been taking in six-figure sums almost every day since July 20.
Money won't decide this primary, but it will fund the GOTV drive Lieberman has hastily put together. Forbes (AP), meanwhile, covers some of the local issues. The quotes from locals are excellent in terms of a thumb-nail:
"The last three times I voted for him, but I will never vote for him again," Cheryl Curtiss of West Hartford, Conn., said recently of Lieberman as she waited for primary challenger Ned Lamont to speak at a campaign fundraiser.
"The war is the big piece" said Curtiss, 52. "I don't think it can be minimized. All of our tax dollars are going there. It's killing Americans. It's killing Iraqis. We went there on lies."
Carolyn Gabel-Brett, in the same audience, said her disaffection with Lieberman began when he wouldn't support a filibuster in the Senate to prevent Samuel Alito's confirmation to the Supreme Court. The senator "does not support marriage equality," she said, adding she is a lesbian who married her partner in a state-sanctioned ceremony in neighboring Massachusetts.
"I would have liked Joe to be better on the issues because I like the guy," said state Rep. Christopher G. Donovan, House majority leader and the senior elected Democrat in Connecticut to support Lamont. "But you know, you only get to vote every six years."
Let's let Broder have the last word:
From what I saw last week, this fight is a complete mismatch. The party regulars supporting Lieberman have a candidate. The rebels backing Lamont have a cause. And I came away convinced that the people with the cause are likely to win -- at least this first round...
Ignoring the (Iraq) issue won't work. Perhaps for some voters, Lieberman's three decades of constituency service -- the jobs he's saved, the grants and contracts he's helped secure -- entitle him to another term. But how many of them will be motivated enough by gratitude to vote in a mid-summer primary is uncertain. Lieberman has put out a call to friends in Washington to bolster his lagging get-out-the-vote effort, but he has little time to catch up.
For many Connecticut Democrats, the overriding motive is to send a message against the war, against the Bush administration, against Washington -- everything that Lieberman represents to them. On the night after the Clinton-Lieberman rally in Waterbury's Palace Theater, I came here to meet with some of these voters among the 200 people attending a wine and cheese fundraiser with Lamont and his wife, sponsored by a coalition of feminist organizations.
One woman, Karen Schuessler of Ridgefield, told me she had bought an expensive ticket to a Lieberman fundraiser last December so she could tell him directly how much she opposed the war. "He told me, 'Things are looking better over there. They're voting. They have a constitution.' I thought, 'What a moron!' The next month, I went to the first dump-Lieberman meeting."
Ain't that the truth. I think the primary will be close, and Lamont will win. I think the general becomes an up-for-grabs blue seat (no chance for the Rs), and the entire country gets to watch Joe defend the war (assuming he runs - rejection is a powerful message).
Democrats everywhere are looking to Connecticut for clues about the party's direction. The primary will probably point them leftward, toward a stronger antiwar stand. But often in the past, the early successes of these elitist insurgents have been followed by decisive defeats when a broader public weighs in. That is why this contest is so consequential for the Democratic Party.
No question that's true. But trying to take home a message based on Gene McCarthy and HHH is rather stretching a point. Some of the pundits really have to understand that while human nature doesn't change, political dynamics do. It's not 1968 any more, and hasn't been for some years. And paying attention only to 1968 or 1972 without paying attention to the fall of Saigon (or the fall of LBJ) is the ultimate blind spot, particularly in a non-Presidential year (in 1970 for the 91st Congress, the Rs gained four senate seats and the Ds gained 12 house seats).
Well, I have written before about how the Nixon playbook says that antiwar Dems need to be blamed for losing Iraq. Sounds like Broder is warming up that concept in his quiet, center-right way. I do not look forward to reliving the late 60's to satisfy the old men's desire to salvage political points out of a disastrous military and political blunder, but it looks like we are heading down that road. The fault isn't in 'elite' Lamont supporters (see small donor story from Forbes, Mr. Broder), it's in the Republican refusal to take responsibility... but not the blame.
Crossposted at The Next Hurrah