Joe will lose Round Two (or: Draft Ned Lamont)

The two posts by mcjoan on the front page got me thinking again about Joe Lieberman and that darn CT-Sen race.  And the more I think about it the more I think that should Lieberman face Ned Lamont again he would not prevail.  That is, I think Joe will lose Round Two.

Of course, at this point I don't know if Lamont has any plans to run again... (more on that later)

From what I remember about the race and what Tim Tagaris wrote afterward, Lieberman was able to win despite widespread dissatisfaction in Connecticut with many of his views (particularly regarding Iraq) because of several factors:

1.  Lieberman was able to hold onto many Democratic voters despite not running as a Democrat.

2.  (Related to #1...) Lieberman was able to convince voters that he shared their concern with the situation in Iraq and would support ending the war soon.

In recent weeks [once he got desperate], Mr. Lieberman has called for different tactics in Iraq.
--NYTimes on October 25th, 2006

3.  The Lamont campaign expended so much energy (not wasted, obviously) in the run up to the primary that it was running on fumes as November 7th approached.

More.

Well, I think it is now clear that Joe's change of heart on Iraq was more of a change of image that, once it had done its job, was discarded.  Go back and read this from mcjoan's post again:

Lieberman Applauds President for Pursuing
New Course in Iraq
Rejects ‘Fatalism of Failure’

WASHINGTON – Senator Joe Lieberman (I/D-CT) today made the following statement in response to President Bush’s address on Iraq:

"I applaud the President for rejecting the fatalism of failure and pursuing a new course to achieve success in Iraq.  There is no more difficult decision that a President can make than to send our nation’s bravest soldiers and patriots into harm’s way.  Yet, no objective is more worthy in defending America’s vital national security interests...

So Joe is once again carrying the president's water like a pack mule.

Surely that will not surprise anyone here.

But that would, I think, negate the possibility of point #2 above being a factor in a potential rematch.

As for #3, I believe that if Lamont were to run again he would easily get the Democratic nomination - after all, he won convincly last time - and would be much more ready to confront Joe in the general election.

Add all that together and I think you have a much different scenario in which Democratic voters could be persuaded to drop Joe for Ned.

So I think we in the netroots should convince Ned to run again!

I know it's early.  But I wanted to at least get this out there while it's extremely relevant:  the whole world can see this week that Joe is still trotting behind the president like a loyal little puppy.