If today was Election Day, and Hillary Clinton was the nominee of the Democratic Party, I would begrudgingly vote for Hillary Clinton over John McCain.  However, this is a marked difference from January, when I would have been happy and excited to cast my vote for Hillary Clinton.

As you'll recall, the Lieberman campaign hosted their website on a cheapy hosting account, probably paying in the tens of dollars per month for the service. When their website crashed due to heavy usage on Primary Day, they accused the Lamont campaign or his supporters of "hacking" his website.

We knew immediately why his site had gone down -- his shitty hosting account -- but Joe Lieberman, in full sanctimony, demanded an investigation into the website failure, forcing tax payers to fund civil and criminal investigations into the mater.

We already know that the US Attorney knew before the November elections that the charges were bogus, yet refused to reveal the information. We also know that Connecticut Attorney General Dick Blumenthal claims the Feds didn't update him on their investigation, hence he was unable to let the public know about Lieberman's bogus politically-charged accusations.

However, the reality is that the Feds DID tell Lieberman and Blumenthal about the results.

Thomas Carson, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney, said in a statement that the office updated the Lieberman campaign and Blumenthal on the investigation in late October 2006.

"In accordance with our usual practice . . . the Lieberman campaign, as the alleged victim, and the office of attorney general, which had been conducting a contemporaneous investigation . . . were provided with limited information," Carson said. "The investigation was administratively closed several weeks later."

Tom Swan, Lamont's former campaign manager, said Carson's response is alarming.

"They acknowledge letting the Lieberman campaign know and never letting anybody from the Lamont (campaign) know," Swan said.

The US Attorney's office knew that Lieberman's charges were bull before the November election, as did Dick Blumenthal, as did Joe Lieberman. Yet none decided to update the public on charges that had a clear political import in the then-current debate.

The US Attorneys were (are?) puppets of the Rove political machine. Their silence is obvious, and Lieberman has repaid that favor to George Bush many times over since his reelection. Dick Blumenthal was obviously carrying water for Lieberman.

And Lieberman? For someone who claims to be so religious, he sure is a dishonest, lying hack.

Update: For their part, Blumenthal's office still denies they had concluded there was no wrongdoing before the election. But they did receive information from the US Attorney's office before the election. What exactly was that information?

Update II: Blumenthal emails me:

As you know from your legal background, a prosecutor is limited as to what he can say about a case that produces no criminal charges, especially when it's a state official talking about a federal investigation.

I can say that my office's discussions with the U.S. Attorney's Office prior to the election did not include any conclusions. The U.S. Attorney's Office did not inform my office of its conclusions until after the election.  

As I said in my statement, we were not informed of the FBI email or its contents or even its existence. Nor was any member of my staff given such information. This statement is not contradicted by anything said by the U.S. Attorney's Office. To have made any premature public predictions before our investigation ended in December 2006 would have been irresponsible and improper.

Interesting that the case magically gets closed just after the election when we had figured out the problem with Lieberman's website in about 45 minutes. It's still patently clear to me that Blumenthal's office and the US Attorney's office both dragged their feet until after the election. Why would they do that?

Race tracker wiki: CT-Sen

The video below is highly inspirational and conclusively decries the patronizing "Elitism" charge.

Obama speaks at Campus Progress' 2006 National Student Conference, discussing the challenges of community organizing.

I've been thinking back to the 2006 Congressional Elections.  

The conventional wisdom was that Democrats had a good chance to take back control of the House of Representatives, probably by a small margin.  But, even Chuck Schumer head of the DSCC didn't have much hope of Democrats taking back the Senate.  

Follow me past the fold for some analysis of the 2006 Congressional Elections, of Hillary Clinton's remarks about Move On, and how these relate to the 2008 elections.  

March 31, 2006:

Obama rallies state Democrats, throws support behind Lieberman

HARTFORD, Conn. --U.S. Sen. Barack Obama rallied Connecticut Democrats at their annual dinner Thursday night, throwing his support behind mentor and Senate colleague Joe Lieberman.

Obama, an Illinois Democrat who is considered a rising star in the party, was the keynote speaker at the annual Jefferson Jackson Bailey Dinner.

Lieberman, Connecticut's junior senator, is under fire from some liberal Democrats for his support of the Iraq War. He was key in booking Obama, who routinely receives more than 200 speaking invitations each week.

Some at Thursday's dinner said that while they were pleased with Lieberman's success in bringing Obama to Connecticut, they still consider Lieberman uncomfortably tolerant of the Bush administration.

Obama wasted little time getting to that point, calling it the "elephant in the room" but praising Lieberman's intellect, character and qualifications.

"The fact of the matter is, I know some in the party have differences with Joe. I'm going to go ahead and say it," Obama told the 1,700-plus party members who gathered in a ballroom at the Connecticut Convention Center for the $175-per-head fundraiser.

"I am absolutely certain Connecticut is going to have the good sense to send Joe Lieberman back to the U.S. Senate so he can continue to serve on our behalf," he said.

For someone who likes to tout his "judgement", this is proof that no one, not even Obama, is infallible.

But then again, can there possibly be a better example of Lieberman's ungratefulness? Yet another reason, in a long line of them, why his constituents are experiencing buyer's remorse.

Race tracker wiki: CT-Sen

In the wake of the publication of the Yoo memorandum, there has been a lot of attention again on this administration's war crimes. And it's needed.  Although the Bush Administration has apparently earned the contempt of the vast majority of the American people, we have yet to fully grapple with the crimes of this administration, let alone to call for the punishment of those responsible for them.

Troutfishing's excellent diary yesterday reminds us that the real war criminals include not just minor functionaries and crude hacks like John Yoo, but the highest levels of this administration including the President himself.  The MSM seems, very gingerly, to be reporting this now. And it's very important that progressives not let this story die.

But unfortunately we have another task before us which, for at least some progressives, will be far more difficult.  

We know why the US Attorney in Connecticut would want to protect Joe Lieberman by refusing to release the details of their investigation into the alleged "hacking" of Lieberman's site the day of the Democratic primary. The last thing Karl Rove and Monica Goodling wanted was Lieberman embarrassed days before the general election by pointing out the rank incompetence of his campaign and lack of integrity in owning up to his b.s. accusations.

But what about Connecticut's Democratic Attorney General? Why would he carry water for Lieberman and protect the senator? Who knows. But what we do know now is that Blumenthal lied to blogger CT Bob about the case at the time.

[T]he [FBI] email was sent out on October 25th, 2006, about a week before the general election. The only reason it finally saw the light of day was because of an FOI request, otherwise it may have never been revealed.

The reason I felt queasy was because I remembered an interview I did with Blumenthal four days later (October 29th) but still before the election, at a fund raiser for Dave Mooney in Stratford. This is when news of the FBI's findings may have still made a difference.

In the interview, Blumenthal said there were no definite conclusions to the investigation and that it was ongoing.

Here's that interview:

Race tracker wiki: CT-Sen

Lieberman's spokesman Dan Gerstein, on his campaign being busted for lying about their website crash in the 2006 primary:

A spokesman for Mr. Lieberman, Dan Gerstein, said in a statement that the campaign had acted on the assessment of its Web site administrator, who believed the site had been attacked. And while he accepted the F.B.I.’s findings, he did not offer any regrets.

"We consider the matter closed," Mr. Gerstein said.

Legally, the matter was closed BEFORE the 2006 general election, in October of that year, and they didn't see fit to admit to the public that they had smeared the Ned Lamont campaign and bloggers like us. That would require integrity the likes not seen around Joe Lieberman since ... well, perhaps ever.

This wasn't rocket science. The Lieberman campaign was incompetent in its web dealings, as was painfully obvious the very day his site went down. Yet that didn't stop Gerstein and Lieberman from blaming their incompetence on others:

Visitors who tried to access Lieberman's site at the time received a message calling on Lamont to "make an unqualified statement denouncing this kind of dirty campaign trick and to demand whoever is responsible to cease and desist immediately."

And it didn't stop the traditional media from trumpeting those lies and smears, none of which bothered to ask their tech teams (or outside tech sources) to take a look and see if the Lieberman charges held any water.

It also didn't stop Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal and US Attorney Kevin O'Connor from refusing to release details of Lieberman's bogus charges and his campaign's rank incompetence a week before the election, lest it hurt their friend's re-election chances. I'm sure Karl Rove and Monica Goodling were mighty pleased with O'Connor's work.

In short, a U.S. Senator demanded public funds be spent investigating a patently bogus and politically motivated charge, yet the public was refused access to the results of that investigation until well past the time where the voters could've properly assessed the situation in that election.

No one said Bush's and Rove's politicization of the Justice Department didn't pay dividends.

But still, Gerstein thinks "the matter is closed".

Legally, it is, but politically, it's not. It's just one more data point for a state that is increasingly disenchanted with Lieberman and suffering from buyer's remorse.

Research 2000 for Daily Kos. 3/31-4/2. Regular voters. MoE 4% (9/10-12/2007 results)

If you could vote again for U.S. Senate, would you vote for Ned Lamont, the Democrat, Alan Schlesinger, the Republican, or Joe Lieberman, an Independent?

All

Lamont (D)      51 (48)  
Lieberman (I)   37 (40)
Schlesinger (R)  7  (9)

Democrats

Lamont (D)      74 (72)  
Lieberman (I)   19 (25)
Schlesinger (R)  2  (3)

Republicans

Lamont (D)       4  (7)  
Lieberman (I)   74 (69)
Schlesinger (R) 19 (24)

Independents

Lamont (D)      53 (49)  
Lieberman (I)   36 (38)
Schlesinger (R)  6  (9)

For someone who pretends to be so pious, Lieberman and his lackeys exhibit a shocking lack of integrity. Sure, Connecticut Republicans love it since they are allergic to good government, but he's unsurprisingly lost his state's Democrats and independents.

It's just a matter of waiting out the clock until 2012.

Race tracker wiki: CT-Sen

Remember THIS?

As Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman fights for his political life, his campaign on Tuesday accused his opponent's backers of hacking into the senator's campaign Web site and shutting it down just in time for Connecticut's primary Election Day.

...and THIS?

I have the definitive answer as to why Lieberman's site went down.

They are paying $15/month for hosting at a place called MyHostCamp, with a bandwidth limit of 10GB. MyHostCamp is currently down, along with all their clients.

...and THIS?

Straretz noted that if Lieberman "hacking" charges prove false, the FBI and federal prosecutors could pursue charges against those who reported them. "If it was fabricated and you could prove intent, there's Title 18, Section 1001, which is providing false statements to an FBI agent. That can be prosecuted at the discretion of the U.S. Attorney's Office."

Given Lieberman's high-profile efforts on behalf of John McCain, I wondered how his constituents were taking it. So I had independent pollster Research 2000 reprise a poll I commissioned last year testing a rematch between Ned Lamont and Joe Lieberman. I found last year that buyer's remorse had set in. It's even worse this year.

Research 2000 for Daily Kos. 3/31-4/2. Regular voters. MoE 4% (9/10-12/2007 results)

Lieberman has shored up his support with Republicans, who clearly see him as one of their own. He has predictably lost ground among Democrats. But interestingly, he also lost the same amount of ground (six points) with independents.

Clearly, his whole "independent" schtick isn't playing well with real independent voters. I'll have more on this poll later today. The crosstabs are below the fold. Crosstabs for last year's poll can be found here. Unfortunately, there's no approve/disapprove numbers from last time since I forgot to ask for that data (I think it was my first poll ever commissioned).

Race tracker wiki: CT-Sen

Tomorrow's NYT magazine cover story, A Case of the Blues, details the recent history and likely future of a new "permanent" blue congressional majority.

While certain elements of the story are off base and even old news, especially to Kossacks, it's refreshing to see the paper of record, a bastion of MSM conventional wisdom, finally "reporting" on the continential shift we've been driving for the past several election cycles.

Cook Political Report (subscription required):

Meanwhile, the special election to replace GOP Rep. Richard Baker's seat in Louisiana continues to give national Republicans heartburn. Less than three weeks away from the April 5th primary runoff, competitive primaries are playing out in both parties. Insiders on both sides agree the nomination of the current favorites - moderate Democratic state Rep. Don Cazayoux and GOP newspaper publisher Woody Jenkins - would present something akin to a perfect storm for Democrats in the May 3rd special general election.

This district is rated a solid R+7, with Bush beating Kerry 59-40 in 2004. By comparison, IL-14 is R+5. Three weeks ago, Cook moved this up from "Likely Republican" to "Lean Republican". He now rates it a "toss-up".  

To be sure, the Democrat in the race, Don Cazayoux, is rabidly anti-immigrant and anti-choice. He brags about joining the Blue Dogs. He would be a terrible person on social issues, which is enough to ensure I won't lift a finger to help get him elected. But he would be a good vote on the occasional issue like SCHIP and has called for a withdrawal from Iraq. So instead of getting 0 percent progressivism from a wingnut Republican, 30-50 percent would be an improvement. That can matter quite a bit, especially for our troops in Iraq.

Perhaps more importantly, how much money will the NRCC blow from its meager coffers to try and hold yet another supposedly safe Republican seat? How much of a blow to the NRCC's confidence and fundraising ability will another unlikely special election loss deliver? Gaining another Blue Dog would be a small price to pay for having a decimated NRCC lead to dozens of progressive victories around the country. Many of which will be elected thanks to our enthusiastic support.

Race tracker wiki: LA-06

Crosspost

It's hard to give too much actual significance to a special election victory in a nominally Republican seat. While it may have few immediate political ramifications (one seat extra in Congress, and Democrats have another vulnerable seat to defend in a few months), the symbolic meaning is huge.

To illustrate the magnitude of this victory, it's useful to plot it on a map.

Let's go to Tennessee, October 5, 2006. When Harold Ford was running for Senate, the TN Republican Party put out this mailer:

This was noteworthy because the Republicans darkened Ford up considerably. The first image below is the source image (from Ford's then-congressional website), the next one is a straight up conversion to black and white. The last is the photo that ran in the mailer.

At the time, state Democratic Party chair Bob Tuke's outrage was noted in the Knoxville News Sentinel:

They have darkened Harold Ford’s image to make a racist statement.

Now people can quibble whether Ford was darkened to make a racist statement, or whether he was darkened to be made "more sinister" (a difference without much distinction in my book), but clearly, the state Democratic Party chief had an appropriate reaction.

It says something ill of us as a society when darkening a person's features makes them look more sinister. And doing that to an African American (or Latino, or Arab, or other darker-skin people) is particularly egregious.

Some may want to explain it away as "business as usual". But in this case, that's not "business as usual" I'm willing to tolerate.

Race tracker wiki: TN-Sen

If the Hillary supporters are all going to leave, then I guess I'd better provide some balance.

I wrote this diary in May of 2006 as a result of disgust about some false claims being made about Senator Clinton.

I've been getting seriously fed up with the huge misconceptions you (unfortunately, in all likelihood I'm talking about you personally) have about the voting records of various Democratic members of Congress. So, I decided to write this diary to clear up those misconceptions

The comparisons between the Obama campaign and that of Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick have already been made, even to the extent of noting (to the point of "plagiarism") how Obama has used phrases that Patrick used in his stump speeches.   What is becoming more fascinating as the Democratic primary campaign drags on and gets more bitter and nasty is how much the campaign itself resembles the 2006 Massachusetts gubernatorial contests between Patrick and Republican Kerry Healey.  Hillary Clinton’s recent White House phone fear ad is starting to make her resemble the former Massachusetts Republican Lt. Governor Kerry Healey.  Hillary is starting to channel her inner Healey.

Found this while doing research for my book, from February 2005 right after Dean won his election for Democratic Party Chairman:

Brian Nick, spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, offered insight into how the GOP plans to make use of Dean.

“You have Barbara Boxer, Ted Kennedy and now Howard Dean coming to the forefront as spokespeople for their party,” Nick said, referring to two of the most liberal Democratic senators. “You can’t get much more far left than that.”

Carl Forti, Nick’s counterpart at the National Republican Congressional Committee, added: “I can think of nothing better for the long-term prosperity of the Republican Party than to have the Deaniacs come to Washington.”

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

I Googled around for more Forti quotes, just for fun, and found some great ones:

“If Democrats want to run ads in districts around the country that are focused on Tom DeLay, it will be a banner year for Republicans. If they want to talk about Tom DeLay and I am talking about how their candidate raised taxes in the state legislature, we win.”

And

You may see Democrats try to discuss (ethics issues), but we're going to ignore it because we don't think it's relevant.”

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Then I decided to see what Forti was up to these days.

Carl Forti, former communications director for the National Republican Congressional Committee, has taken on a job as deputy campaign manager and political director for former Governor Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign confirms Romney spokesperson, Kevin Madden.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

This is depressing.  I found this 2006 DCCC ad on my computer earlier today, and realized that while the Democrats campaigned on ending the Iraq War or at least standing up to Bush the Democrats it elected have not.  

OK, I knew that they'd done nothing but still this brought it home even more viscerally, and depressed the crap out of me.  Some of them have tried, but the Democratic Congress has been a massive disappointment.  After thirteen months of Democratic Control, not much of anything has changed except that the numbers of dead are higher.