Last night my husband and I attended a Meetup for Ned Lamont in Norwalk, CT. I'd estimate roughly 75 people attended; all age ranges were represented and it was an energetic crowd, but my first impression is that we need to pull younger activists into the fold. We introduced ourselves and our reasons for attending the meeting (typical of the way Meetups are run; if any of you were part of the Dean Meetups it's the same basic setup).
There were many members of Democratic Town Committees willing to host Lamont at upcoming town meetings, which will be key in getting more and more visibility for Ned. He will certainly need to attend many DTC meetings (among other actions) to pull this upset over Lieberman. He's got to get into the newspapers, radio, and start becoming a force within the party.
More below the flip
As we went around the room telling our stories some attendees told of being poll watchers in Florida during the 2004 scam election. Each one told the same story of seeing the votes flip from Kerry to Bush. One woman said she had never been so frustrated in her entire life! So many of us have just had enough of the same old garbage.
Another man said it was the kiss at the Capitol that turned him away from Joe. (Yeah, that wasn't a pretty sight, but more than that I think it exemplifies all our frustrations with Joe's phoniness)
Ned, himself, comes from a Yale business and managment background, but he said the one thing he learned is the lesson that your employees DO matter and that it's not just the "bottom line". He said his cable company has lost bids to companies that don't provide healthcare to its employees. He also told us that HE had originally approached Lowell Weicker to run against Lieberman, but Weicker turned the tables and challenged Lamont to go for it. (Maybe we can get Weicker to run again as an independent and take that possiblity away from Joe...who is threatening to go "indie" if he loses this primary.
Lamont stated that his candidacy will be based on three primary things: The War in Iraq (based on bad foreign policy), healthcare, and corruption.
It's just a beginning, but this challenge is exactly what we've been saying, doing, writing, and thinking at DKOS for a long time. It's no longer good enough to go along to get along. I think we are all looking for truth, intelligence, dependability, principles, open mindedness, and humanity in our candidates. Ned Lamont may be just the one to lead the way in this test against the establishment. But we'll never know until we try.
By the way lots of information here at http://www.dumpjoe.com/. And keep your eye on the Windsor Resolution which is a town resolution that will be unveiled soon; we are assured by Brad (creator of the DumpJoe website) that it's much more harsh than the Manchester Resolution.
