Tuesday, October 17, 2006
These multi-party races are always an interesting dynamic to watch. Here in Massachusetts we've got the Green-Rainbow bag-lady of evil, Grace Ross, and Independent candidate Christy "I can't win, but I can piss on the Republicans on my way out" Mihos sucking up votes from the Democrats and Republicans respectively (quit now, Christy). They have no chance, but they do provide a bit more sport to the contest. Connecticut's dynamic is a bit different, with the Republican, Alan Schlesinger, playing the role of no-chance spoiler (though a more significant spoiler than either of his two Massachusetts counterparts) taking votes from Independent Joe Lieberman and no Green counterpart sucking votes away from the Dem candidate. Still, Lieberman appears to be the one who's contest it is to lose.
Yesterday was a three-way debate in the CT race, and the Democrat partizans are, not surprisingly, kvelling over Schlesinger's surprisingly good performance and advising Republicans to be loyal and vote for their party candidate. The Political Pitbull has a very good post with some video highlights (I did not manage to see the debate live [edit: Connecticut Blog has the entire debate, here]) and a round-up of reaction. He goes against the grain of opinion in believing that Schlesinger actually helped Lieberman:
This is something we've seen in the Massachusetts race, with Mihos sparing Democrat Patrick from having to attack Republican Healey by doing it for him. Christy "the shiv" Mihos...
AllahPundit also has a round-up of lefty-blog reaction...quite pro-Schlesinger.
Marginalia:
· Olé!
· A Hartford Courant/University of Connecticut poll from a week back had Lieberman up on Lamont by 8 points with 35% of Democrats and moajorities of Republicans and independent voters supporting him.
· Immigration blog V-Dare is taking Bush to task for supporting "Open Borders extremist" Lieberman over the Republican in the race.
· "Race politics" has been something of an interesting side-show in the race. Al Sharpton had previously criticized Lieberman for using his (Sharpton's) support for Lamont as a negative by pointing out that Lieberman had previously asked for Sharpton's support for himself. The Lieberman campaign is denying that they ever asked Sharpton for his endorsement.
In bigger news, the Lamont campaign had to deal with what turned into a real gaff as Lieberman's truthfulness with regard to his Civil Rights background was questioned:
"Now, that's really outrageous and, of course, it is a lie," Lieberman said at a hastily called press conference, where he blamed the episode on his opponent, Ned Lamont.
Hours earlier, former state Treasurer Henry E. Parker had questioned Lieberman's oft-cited civil rights history as he and other black leaders endorsed Lamont.
"I'm saying that my view is there's no evidence of what he's done. Let him prove that he's been there," Parker said at a press conference attended by Lamont.
Lamont's campaign, which immediately seemed to grasp the political misstep, disavowed Parker's claim even before Lieberman produced news clippings placing him in Mississippi...
...the damage was done. The episode gave Lieberman an opportunity to reinforce a constant theme of his campaign - that Lamont has relentlessly distorted Lieberman's record in the contest for the U.S. Senate.
"Don't put this on Hank Parker. This is an open letter to me at a press conference for Ned Lamont," Lieberman said. "Ned Lamont was right there. He can't disown this."
Lamont stood with Parker and other members of the Connecticut Federation of Black Democratic Clubs as they endorsed Lamont and released an open letter to Lieberman. The letter disputed a television ad that recounts his civil rights involvement.
The Lamont campaign paid for 300 to 400 copies of the open letter in which the federation said that it was "offended by your television ad which claims you were an advocate for African Americans' first class citizenship and as such you marched for our civil rights."...
I may have missed it, but I find no mention of the issue on the Lamont Blog, not even a response, which goes to show how bad of a mistake it was. Joe's blog jumped all over it: Ned's Worst Lie Yet. They are also touting an "unsolicitied" statement defending Lieberman's record issued by Jimmie L. Griffin, president of the Waterbury branch of the NAACP and former state president of the NAACP as well as an endorsement from Rep. John Lewis, "a well-known leader of the Civil Rights Movement":
Parker himself started backing down from the accusation fairly quickly.
· They say winning the lottery can be a life-changing experience not always for the good, but personally, I'd risk it. It must be nice to be filthy rich: Senate Race Shatters Spending Record
...Lieberman's campaign announced Friday that he had raised $14.8 million in contributions as of Sept. 30 in his quest for a fourth term - $5.1 million of it since early August, when he switched to an independent candidacy...
...Lamont's campaign declined to release its totals before Sunday's Federal Election Commission deadline. But earlier in the week it reported that the multimillionaire candidate had kicked in an additional $2 million of his own to bring his self-contributed total to $8.7 million. That, combined with his outside fundraising, put his campaign's total at about $10 million...
· Rove connection spotted! Rove associate backs group sponsoring ad attacking Lamont
[The Lieberman/Lamont Notebook is part of my ongoing coverage of the race for Pajamas Media.]
