Please understand that this is not official information, and represents an attempt to be fair to all candidates in the race...
2006 U.S. SENATE RACE AND HOW IT GREW:  GUBERNATORIAL RACE 2010?
More on 2010;  a story that kept on giving;  refresh your memory on Connecticut  Democrats' Primary here.
INTRODUCTION:  Color coded articles are purple, if they are neutral, red if they refer to Republicans, blue if Democrat, and black if Independent.
 The candidates...Republican, Democrat, Unaffiliated and President Karzai of Afghanistan, wearing green (but not "green party" candidate).  This sub-page of the "About Weston" website is devoted to the U.S. Senate contest, which now has a total of 5 candidates.

Alan Schlesinger;  Ned Lamont;  Joe Lieberman (with President Karzai of Afghanistan).  Now candidates from Green Party (Ralph Ferrucci) and Concerned Citizens (Timothy Knibbs), too.


BAD JOKES INSPIRED BY SENATE CONTEST:
Some links to contest highlights:


Lamont Weighs Run For Governor 
DAY
By Morgan McGinley 
Published on 6/28/2009

Ned Lamont, the Greenwich millionaire who toppled Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman in a Democratic primary but lost the general election to him in 2006, is considering running for governor.

Lamont probably won't reach a decision until early in 2010, the election year. But Lamont, 55, the owner of a telecommunications company, has a distinct advantage over the other Democratic candidates - he could finance the campaign with his ample personal funds, just as he did in the Senate race. He doesn't need a lot of start-up time.

That isn't the case with Stamford Mayor Dannel Malloy, former House Speaker Jim Amann of Milford and Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz of Middletown. Lamont also would have built-in name recognition because of his victory in the Democratic Senate primary and his candidacy in the general election.

While he won't comment specifically on whether he'll run for governor, Lamont doesn't shy away from expressing his disgust with the way Connecticut government is being run.

”Let's just say that we have lacked strong governance for a long time,” he says. “It took us many years to get in the mess we're in right now.”

”She (Gov. Jodi Rell) wants to borrow us out of this mess and the legislature wants to tax us out of it,” says Lamont. “She's successfully blamed our budget mess on the legislature. Why not present a balanced budget and move the ball?”

Lamont said he considers Connecticut to be like an aging business company, with old demographics. “We quibble every two years and yet the tough choices that a recession and deficit present could start us on a path to change.”

Lamont, now a part-time professor at Central Connecticut State University, has been working with former Chancellor William Cibes of the state university system, labor representatives, Connecticut Business and Industry Association leaders, Chamber of Commerce executives, private social service organizations and other groups interested in public policy.

The group, working more than a year, is called The Blueprint Coalition and has produced a vision for Connecticut finances and public policy. The group crosses political lines.

Cibes is a former budget director for then-Gov. Lowell P. Weicker, who encouraged Lamont to run against Lieberman. Lieberman won the Senate seat by upsetting Weicker in 1988. Lamont, Weicker and Cibes also are strong supporters of U.S. Sen. Christopher J. Dodd. Lamont in fact was among the key state supporters of Dodd's 2008 campaign for president.

Their support could be extremely helpful as Dodd tries to restore his public image after a series of negative stories about how he financed mortgages, the value of his vacation home in Ireland and the substantial earnings of his wife from pharmaceutical companies. Dodd now heads the Senate side of the Obama campaign for health care reform, an apparent conflict of interest for his wife.

Cibes won't indicate whom he supports for governor, but says: “A number of things could be in his (Lamont's) favor, chief among which was that when everyone was wimping out in 2006, he had the courage to put his money where his mouth was. And that got senatorial candidates around the country to step forward and it resulted in Obama's election.”

Lamont might have been seen as just another in a series of rich guys from Fairfield County who wanted to be a U.S. senator when he ran in 2006. But he had been involved in Greenwich town government as a selectman and, in defeating Lieberman in the primary, proved he was the real deal.

For a lot of reasons, not the least a well-financed campaign, Lamont would be a formidable candidate for governor, the office Democrats haven't won since Bill O'Neill's victory in 1988.

Morgan McGinley is a former editorial page editor of The Day, now retired. 
Senate Candidate Campaign Sums Set Record
By DAVID LIGHTMAN, The Hartford Courant
3:54 PM EST, December 15, 2006

WASHINGTON -- Connecticut's three major U. S. Senate candidates spent a record total of $37.3 million on this year's race, far surpassing previous records for campaigns in the state.

Data released Friday by the Secretary of the Senate showed that the winner, Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, spent $16.9 million. He raised $19 million, and begins his fourth Senate term with $2.5 million in the bank.

Democrat Ned Lamont exceeded those totals, raising $20.3 million and spending nearly the same amount. But unlike Lieberman, whose money was raised entirely from donors, Lamont got only $3.5 million from outside sources. He gave his effort $13.8 million and took out $3 million in loans.

Republican Alan Schlesinger took in $221,019 and spent $204,113.

Lieberman lost the August 8 primary to Lamont but ran as an independent and won the general election with 50 percent of the vote. Lamont won 40 percent and Schlesinger got 10 percent. Lieberman plans to caucus with Democrats in the 110th Congress.

Lieberman built his campaign treasury from a variety of sources, some consisting of his traditional moderate Democratic donors and some Republicans, spurred by White House loyalists who liked the senator's support of the Iraq war.

The totals shattered the eight-year-old mark for spending in a Connecticut race. In 1998, Republican Gov. John G. Rowland and then-Lt. Gov. M. Jodi Rell spent about $6.9 million, while Democratic gubernatorial nominee Barbara B. Kennelly and her running mate, attorney Joseph Courtney, spent $2.4 million. Courtney last month defeated Rep. Rob Simmons, R-2nd District, for a congressional seat.

In Connecticut's prior Senate race, incumbent Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, D-Conn., raised $7.1 million for his 2004 re-election bid and spent $5.6 million.

Lieberman campaign manager Sherry Brown said Friday said she expected the final cash on hand total to be somewhat less, since bills are still being paid. And, she added of the remaining sum, "No plans have been discussed for the money."

The funds can remain in an account that could be used for certain political activities, including a 2012 re-election bid. 

Drama of Senate race debated
Angela Carter, Register Staff
12/09/2006

NEW HAVEN — Two panels of journalists and strategists from the campaigns of U.S. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, D-Conn., and his challengers Ned Lamont, the Democratic nominee, and Alan Schlesinger, a Republican, on Friday discussed behind-the-scenes maneuvering and possible implications the primary and general election could have on national politics.

"There was no doubt in my mind Joe Lieberman was going to lose the primary unless he changed his position on the war," said Lanny Davis, an adviser to the senator, who did lose the primary but won in November as an independent.

"He did what we wanted him to do, he stayed as Joe Lieberman," and presented himself as a decent, experienced man who had long been popular with the electorate, Davis said.

Davis participated in a nearly two-hour panel discussion with other members of the Lieberman team, including Sean Smith, campaign manager, and Roy Occhiogrosso, general consultant; and advisers from the Lamont camp, Bill Hillsman, media consultant, Tom D’Amore, general consultant, and George Jepsen, campaign director and former state party chairman; as well as Schlesinger’s campaign manager, Dick Foley.

Hartford Courant writers Mark Pazniokas and Kevin Rennie served as moderators.

The event was sponsored by Yale University’s political science department and the Center for the Study of American Politics and held at Luce Hall.

Pazniokas said Lieberman’s camp ran a "confused primary" and Smith, also a lecturer in Yale’s political science department, said he found it "unique how little the primary was about Ned Lamont."

Voters saw Lamont as the guy who wasn’t Lieberman, Smith said. "Ned Lamont could’ve been a ham sandwich," he said.

Hillsman said Lamont should have aimed at independents earlier and, mistakenly, the campaign cooled its jets for two weeks after the primary, waiting for party leaders on Capitol Hill to cajole Lieberman into dropping out of the race in deference to the primary results.

Davis said the D.C. elites never asked Lieberman to bail.

"We didn’t do anything almost immediately, unfortunately," Hillsman said. "The campaign was sandbagged."

Smith and Occhiogrosso said Lieberman’s advisers did not discuss the idea of an independent run very much.

"That’s not something he wanted to do. He wanted to be the Democratic nominee," Smith said. "The game plan all along was to win the primary."

But Lamont’s primary victory captured national attention and loosened the tongues of other Democrats who had held back criticism of the war and even of former Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld.

Quinnipiac Poll Director Douglas Schwartz said the August primary filled a national news vacuum and bolstered the run of a political unknown in Lamont, who took on a three-term senator who previously ran for vice president and president.

"It was a great national story," Schwartz said. "For political junkies it was great."

Schwartz said the Quinnipiac Poll next month will test whether Connecticut’s other senator, Christopher J. Dodd, suffered a hit to his popularity for supporting Lamont through the general election. Dodd is gearing up for a possible presidential run in 2008.

"Dodd consistently does better among Democrats than Lieberman does," Schwartz said.

Walter Shapiro, bureau chief for Salon.com, said the Senate contest sent a signal to incumbent senators around the country to be on the lookout for wealthy citizens who could bankroll a challenge and spend more time in their home states.

"Never in my lifetime again will a Connecticut Senate race have this much drama," Shapiro said.
Critic delights in taunting Lieberman
Gregory B. Hladky
11/20/2006

It’s been heartwarming to watch as Joe Lieberman’s Democratic U.S. Senate colleagues welcomed him back into the fold, just as if he’d never abandoned his lifelong party affiliation long enough to win re-election. Lieberman was taken back into the Democratic caucus and given the chairmanship of the Senate’s Homeland Security Committee, just as he had hoped.   Not even Lieberman’s confession on national television that he might be forced to switch to the Republican side could cool the Democratic ardor.

"I’m not ruling it out," said Lieberman, "but I hope it doesn’t get to that point."

Exactly what "that point" might be is anybody’s guess.

In a U.S. Senate where he is considered — at least for now — the 51st Democratic vote, it will certainly pay Lieberman to keep everyone guessing.

Meanwhile, back in Connecticut, one of Lieberman’s longtime critics is doing his best to remind everyone of Joe’s third-party re-election pedigree.

John Orman is a professor of politics at Fairfield University and a Democrat who disagrees with Lieberman’s support for the Iraq war and a variety of other issues.

More than a year ago, Orman ran a brief and unsuccessful protest campaign to take the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination away from Lieberman. Lacking any money, a discouraged Orman was forced to call it quits after a few months.

Then Greenwich millionaire Ned Lamont jumped onto the antiwar, anti-Lieberman bandwagon.

Lamont beat Lieberman in a bitter Democratic primary, which forced the incumbent to use a backup option he’d been preparing for months. The day after the primary, Lieberman handed state election officials more than 7,500 signatures supporting his bid to run as a candidate of the Connecticut for Lieberman party.

At the time, Orman protested that there really was no such party, and that Lieberman was simply manipulating the election system to invalidate the outcome of the Democratic primary. Election officials disagreed and Lieberman said he’d been forced to take that route in order to allow all of Connecticut’s voters the opportunity to vote for him.

Lieberman promised over and over to be an "independent Democrat" if elected to a fourth term. With lots of support from Republican and unaffiliated voters, Lieberman won with 50 percent of the vote.

Orman’s response was to trot down to his local registrar’s office to try to switch his party affiliation from Democrat to Connecticut for Lieberman, which is something no one else has done.

Although that switch isn’t official yet, Orman waggishly proceeded to convene a one-man party organizational meeting and elected himself "chairman."

Chairman Orman also passed some rules for the party, including one requiring that, "If you run under Connecticut for Lieberman, you must actually join our party."

Another of his tongue-in-cheek party rules reads as follows: "If any CFL candidate loses our party’s nomination in a primary, that candidate must bolt our party, form a new party and work to defeat our party-endorsed candidate."

Sounds like Orman is having a blast.

Plenty of losers in election
CT POST
KEN DIXON
Article Launched:11/12/2006 08:10:52 AM EST

Now that we're over the Nedster's mid-life crisis, Christopher Shays' televised meltdown and Joe Lieberman's imperious reaffirmation, we the voters are left to pick up the pieces of this nasty Campaign 2006.

Any day now, I expect to see U.S. Rep. Nancy Johnson — whose attack ads, like her 5th-District defeat, were the worst in the state — grazing on the side of the parkway with the other woodchucks.

And while Gov. Jodi Rell may have run up surprisingly huge numbers against New Haven Mayor John DeStefano, she essentially did zero campaigning for state House and Senate candidates and now faces veto-proof Democratic majorities.

How Rell turned a 63-to-35 percent landslide into a multi-seat GOP loss in the House is testament to the governor's non-existent coattails and what State Republican Chairman and soon-to-be House minority chief of staff George Gallo calls the Democrats' "toxic headwind."

If Democrat Joe Courtney holds his narrow margin over U.S. Rep. Rob Simmons in the recounts, it means that Shays, R-4, would be the only Republican congressional survivor. Wearing his heart on his sleeve and having a district tailored like a Savile Row suit, helped Shays survive.

But at one point last Tuesday night, I got the feeling, watching Shays that someone gave him a set of election returns with a dropped decimal for his total.  His televised angst was moving, but bordered on narcissism when he tried to collect the blame for dead U.S. troops in Iraq.  Hello, Congressman Shays! It's a representative democracy. All of us, led by the Bush administration and an economy where college is out of reach for a percentage of the populace, send our troops into harm's way, not you.

Relax and smell your reduced role in a Democrat-controlled Congress, because, unlike Ned Lamont — the spell check says 'lament' — you're there. Lamont, who got to the point Monday where he opened the door to WAY too much speculation on what inspired him to accept bitter former Gov. Lowell "Big Guy" Weicker's challenge to go after Lieberman, is probably bouncing around the kitchen at Chez Lamont in Greenwich right now.

On the 'fridge is a Post It note with a to-do list that includes "Call Round Hill Club" and "Check Bank Statement" to see what that $16 million he spent on the campaign means to his bottom line.

Somewhere, there has to be a Beatles CD blasting "The Ballad of John and Yoko" dating back from the early 1970s, when another anti-war candidate, U.S. Sen. George McGovern, raised the hopes of millions only to be crushed by Dick Nixon in the 1972 presidential election.

Ned's mid-life diversion showed us a number of things, including the fact that his wife Annie, a venture capitalist, was a better candidate. But she makes serious money, not this on-again, off-again cable-installation company that Ned "started from scratch" with family wealth dating back more than 100 years.

Ned learned how to hemorrhage his family fortune, while Lieberman was smart enough to let his corporate backers foot the bill.

Vowing to continue reaching across the aisle "to get things done," Lieberman could become a noncombatant in the potential partisan war than may break out in January if Bush decides to manipulate a lame duck session to push the vestiges of his now-repudiated agenda before the end of the year. Ned could have really enjoyed being in a Democratic majority, but maybe his next hobby will be sailing, or maybe running for the General Assembly in Greenwich's Republican bastion. So there was Ned on Monday, doing his last-gasp bus tour of Connecticut, stopping at a healthcare union in Hartford for a little lunchtime rave.

The national press and TV was missing because of the much-bigger and even-nastier nationwide Senate races than one between two Democrats in Connecticut. The smug bloggers were there, though, because they had another 34 hours of 70s-era denial. But at the union HQ, after the usual preliminaries and anti-Lieberman mantra for the reporters and photographers, Lamont, flanked by his family, introduced his wife and three children. It was one of those moments when reporters are glad to have tape recorders. "I want to thank my family for being here. Talk about who was here first," he said, on the verge of sharing too much information. "Annie and I were there... just lying there (little laugh) about a year ago, just saying this country is going in the wrong direction and what can we do about it."

At this point I wonder if Annie thinks a red convertible would have been a better and cheaper idea.
Democrats welcome Lieberman back into the fold
Stamford ADVOCATE
By Brian Lockhart, Staff Writer
Published November 9 2006

National and state Democratic leaders were quick yesterday to embrace U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman, who lost August's primary but resurrected his political career Tuesday by winning a fourth term as a petition candidate.

Jim Manley, spokesman for current Senate Minority Leader and likely Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., anticipated being asked about the independent Lieberman's standing within the party.

"The answer to all these questions will be 'yes,' " Manley said at the start of a phone interview.

Manley said Reid phoned Lieberman to congratulate him and assured the incumbent he can caucus with Democrats, retain his seniority and become chairman of the Government Services and Homeland Security Committee.

Democrats won a majority of the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate on Tuesday.

Lieberman confirmed the conversation with Reid yesterday during a news conference in Hartford.

The senator also received phone calls from fellow Connecticut U.S. Sen. Christopher Dodd and state party Chairwoman Nancy DiNardo, both of whom supported him in the primary before rallying to Lamont's side for the general election.

Dodd recently appeared in campaign commercials with Greenwich businessman Ned Lamont, the anti-war candidate who rose from political obscurity to win the Democratic nomination. Dodd spokeswoman Colleen Flanagan said he had scheduled a news conference for 10:30 a.m. today in Wethersfield to discuss the results of the general election.

"Senator Dodd did place a call to Senator Lieberman," Flanagan said yesterday evening. "He has not heard back but does look forward to talking to him in the coming days."

DiNardo said she also had a call in to Lieberman. She described him as a "man of integrity" and said he remains a party leader despite his primary loss and subsequent victory as an independent.

"He's still a registered Democrat," DiNardo said. And while Lamont and his supporters accused Lieberman of being a closet Republican for his steadfast support of the Iraq war and other GOP policies, DiNardo said: "We don't have a litmus test to be Democrats."

DiNardo said she has begun reaching out to other state party officials to mend any rifts caused by the Lieberman-Lamont contest and work together to hold Republicans accountable.

Some of the senator's critics yesterday questioned how effective a Democrat he will be after his re-election relied so heavily on Republican support.

From the White House to Gov. M. Jodi Rell, GOP officials turned their backs on party candidate Alan Schlesinger; fundraisers and voters followed suit.

Lieberman in his victory speech Tuesday said he returns to Congress "beholden to no political group."

Not so, said George Jepsen, a former state senator and chairman of Lamont's campaign.

"There are conflicting pressures on him. On the one hand, he clearly owes a massive debt to (President) Bush, (Vice President Dick) Cheney and Karl Rove. By throwing Schlesinger under the bus they, behind the scenes, ran Joe as the de facto Republican," Jepsen said. "But if he's too visible or obvious in siding with the Republicans in a way that thwarts the Democratic agenda, how is he going to get cooperation on his own initiatives?"

During his noon news conference at the Goodwin Hotel in Hartford, where he celebrated his victory the night before, Lieberman said he is not beholden to Republicans.

"The only thing the Republicans who voted for me ever asked is I do what I think is right," the senator said.

He said a preliminary analysis by his staff indicated he had received what he considered a broad base of support - about 38 percent from unaffiliated voters, 37 percent from Republicans and 25 percent from Democrats.

In Fairfield County, Lieberman carried Lamont's hometown of Greenwich, earning 11,160 to 8,258 votes. Schlesinger received 1,817 votes.

But Lieberman also prevailed in his childhood hometown of Stamford, a Democratic stronghold, winning 15,514 votes to Lamont's 13,409 votes.

The senator said by caucusing with Democrats he preserves his seniority, which is important for Connecticut, but he will work with either major party "to get something done for this state."

Jepsen and John Orman, a Fairfield University political science professor who briefly challenged Lieberman, were not surprised he has been welcomed back so quickly by Senate Democrats.

Orman said Lamont never appeared to enjoy the full support of the national party. While prominent leaders, including U.S. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean and Gen. Wesley Clark, stumped for Lamont, Orman noted others, such as former President and Hillary Clinton were conspicuously absent. And, there was a lack of Democratic money, leaving Lamont, a multimillionaire, to fund much of his campaign, Orman said.

"The Senate is a club, and I know how these small group dynamics work," Jepsen said. "It's been clear to me, every step of the way, (Lieberman) would not be punished. Why create an enemy?"
Lieberman For U.S. Senate
The Day's Choice
Published on 11/5/2006
 
Ned Lamont, in his election campaign against U.S. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman and Alan Schlesinger, offers his vision of the day when the United States no longer has to spend hundreds of millions of dollars a day on the Iraq War and can invest the savings in schools, health care and other unmet domestic needs.

If The Day believed that it were that simple and electing Mr. Lamont would advance the day when this rosy outcome could occur, the newspaper would heartily endorse him, as it recently did his fellow Democrat, Joe Courtney, in the 2nd District congressional race.

But there are clear differences between the two races and between Mr. Courtney and Mr. Lamont.

Mr. Courtney has a record, a distinguished one incidentally, as a state legislator, in which he learned well how the legislative process and compromise work and can be put to good uses. Mr. Lamont has no such experience. And the experience gap is far greater between Mr. Lamont and Sen. Lieberman, who has a praiseworthy background in state and national government going back more than three decades and who was so respected that he was chosen to be a vice presidential candidate. Based on experience, even Alan Schlesinger, the Republican candidate who is trailing with the support of less than 10 percent of likely voters in the polls, is better trained for the job than Mr. Lamont, having served in the legislature.

Mr. Courtney's election also would add to the chances of a Democratic majority in the House of Representatives, a real shakeup in the balance of power that would add to the pressure for a change of course in the Iraq War.

On the other hand, a Lamont defeat of Sen. Lieberman wouldn't make any difference in the balance of power, since both Mr. Lamont and Sen. Lieberman are Democrats. Sending Mr. Lamont to the Senate probably also wouldn't make much difference in the outcome of the debate over the war, on which both candidates appear to be naïve. Sen. Lieberman clings to the notion that the war can be won, while Mr. Lamont proposes that it will be a simple matter to get out. Neither of these views seems realistic or particularly useful in addressing the present predicament.

Mr. Lamont would dispute the point about Sen. Lieberman's party loyalty, arguing that Mr. Lamont is a “truer” Democrat than Sen. Lieberman. But other than in the case of the war, that is a phony argument. On matters other than the war (a big issue, to be sure), Sen. Lieberman is as much a Democrat as Mr. Lamont professes to be, voting with his party most of the time. In fact, Sen. Lieberman has become more loyal to his party line in the last several years, since his unsuccessful campaign for the presidency in 2004.

To make a long story short, Sen. Lieberman is a far more impressive U.S. Senate candidate than Mr. Lamont, one who could better serve the interests both of Connecticut and the nation. That was the basis for The Day's endorsement of the senator in the primary, and Mr. Lamont hasn't offered any reason for us to change our minds in what quite frankly has been a disappointing campaign by Sen. Lieberman and Mr. Lamont. Both have done a poor job of explaining themselves. The difference is that Sen. Lieberman has a record that describes his potential better than his campaign has, and that explanation is flattering and good reason to re-elect him.

Sen. Lieberman learned the art of legislating public policy as a student of Connecticut political history and practitioner as a leader in the state Senate. He learned that getting anything done involved dealing with the enemy. This lesson was reinforced when he went to Washington as a U.S. senator and confronted a divided and ideologically polarized government. There, he threw in his lot with President Bill Clinton and other pragmatic Democrats, who attempted to negotiate policy across party lines.

Sen. Lieberman demonstrated that he was not blinded by partisanship, as many Democrats and Republicans in Washington were, when he denounced President Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky affair and the president's lame and shameful defense of his actions.

But while that was the right and principled thing to do, the action came to be viewed by others in his party as part of a pattern of disloyalty. This attitude alienated the senator from the liberal wing of his party and the conflict came to a head when Sen. Lieberman and Howard Dean, the current chairman of the Democratic National Committee, faced each other in the 2004 presidential race.

Many of Mr. Lamont's supporters today were supporters of Gov. Dean, whom Sen. Lieberman characterized as a “ticket to nowhere” for the party at the time. In that campaign, Sen. Lieberman perhaps best articulated his approach to politics in today's bipolar political environment. He said: “I share the anger of my fellow Democrats with George Bush and the wrong direction he has taken the country. But the answer to his outdated, extremist ideology is not to be found in outdated extremes of our own.”

That is the approach that the senator has brought to Washington to represent his state's interests and look after the nation's well-being. It is a formula for serving in the Senate that will better serve Connecticut than Mr. Lamont's two-dimensional, MoveOn.org-brand partisanship.

Whether or not the Democrats take control of one or both houses of Congress, the next Congress will have to deal with razor-thin majorities and partisanship. Sen. Lieberman, arguably one of the most accomplished politicians in Connecticut history, would continue to be in a better position to get anything done and protect the interests of his state in that atmosphere than either Mr. Schlesinger or Mr. Lamont. The Day endorses Joseph I. Lieberman. 
Survey Gives Lieberman A 12-point Lead Over Lamont;  New Poll Reason For 'cautious optimism' In Senator's Camp
DAY
By Ted Mann
Published on 11/3/2006

Groton — Joe Lieberman reused an old line on Thursday, murmuring into the microphones after an elaborately affectionate endorsement for re-election from one of the heroes of this town's effort to save its submarine base, Anthony J. Principi.
“You'd have to be me,” Lieberman told Principi, the chairman of the federal panel that overturned the plans to close the Naval Submarine Base, “to know how much that means to me.”

How times have changed since Lieberman was more frequently trotting out that line. Then, in the thick of summer, the three-term Democratic senator was vainly trying to win his own party's primary, eventually succumbing to the surprising campaign of Ned Lamont.

Then, a last-ditch bout of whistle-stoppery — a bus tour around the state in searing, late-summer heat — wasn't enough to win him the nomination.

Now look at him.

Lieberman was smiling Thursday, standing with Principi near the sub base to tout his effectiveness in keeping it open. The polls show him with double-digit leads over Lamont and Republican Alan Schlesinger. And for once, in this most unusual of years, the senator was not followed to Groton by the pickup truck float of him in papier mâché, kissing the president.

A new poll commissioned by The Day and the Journal Inquirer of Manchester shows Lieberman with a 12-point lead over Lamont, and hovering just above the 50-percent threshold among Connecticut voters. Fifty-one percent of those surveyed said they would vote for Lieberman, compared to 39 percent for Lamont and 7 percent for Schlesinger.

That has his campaign trafficking in “cautious optimism,” said communications director Dan Gerstein. The Lieberman camp is preparing for a formidable get-out-the-vote operation among Democrats, and spending considerable energy with a pickup truck display of their own, intended to show the senator's supporters where exactly to find him on a crowded ballot.

The senator ducked a question about the Lamont campaign's complaint to the Federal Election Commission about more than $387,000 in petty cash spent during the primary, and following a report in The New Haven Register that some Lieberman workers said they had been paid twice as much as the campaign reported to the FEC.

“Well, I decided a long time ago in my political career that I couldn't be both campaign manager and the candidate,” Lieberman said. “So, I'm the candidate.”

“The bottom line here is the La-mont campaign filed an FEC complaint,” Gerstein said. “It is now in the legal arena. We're fully complying with the FEC, and we're happy to do so.”

Lieberman also avoided a question about his frequent charge that Lamont is overly partisan in his criticism. Wouldn't that also apply to other Democratic candidates, like, say, congressional challenger Joe Courtney, whom Lieberman nominally supports and who have aggressively criticized the war in Iraq and the Republican majority in Congress?

“I got to tell you the truth,” the senator said, after some pressing on the issue, “I've been so busy trying to run my own campaign that I haven't paid a lot of attention to the other ones.”

•••••

Despite fervent opposition to the Iraq war — the dominant issue of the election cycle and a primary factor in Lieberman's loss of the Democratic nomination — the senator doesn't appear to be paying a stiff price among many voters. That includes not just Republicans and independents who have flocked his way since the Aug. 8 primary, but also some Democrats.

“It's almost like he gets a pass,” said Del Ali, the president of Research 2000, the Rockville, Md., firm that conducted the Day/JI poll this week. The poll surveyed views of 600 likely voters, with a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

“I think voters want to throw Republicans out,” said Ali, who said he is among those now predicting a “tidal wave” for Democrats in congressional races. “But they (Democratic and independent voters) know when this is over, hey, they're not losing a seat.”

There is plenty to concern the incumbent, and Lamont's staff said they remain confident that high Democratic turnout and a renewed momentum will propel them past Lieberman on Tuesday.

The Lamont campaign will flood the airwaves with four TV commercials in the next four days, including a new ad featuring actor Paul Newman and another depicting Lamont in Jimmy Stewart's idealistic role from the film “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.”

(Each side has tried to portray the other as spending relentlessly, and each has poured huge sums into the race, with Lieberman seemingly edging his rival despite Lamont's spending more than $16 million of his own fortune.)

Lamont's campaign manager, Tom Swan, dismissed Lieberman's lead in the Day/JI poll, saying it sampled too heavily from Republicans and others not likely to be motivated to vote this year. An aggressive get-out-the-vote effort, he said, coupled with stronger-than-predicted support for the Republican wild card, Schlesinger, will help pull Lamont past Lieberman.

“This is a volatile election,” Swan said. “I'm confident, with the numbers provided to me today, we are within striking distance.”

Meanwhile, Lamont and Schlesinger would have the stage to themselves Thursday in the fourth debate of the general election. Lieberman, saying he had only agreed to three, stayed away, a move that didn't surprise the pollsters.

“You don't really have to play offense right now,” Ali said. “There's nothing he has to say that's going to sway voters to try to get more votes.”
 
Lamont writes $2 million check to own campaign (and another two million bucks the next week, too)
DAY
By ANDREW MIGA, Associated Press Writer
Oct 21, 8:37 PM EDT

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) -- Wealthy businessman Ned Lamont, trailing Sen. Joe Lieberman by a double-digit margin, dropped another $2 million Saturday into his Senate bid.

The Democratic challenger has tapped his personal fortune for $12.7 million to fund his campaign.

Time is running short for Lamont.

He has about two weeks to catch three-term U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman, who has pulled to a 17-point lead since losing the Aug. 8 party primary and launching an independent campaign, according to a recent poll.
 
Lamont, a cable television executive, is scrambling to shake up an increasingly testy race that polls show is breaking in the Lieberman's favor. Monday night's third and final televised debate could offer a prime chance for a breakthrough.

"People have a real opportunity to see three candidates stand up, enunciate real differences about where this country should go," Lamont said Friday while campaigning in Hartford. "That's the best way to get our message out, through debates."

Monday's debate in New London presents a high-profile opportunity for Lamont to create a shift in the race's momentum.

Unlike the second debate last week that featured all five Senate candidates, only Lieberman, Lamont and Republican Alan Schlesinger will share the stage Monday. That could make it easier for Lamont to engage Lieberman more directly.

"We expect Ned Lamont may stoop to new lows in misrepresenting Joe Lieberman's record in a desperate last-minute ploy," Lieberman spokeswoman Tammy Sun said. "We're looking forward to the debate as another opportunity for Joe Lieberman to showcase his ideas on how to move Connecticut forward."

Schlesinger, considered a long shot, drew the spotlight by delivering feisty performances in the first two debates. But it is unclear how such attention will translate into support.

He was at 6 percent in the latest Quinnipiac University survey, which was conducted after Monday's opening debate.

Lieberman and Schlesinger are vying for Republican support, so any Schlesinger gains could come at Lieberman's expense. Lieberman drew much of the fire from his rivals in the first two debates.

The 18-year senator has widened his lead from 10 points last month, according to the latest Quinnipiac poll. The senator gained an edge with independent voters, the state's largest voting bloc, and with men, the survey showed.

"It's a steep uphill battle for Lamont to erase this substantial gap," said Quinnipiac poll director Doug Schwartz. "He's got to do something different, because what he's been doing up to this point hasn't been working. In fact, his numbers have been getting lower."

If Lamont has any surprises planned in the closing days before the Nov. 7 election, he's not showing his hand.

"More of the same and sticking to the issues, talking about how we mean to change things in Washington, D.C.," Lamont said Friday. "People are beginning to pay attention to this campaign."

Lamont is flooding the airwaves with a new ad campaign in the coming days to try to close the gap.

Lieberman, who enjoys a fundraising advantage, has accused Lamont of trying to buy the election with a $1 million barrage of new television commercials assailing him.

Lamont has hammered away at Lieberman in one heavily aired TV ad that accuses Lieberman of breaking a pledge when he first ran for Senate to serve just three terms. The spot features old footage of Lieberman from the 1988 race.

"What a difference 18 years makes," Lamont said of Lieberman's complaints. "Now, 18 years later, he's whining that we're talking about his record."

Some prominent politicians, meanwhile, are flocking to the state as the race closes.

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., the Democratic 2004 presidential nominee, hopes to give Lamont a boost when he campaigns in the state with him on Wednesday. Lieberman will stump with former Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey, a Democrat, on the same day.

Kerry beat President Bush in Connecticut by 10 percentage points during the 2004 presidential contest.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., will host a fundraising event in New York on Sunday for Lamont, his campaign said.
 
Democrat, Republican assail Lieberman in Senate debate
DAY
By ANDREW MIGA, Associated Press Writer
Oct 16, 5:52 PM EDT

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) -- Sen. Joe Lieberman might as well have worn a bull's-eye during Monday's debate with his Democratic and Republican rivals.

Democrat Ned Lamont labeled the three-term Connecticut senator a career politician in lockstep with President Bush on Iraq. Long-shot Republican Alan Schlesinger described himself as the only conservative in a race against two liberals, warning GOP voters about Lieberman's mostly Democratic voting record.  Lieberman took the jabs and delivered a few of his own.

"His finger-pointing ... is the last thing Washington needs more of," Lieberman said of Lamont, accusing him of running a negative campaign.
 
Lieberman is seeking another term as an independent after losing the Democratic primary to Lamont. The senator holds a single-digit lead over Lamont in recent polls with Schlesinger trailing far back.  In the first debate since the August primary, Lamont focused on his signature issue - his opposition to the Iraq war. Lieberman is a proponent of the war.

"I'm running against a career politician who says, 'Stay the course,'" Lamont said. "It's time for us now to redeploy our forces."

Lieberman has warned that pulling out U.S. troops too soon would be disastrous, but he also insisted he does not support an open-ended deployment of forces in Iraq.

Schlesinger, recalling Lieberman's public scolding of former President Clinton during the sex scandal involving a White House intern, sniped at Lieberman for being out of Washington as North Korea pursued its nuclear ambitions.

"The question should be why has Joe Lieberman over the last 18 years not been there on this issue," Schlesinger said. "Joe, you had more moral outrage about Mr. Clinton's indiscretions than about North Korea's nuclear proliferation."

He also branded Lieberman part of what he called the "ostrich club" in the Senate.

"They stick their head in the sand and hope something good will come out of it," the Republican said.  Lieberman has won support from some top Republicans and the White House has declined to support Schlesinger, 48, a former mayor and state representative.

Lamont, 52, a wealthy cable TV executive who has tapped more than $8 million of his personal fortune to fund his campaign, cast himself as an outsider who would take on Washington's powerful special interests.

"Right now, we have a situation in Washington that's out of control," he said.

Lamont also found himself on the defensive over his cable TV firm, challenging a Lieberman TV ad that alleges he laid off 68 percent of his work force.  After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Lamont said his firm had to sell off some of its residential systems. Lamont said only about a third of the job losses were due to layoffs. About two-thirds of the job losses were due to workers moving to other companies.

"That ad is absolutely false," complained Lamont.

Shot back Lieberman: "The facts show ... that he cut 68 percent of his workers. That is the fact."

Lieberman, 64, stressed his ability to work across party lines to deliver for Connecticut. He criticized Lamont as inexperienced and overly partisan.

"The government is broken, gridlocked by partisanship," he said. "There's too much personal hatred."

Lamont apologized to Lieberman for a controversy last week involving a black leader who accused Lieberman of lying about his civil rights activism during the 1960s. The man later recanted the charge after Lieberman offered proof. Lamont had been at an event receiving a black group's endorsement when the charge was made.

"Sen., I apologize for those comments," Lamont said. Lieberman thanked Lamont for the apology.
Lieberman Says Angrily: `It Is A Lie' - Lashing Out At Lamont, He Rejects A Black Leader's Charge Of Misrepresenting 1960s Civil Rights Work
October 12, 2006
By ELIZABETH HAMILTON And MARK PAZNIOKAS, Courant Staff Writers
 
Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman angrily disputed a black leader's unsubstantiated accusation Wednesday that Lieberman lied about his civil rights work in Mississippi 43 years ago.

"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.

"We have no doubt that Sen. Lieberman was active in a variety of causes prior to his career as an elected official. We have not looked into his involvement in the civil rights movement and will not question Joe's involvement," the Lamont campaign said.

But 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."

The letter was a sharp attack on Lieberman, accusing him of exploiting the civil rights movement for political gain, but it stopped short of Parker's claim that Lieberman lied.

"Our research indicates that there is no evidence of you taking any action that could be described as initiative to remove the shackles of second class citizenship from African Americans," the letter said.

Although the letter contained some ambiguity, as it seemed to address the value of Lieberman's contribution to the movement, Parker flatly shared his belief that Lieberman lied about marching with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and going to Mississippi.

"I suspect that he was not there, and the reason I suspect that is because he's a guy who says anything to win," Parker said.

Lieberman's campaign biography says he marched with King in August 1963, when the civil rights leader delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech in Washington. At the time, Lieberman was a summer intern in Washington.

"I had the great personal honor of standing there at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial to hear Dr. King give the `I Have a Dream' speech," Lieberman said Wednesday.

Although Lieberman often has spoken of being "with Dr. King," the senator said he did not mean to imply that he was an intimate of the leader.

"There were probably 200,000 or 300,000 people there. It was a magnificent moment. I was one of the crowd," he said.

By Lieberman's account, he also spent a week in Jackson, Miss., in the fall of 1963, handling press relations for a voter rights project that prompted many violent attacks on civil rights workers.

"There are many others who contributed and risked much more than I did," he said. "I never put a medal on myself. But was I there? You bet your life I was there."

Mendy Samstein, who coordinated many of the visiting students from Yale and Stamford in Jackson that fall, said in a telephone interview Wednesday night that neither he nor Bob Moses, who ran the Jackson office of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, could remember Lieberman.

"There were so many people coming through," he said.

A Stanford University student newspaper on Nov. 1, 1963, referred to Lieberman's being in Jackson, quoting his accounts of violent incidents.

The Yale Daily News published an article by Lieberman on Oct. 28, 1963, in which he explained why he was about to depart for Mississippi:

"I feel that my presence, as a white man, can indicate to Negro Mississippians that there are white men who care about their plight, that there are white men whose insides burn with anxiety and guilt when they consider the way in which other white men have sought to rob the black man of his humanity."

But Lieberman has had difficult relations with some black leaders in recent years.

At the press conference, Parker and 15 other prominent black Democrats, including former Hartford Mayors Thirman Milner and Carrie Saxon Perry and former state Sen. John C. Daniels, hammered Lieberman. They cited his vote against funding for inner-city schools, his questioning of the worth of affirmative action in a 1995 speech and his support for school vouchers.

Parker said he felt compelled to speak out against Lieberman.

"No self-respecting African American can permit anyone to politically prostitute the civil rights movement to gain electoral advantage," Parker said. "Let me repeat that. No self-respecting African American can permit anyone to politically prostitute the civil rights movement to gain electoral advantage."
Lieberman, Koch take campaign to commuters
Stamford ADVOCATE
By Brian Lockhart, Staff Writer
Published October 4 2006

NEW YORK -- It was hard for commuters returning home to lower Fairfield County yesterday evening to ignore Joseph Lieberman.

Even if they managed to pass through the gauntlet of campaign staff, press and security without greeting the U.S. senator, there was no getting by former New York City Mayor Edward Koch.

"C'mon, say hello to the senator, c'mon," the 81-year-old Koch said as the two veteran Democratic politicians greeted commuters from 4 to 5 p.m. at a few track entrances leading to Grand Central Terminal's homeward-bound trains.

Since losing his party's primary in August, Lieberman, now a petition candidate, has been appealing to all voters by portraying himself as a nonpartisan "independent Democrat."

He lost to Greenwich businessman Ned Lamont, who criticized Lieberman's unwavering support for the Iraq war and portrayed him as siding too often with President Bush and the GOP-led Congress.

Koch, who ran the Big Apple from 1978 to 1989, made headlines in 2004, when he endorsed Bush's re-election and helped Republican Mayor Michael Bloomberg recruit volunteers for the national Republican convention in New York City.

Koch said at the time he was a "liberal with sanity" who supported the war and considered Bush the only candidate willing to "stand up to international terrorism."

The war and Bush have lost popularity, but Koch, in a brief interview yesterday, said he has no regrets about endorsing the Republican president and is confident in his backing of Lieberman. He and Bloomberg will co-host a Nov. 1 fundraiser for Lieberman.

"He was and is correctly perceived as the conscience of the Senate," Koch said. "To lose him is unacceptable, in my judgment."

Koch also said just because voters disagree with Lieberman on certain issues does not mean they should oust him from office.

"I would tell people, take a dozen issues you feel strongly about and if you agree on eight out of 12, support me, " Koch said. "Twelve out of 12, see a psychiatrist."

Lieberman afterward said he was not concerned that aligning himself with the pro-Bush Koch would fuel his own reputation as a Bush ally.

"He was a hero to me" as mayor, Lieberman said of Koch. "He's my kind of public servant. He and I are the same kind of Democrat. I'd be proud to be seen with Ed Koch any day."

Several commuters gave Lieberman a warm greeting.

"He is the most genuine candidate and he doesn't make decisions on partisan lines," said Democrat Lori Bring of Greenwich.

Rachel Seligson, a Democrat who was heading home to Stamford, said she likes Lieberman's views on foreign policy and believes he is good for Connecticut.

"He has a proven track record," she said.

But New York resident David Carter confronted Lieberman.

"You supported the war. You've got blood on your hands," Carter told Lieberman, who did not respond.

Afterward Carter said, "He's really a Republican."

More than one commuter told Lieberman: "I'm a Republican, but you've got my vote," and non-constituents such as Republican Ron Feinstone of New York wished him luck.

"I hang around some pretty conservative circles, and they all like Lieberman," he said.

The most recent Quinnipiac University poll has the U.S. Senate race as a battle between Lieberman, at 49 percent, and Lamont, at 39 percent, with Republican Alan Schlesinger earning 5 percent of the vote.

Republican Mary Anne Neilson of Westport said she would not even think about voting for her party's nominee and is proud Connecticut can claim in Lieberman one of the few "centrists" in the country.

James Duffy, a Republican taking the train back to his Greenwich home, said he likes Lieberman for his support of the Iraq war and Bush.

Duffy said his 24-year-old younger brother, Brendan, just returned from a tour in the U.S. Marines infantry and "anti-war sentiment is not what we need right now."

The poll showed Lieberman is most popular among unaffiliated voters -- but not Stuart Rende of New Haven.

After passing Lieberman, Rende said he is not sold on Lamont, but Lieberman is too "wishy-washy" and he disapproves of his decision to pursue re-election despite losing the Democratic primary.

Norman Hoberman waved away the senator's handshake, then said, "Ned Lamont all the way."

"His stand on the war has been absolutely abominable," said Hoberman, a Greenwich resident. "I'm a lifelong Democrat and there's nothing he stands for I believe in."

Lieberman Pleads For Unity Against `Barbarians'
By MARK PAZNIOKAS, Courant Staff Writer
September 16, 2006

FAIRFIELD -- Using apocalyptic imagery of civilization lost, Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman blamed politics Friday for undermining the war on terror and leaving the U.S. vulnerable to "barbarians at our gates."

The U.S. faces a patient and ruthless enemy in Islamic extremists, an enemy that "threatens not just America, but all of civilization," Lieberman said in a national security speech at Fairfield University.
 
"We remain too divided as a nation, and in Washington, spend too much time fighting each other rather than coming together to make our country safer," Lieberman said. "At stake is the kind of world we will live in, not far away abroad but right here, home in Connecticut."

His 25-minute address repeatedly called for bipartisanship in Washington, reinforcing the central theme of his re-election campaign as an independent since losing the Democratic primary in August to his main rival, Ned Lamont.

He was introduced by Mary Fetchet of New Canaan, whose son, Brad, was lost in the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center. Fetchet helped lead the relatives of victims in lobbying Congress for the creation of the 9/11 commission supported by Lieberman.

Lieberman faulted the Bush administration for alienating potential allies in the war on terror, though he gave no examples of an administration miscue. He never mentioned the war in Iraq, a topic he intends to address with another policy speech.

The senator blamed the terror attacks of 9/11 on a generation of leaders lulled into complacency as tensions eased with the Soviet Union.

A string of Islamic assaults on American interests, beginning with the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Iran in 1979, should have served notice that the U.S. faced a new and dangerous world even after the close of the Cold War in 1989, Lieberman said.

"But as a nation, we remained asleep, unwilling to see the gathering storm," Lieberman said.

While criticizing Bush, he effectively buttressed comments the president made Friday that the world remains a dangerous place.

"We cannot ever again let down our guard or allow ourselves to go into denial," Lieberman said. "We must stay alert and engage in this war against the barbarians, because that is what they are - modern barbarians at our gates. Our enemies are patient and purposeful. They are ruthless. They are lethal."

His line about barbarians was one of Lieberman's many departures from a six-page text that was copied and distributed to reporters minutes before the speech at Fairfield's school of business.

Lieberman said Islamic terrorists are a threat to Americans of all races and creeds.

"They hate us all because we are Americans. And yet, we remain divided among ourselves in responding to them," he said. "It's really outrageous that that continues to be the case. We have got to move forward together."

He faulted some on the right for implying that Democrats do not care if terrorists succeed and some on the left for going "beyond dissent to demonize the president" and impugn the motives of those who support him.

Lieberman said Congress and the president must work in a bipartisan fashion. Sprinkled through his speech was praise for Republican senators with whom he has worked cooperatively: Susan Collins of Maine, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, John McCain of Arizona, and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania. He singled out no Democrat.

The senior Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security Committee, Lieberman also touted a port security bill the panel endorsed this week on a vote that crossed party lines.

"When we work together across party lines in Washington, when we put principles ahead of politics, the national interest ahead of our parties' interest, we have made progress in making America safer," he said.

Liz Dupont-Diehl, Lamont's press secretary, said Lieberman tried Friday to criticize Bush, yet he used the same fear tactics as the president.

"Sen. Lieberman's Houdini-esque contortions today, an effort to make believe that he is above the fray, will not fool Connecticut voters," she said.

The Lamont campaign said Lieberman's rhetoric is belied by his missed votes as a committee member on homeland security funding.

"He skipped all of these votes after issuing at least 8 press releases claiming he was outraged at President Bush's inadequate budget proposals," the Lamont campaign said in a written statement.

Lieberman, 64, a three-term incumbent, faces a five-way race for re-election, though polls show Lamont is his main rival. The field also includes Republican Alan Schlesinger, Ralph A. Ferrucci of the Green Party and Timothy A. Knibbs of the Concerned Citizens.

Lamont, 52, a cable-television entrepreneur, delivered his own national security speech Wednesday at Yale University, accusing Lieberman of breaking faith with a half-century of U.S. foreign policy by backing Bush's pre-emptive invasion of Iraq.

On Friday, Lamont stood at the Legislative Office Building in Hartford with Democratic gubernatorial candidate John DeStefano Jr. to blame Lieberman and Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell for failing to lobby for legislation that would have targeted homeland security funds to urban areas, which could have brought federal aid for security to the ports of Bridgeport, New Haven and New London.

Lieberman missed a Senate floor vote on the legislation, which then failed on a tie vote. "Sen. Lieberman's vote would have made the difference, and Sen. Lieberman wasn't there to cast that vote," Lamont said.

Tammy Sun, Lieberman's campaign press secretary, said the senator was touring the Sikorsky Aircraft plant in Connecticut on the day of the vote, discussing how to secure more business for the helicopter maker.

Rich Harris, a spokesman for the Rell campaign, said the governor did object "vehemently" to the funding cuts.

Bloomberg to stump for Lieberman; singer Moby on board for Lamont
Sep 9, 12:27 PM EDT

GREENWICH, Conn. (AP) -- The campaigns for U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman and Democratic Senate candidate Ned Lamont are getting endorsement boosts from two very different supporters.

A spokesman for New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a Republican, has confirmed he will headline a fundraiser for Lieberman's independent campaign.

Meanwhile, Grammy-nominated singer Moby - a Connecticut native and outspoken Democratic supporter - pledged his loyalty to Lamont after meeting the Greenwich businessman at a recent campaign event.

Dan Gerstein, a spokesman for Lieberman's campaign, said a date has not yet been set for the event featuring Bloomberg, but that it is likely to be held in Fairfield County.

"The mayor has said he will do whatever Sen. Lieberman wants," Bloomberg spokesman Stu Loeser told The Greenwich Time.

"He has extraordinarily high respect for Sen. Lieberman," Loeser said. "He very much admires elected officials who stick to their convictions and do what they think in their heart of hearts is right."

Lieberman, an 18-year incumbent, launched an independent campaign after losing in the August party primary to Lamont by about 10,000 votes.

Moby, meanwhile, has pledged his support to Lamont and said he would be willing to do a concert or another event to help get out the vote for Lamont.

"For Ned Lamont to win the primary and then go on to win the general election, it sends such a fantastic message to the Democratic party," said Moby, a Darien native who has campaigned for several Democrats.

Moby, 41, whose given name is Richard Melville Hall, cited Lieberman's support of the Iraq war and other issues as reasons why he opposes the incumbent and backs Lamont.


Lamont lauded Lieberman's 1998 rebuke of Clinton in E-mail
By STEPHANIE REITZ, Associated Press Writer
Sep 9, 5:33 PM EDT

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) -- Democratic Senate candidate Ned Lamont, who recently denounced U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman for his public scolding of President Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky affair, lauded the senator at the time for his eloquence and "moral authority."

Lieberman's Senate office this week released copies of a letter that Lamont sent by e-mail to the senator shortly after Lieberman took to the Senate floor to chide Clinton in September 1998.

"I supported your statement because Clinton's behavior was outrageous: a Democrat had to stand up and state as much, and I hoped that your statement was the beginning of the end," Lamont wrote.

Lieberman's rebuke made him the first prominent Democratic lawmaker to openly criticize Clinton's conduct with the former White House intern. The boost to his national profile also helped him secure the party's 2000 nomination for vice president.
 
Lieberman, an 18-year incumbent, is running as an independent candidate after losing the Connecticut Democratic party primary in August to Lamont, a Greenwich businessman critical of Lieberman's support of the Iraq war and perceived closeness to the Bush Administration.

Lamont criticized Lieberman earlier this week for his handling of the Clinton matter, telling reporters and editors at The New York Times that Lieberman should have discussed the matter privately with the president rather than creating "a media spectacle."

"You go up there, you sit down with one of your oldest friends and say, 'You're embarrassing yourself, you're embarrassing your presidency, you're embarrassing your family, and it's got to stop,'" Lamont said.

While Lieberman's staff on Saturday pointed to Lamont's recent criticisms as hypocrisy in light of the 1998 e-mail, Lamont said he stands by its contents.

"Look, I understood the content of his statement. But I would have taken it to the president privately if I had been a friend of his for 30 years," Lamont said Saturday while campaigning at a country fair in Hebron.

He also said he stands by his position that the public rebuke exacerbated the situation.

Indeed, his e-mailed letter to Lieberman bemoans the widespread publicity given to the details of Clinton's conduct and calls it "an embarrassment to me as a father and to us as a nation."

"If Clinton has a sex problem, mature adults would have handled this privately, not turned it into a political crusade and legal entanglement with no end in sight," Lamont wrote in the message, sent from his corporate e-mail account on Sept. 16, 1998.

Lamont's e-mail says he "reluctantly" supported Lieberman's "moral outrage" in his public rebuke of Clinton because he hoped it would quell the political maelstrom swirling in the wake of the Starr Report's release.

"We've made up our minds that Clinton did wrong, confessed to his sin, maybe should be censured for lying - and let's move on," he wrote. "It's time for you to make up your mind and speak your mind as you did so eloquently last Thursday."

Lamont also sent copies of the letter to Democratic U.S. Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut - a longtime Lieberman ally who now supports Lamont - and Republican U.S. Rep. Christopher Shays.

Lieberman responded to Lamont with a letter expressing appreciation for the "kind comments and words of support," and closed it with his "best personal regards" and a handwritten note: "Thanks Ned."

"This was the most difficult statement I have had to make in my ten years as a senator, so it is very reassuring that you feel I made the right decision in speaking out," he responded to Lamont.

Lieberman was unavailable for comment Saturday because he was observing the Jewish sabbath, but campaign manager Sherry Brown said in a written statement that Lamont's "hypocrisy knows no bounds."

"He has run such a negative campaign up until this point that he had to reach back eight years to find something new to attack Joe Lieberman about - and in this case, he was so desperate to lash out that he didn't seem to care that he was completely contradicting himself," she said.
Lieberman Defends '98 Rebuke Of Clinton In White House Scandal; Lamont Says Comment Was Inappropriate
DAY
By John Christoffersen, Associated Writer
Published on 9/9/2006
 
Stratford — Sen. Joe Lieberman defended his reprimand of former President Clinton for his involvement with a White House intern, dismissing his Democratic challenger's complaint that the 1998 rebuke was a spectacle.

“It was important for someone who was a Democrat to stand up and call on him publicly to accept more responsibility for what he had done,” Lieberman said Friday. “In that case, I stood up and did what I believed was right for our country.”

In September 1998, as the sex scandal raged, the Connecticut senator was the first prominent Democratic lawmaker to openly criticize Clinton's conduct with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky. On the Senate floor, Lieberman spoke about being “personally angry because Clinton had, by his disgraceful behavior, jeopardized his administration's historic record of accomplishment.”

The senator said his personal dismay evolved into “a larger, graver sense of loss for our country, a reckoning of the damage that the president's conduct has done to the proud legacy of his presidency.”

Ned Lamont, who defeated Lieberman in the Democratic primary Aug. 8, criticized the incumbent in an interview with The New York Times.

“You don't go to the floor of the Senate and turn this into a media spectacle,” Lamont told reporters and editors from the newspaper during a dinner meeting Wednesday night.

“You go up there, you sit down with one of your oldest friends and say, 'You're embarrassing yourself, you're embarrassing your presidency, you're embarrassing your family, and it's got to stop,”' Lamont said.

Lamont, on the campaign trail in Naugatuck on Friday, said he would have told Clinton what he thought before he said anything publicly.


“That's just the way I am,” Lamont told The Associated Press. “I don't want to get into this issue anymore, though.”

Lieberman, who is running as an independent after losing to Lamont, said his speech helped diffuse what had been partisan divisions over the scandal. He called it one of the toughest decisions of his life, but said he has no regrets.

Days before the Connecticut primary, Clinton joined Lieberman at a campaign rally.

“It's time for Ned to stop running a negative campaign and start talking about what he would do for the people of Connecticut over the next six years,” Lieberman said. “He had to go back to 1998. Hey Ned, it's 2006.”

Polls show Lieberman leading Lamont in a three-way race that includes Republican Alan Schlesinger.

MoveOn removes comments from site Anti-Semitic statements aimed at Lieberman campaign deleted
Greenwich TIME
By Neil Vigdor, Staff Writer
Published September 6 2006

The liberal advocacy group MoveOn.org removed several anti-Semitic messages from a bulletin board on its Web site concerning Joe Lieberman.

Citing several examples of what he said were anti-Semitic comments, Anti-Defamation League National Director Abraham Foxman urged Moveon.org in a letter Thursday to condemn the messages.

"Some of the examples are 'media owning Jewish pigs,' referring to Senator Joseph Lieberman as 'Jew Lieberman,' 'Zionazis,' and 'why are the Jews so Jew-y?' " Foxman wrote MoveOn.org Executive Director Eli Pariser in the letter.

"We believe you should assume some responsibility to respond to this hateful content," stated the letter, which did not expressly ask for the messages to be removed from the group's Web site. "Haters may have the right to express their hate, but that hate should not go unchallenged."

Lieberman, who is an orthodox Jew, is fighting to keep his Senate seat as a petition candidate after losing to Ned Lamont in the Democratic primary.

MoveOn.org, which gained attention for its opposition to President Bush during the 2004 election, issued a statement on Saturday denouncing the postings and saying the offensive remarks had been removed more than two weeks earlier.

"Recently, a few of the thousands of comments that are posted every week contained anti-Semitic language. The comments that were posted were abhorrent," Pariser said in a statement posted on MoveOn.org. "We were dismayed to see them, and removed them as soon as they came to our attention 17 days ago."

MoveOn.org declined further comment about the messages.

Lieberman's campaign spokes man, Dan Gerstein, commended the organization yesterday for its action and called on Lamont to follow suit.

"These kind of comments have no place in our political discourse," Gerstein said, adding that he has seen an increasing number of anti-Semitic comments posted on political Web sites frequented by Lamont's supporters.

"We would hope that Mr. Lamont and his campaign would make a similar statement to show their supporters in the online world that anti-Semitic comments, whether they are targeted at Senator Lieberman or anyone else, are unacceptable," Gerstein said.

Lamont's campaign yesterday afternoon echoed MoveOn.org's condemnation and said comments like those directed at the senator have no place in the campaign.

"Of course we condemn all comments like that," Lamont's spokeswoman, Liz Dupont-Diehl, said. "We have nothing but the highest expectations for our supporters and our staff."

Comments posted about the incident in a blog on the Lamont campaign Web site sparked controversy yesterday.

Tim Tagaris, who directs Internet communications for the Lamont campaign, cautioned Lamont's supporters to be careful with Web postings.

"There is nothing they'd like to see more," Tagaris wrote of Lieberman's campaign. "They do it to discredit this movement of individuals participating in the political process using the Internet, and anyone making the job easier on joe2006 is no supporter of ours."

Gerstein ripped the comments and said it was an attempt to shift the focus.

"They're suggesting that we'd like to see more anti-Semitic comments," Gerstein said. "That's disappointing and it says a lot about the negative approach they're taking to the campaign. They think this is all just another political game."

Dupont-Diehl rejected the accusations, saying that Lieberman's campaign was looking to create a distraction.

"It's too bad that the Lieberman campaign wants to spend its time making this into a horse race rather than talking about what Senator Lieberman has done or not done on the issues that matter to Connecticut, such as education, health care, good jobs and the war in Iraq," Dupont-Diehl said.

An ADL spokeswoman said the issues raised in the organization's letter to MoveOn.org were not meant to help one candidate.

"We're nonpartisan in all of this stuff," ADL media relations director Myrna Shinbaum said. "We're not supporting any candidates."

Shinbaum said the organization was satisfied with Moveon.org's response to its letter.

"Hopefully, they're going to watch their Web site, which is what we do and other people do," Shinbaum said.
The 'Lieberman Factor'
Sen. Chafee facing tough re-election fight.
By Day Staff Writer
Published on 9/5/2006
   
U.S. Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee, one of the most independent voices in the Senate, has run head-on into the Lieberman factor as he seeks a second full term. Sen. Chafee, whose late father John Chafee was regarded as a progressive Republican governor and U.S. senator, is running neck and neck with Cranston Mayor Stephen P. Laffey. The two will meet in a Sept. 12 primary for the Republican Party's nomination in Rhode Island.

Like Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman in Connecticut, Sen. Chafee faces an opponent who says that the junior Rhode Island senator doesn't represent the core thinking of his party. Sen. Lieberman already has lost the Democratic primary and is trying to win as a petitioning candidate. In Connecticut, Lieberman is in trouble for his support of the Iraq occupation, Democrats' feeling that he has lost traditional Democratic values and what many voters consider to be a close alliance with President George W. Bush. Sen. Lieberman rejects all three allegations.

In Rhode Island, Mayor Laffey's strategy has been to link Sen. Chafee to President Bush because polls show the president is unpopular in Rhode Island. Although the accusation is foolish on its face, it seems to be working. Mayor Laffey has gained in recent polls.

What makes the strategy absurd is that Mayor Laffey is much more conservative than Sen. Chafee, in other words, more attuned to President Bush's political outlook. No matter, the idea of linking his opponent, who is more liberal, with the president is working.

Who says you can't fool the voters?
 







Let the debates begin Senate candidates eager to square off
Greenwich TIME
By Neil Vigdor, Staff Writer
Published September 4 2006

Democratic Senate nominee Ned Lamont says he's up for multiple debates against Joe Lieberman, for whom the tables have turned since losing his party's primary on Aug. 8.

Lieberman grudgingly accepted only one debate against the newcomer Lamont before the primary, an approach frequently taken by incumbents with little to gain from direct tangles with their challengers.

Lieberman's petition campaign is now calling for several debates this fall between the five candidates who have qualified for the November Senate election, however.

"You know me, skip the TV ads and let's do debates around the state," Lamont said in interview Thursday after a Democracy for America rally in his Greenwich hometown.

Lamont said he wished Lieberman had been as eager to debate before the primary.  Lieberman's campaign spokeswoman, Tammy Sun, said the senator was never opposed to multiple debates.

"Because of scheduling reasons that required him to be in Washington, we were only able to schedule one debate during the primary," Sun said in an e-mail.

In a letter to his opponents, Lieberman urged them on Thursday to take up his offer.

"One of the best ways we can raise the level of our discourse and our democracy is by having substantive public debates on the issues that really matter to the people of Connecticut," Lieberman said.

"I want to give all the voters of Connecticut a fair chance to see where we stand and who is best qualified to fix the partisan gridlock in Washington and get things done for our state and our country."

Republican Alan Schlesinger, who is trailing Lieberman and Lamont by a wide margin in the polls, said he will also push for multiple debates.

"You can't do it justice with one debate because there are so many issues that we need to discuss," said Schlesinger, who was confident about his chances in the debates.

"I think it's my chance to show the voters that there is a moderate conservative voice out there," said Schlesinger, who is having to contend with the likelihood of Republicans supporting Lieberman.

Lieberman's willingness to embrace a multiple debate schedule may send an unintentional message, however.

"I do think with suddenly Lieberman being the one to ask for debates it tells the public something about the campaign, and that is that, 'I'm not feeling as strong as I was two or three months ago,' " said Ruth Sherman, a communications consultant from Old Greenwich who has coached political candidates

"When Lieberman was ahead in the game, he wasn't so eager to give Lamont time," Sherman said.

A faculty member at Yale University's Women's Campaign School, Sherman said a candidate's debate performance isn't necessarily an indicator of his or her prospects for success.

Lieberman, she said, appeared in command during his lone debate with Lamont in July. Lamont, who has never held office outside of Greenwich, came across as nervous and out of his element, she said.

"He's affable. He's focused. But when I've seen him on TV, I feel that something is missing, and I think a lot of that is due to a lack of experience," Sherman said of Lamont.
Lamont hires blogger for 'rapid response'
By Don Michak, Journal Inquirer
09/01/2006

Ned Lamont, the Greenwich businessman who defeated U.S. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman in the Democratic primary last month, has added one of the party's most well-known political operatives and Internet bloggers to his campaign staff.

David Sirota, the founder of the Progressive Legislative Action Network, contributing blogger to The Huffington Post, and regular guest on Air America's "Al Franken Show," is among those hired recently as campaign consultants, Lamont spokeswoman Liz Dupont-Diehl said today.

Sirota said Thursday in an e-mail to associates that he expects to join the campaign next week to assist with research, rapid response, and strategy.

"Ned is a sincere, honest, and passionate campaigner, who, unlike many in politics, is in it for the right reasons," Sirota said.

"I will continue the various other work I do with other publications, organizations, and writing on my blog - that work outside of the campaign will be my own work, totally separate from Ned's campaign and in no way speaking for the campaign," he added. "My capacity with the campaign is completely behind the scenes in a supporting, advisory role."

Sirota, who was born in New Haven, raised in a Philadelphia suburb, and now lives in Montana, has been a diehard critic of President Bush and of Democratic "centrists," most notably including those associated with the Democratic Leadership Council formerly chaired by Lieberman.

Sirota has worked for the House Appropriates Committee, U.S. Rep. Bernard Sanders of Vermont, the independent who caucuses and votes with the Democrats, and the Center for America Progress, a group headed by former Clinton White House Chief of Staff John Podesta.

He has written for a daily publication by the liberal organization Moveon.org as well as The Nation, and the American Prospect, and authored "Hostile Takeover," a book about corporate power in politics published last spring.
Lieberman Calls For Meeting With Fellow Candidates To Arrange Series Of Debates
DAY
By Ted Mann
Published on 9/1/2006

Sen. Joe Lieberman asked his fellow candidates for the Senate on Thursday for a meeting to decide how many debates they will have this fall.

Lieberman, who is running as an independent against Democrat Ned Lamont and Republican Alan Schlesinger, wrote to the two, along with two minor party candidates, asking for a meeting to discuss proposed debates.

The other two candidates are Ralph Ferrucci, of the Green Party, and Timothy A. Knibbs, of the Concerned Citizens Party.

“I believe that with this race we have an opportunity to set a high standard for a 'new politics' of civil engagement without the innuendo, distortion or personal attacks that have become too much a staple of political campaigns in both parties in recent years,” Lieberman wrote in the letter. “One of the best ways we can raise the level of our discourse and our democracy is by having substantive public debates on the issues that really matter to the people of Connecticut.”

A spokeswoman for the Lieberman campaign said no meeting had been arranged yet.

Lamont's press secretary said he would be open to the meeting, and noted that he had already been “accepting invitations to debate since August 9,” the day after he defeated Lieberman in the Democratic primary.

Lieberman is running as an independent, under the party heading “Connecticut for Lieberman.”

“We'll be happy to debate anywhere, anytime,” said Liz Dupont-Diehl. “And we agree with the premise that minor parties, in addition to the major parties, should be included. Minor parties such as Connecticut for Lieberman...”



2 new polls put U.S. Senate race in dead heat; Lieberman officially an independent today
By Don Michak, Journal Inquirer
08/23/2006

With two polls suggesting that U.S. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman now holds the tiniest of margins over Ned Lamont, the Greenwich cable executive who defeated him the Democratic primary, the three-term incumbent is predicting a "tough" race ahead.

"I do think I'm going to win," Lieberman told syndicated radio personality Don Imus early today. "But early polls, as I learned in the primary, don't necessarily predict."

The two latest polls on the highly publicized Connecticut contest essentially portrayed it as a statistical dead heat, given their respective margins for error.

Their results differ markedly from a Quinnipiac University poll released last week, which suggested that among likely voters Lieberman held a 12-point lead over Lamont in a three-way race, although that was still half the margin he had before Lamont won the party primary.

While only 2 percent of the respondents in the Quinnipiac poll indicated that they were undecided, almost five times as many said they were undecided in the latest polls.

The new polls were released Tuesday by two independent polling outfits, the New Hampshire-based American Research Group run by Dick Bennett, and Rasmussen Report, an electronic newsletter published under the auspices of pollster Scott Rasmussen.

The American Research Group survey of 790 "likely voters" between Aug. 17 and 21 showed that 44 percent said they would vote for Lieberman, 42 percent for Lamont, and 3 percent for Republican Alan Schlesinger, a former Derby mayor.

Lieberman, whom Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz was slated today to officially certify as an independent candidate, led among enrolled Republicans, 57 percent to 18 percent, and 48 percent to 38 percent among unaffiliated voters.

Lamont led Lieberman among Democrats, 65 percent to 30 percent.

Of the remaining 11 percent who said they were undecided, 57 percent said they had a favorable opinion of Lieberman and 43 percent an unfavorable opinion.

More than half - 55 percent - said they did not know enough about Lamont to form an opinion, although 41 percent said they held an unfavorable opinion and 4 percent favorable.

The Rasmussen poll of 500 "likely voters," meanwhile, showed Lieberman with a 45 percent to 43 percent lead over Lamont and Schlesinger with 6 percent.

Lieberman, who today complained that if endorsements from fellow politicians determined election outcomes he should have won the primary, on Tuesday trumpeted his "re-endorsements" from representatives of about 20 union locals, including the UNITE HERE local that represents Yale University service and maintenance workers.

Lieberman responded to a series of questions about the war in Iraq from Imus, who said he opposed the senator's hawkish position on the conflict but was supporting his re-election.

Lieberman repeated his attack on Lamont for calling for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq by a certain date, but acknowledged that the war "is not going the way any of us wanted to" and that "there are no great choices" for policymakers.

He added that the American people needed to get the point "where we have the patience to wait until the Iraqis take over."

"This ain't gonna be easy," he said.

Lamont, meanwhile, was expected today to collect the endorsement of the United Auto Workers Connecticut CAP Council.

The Lamont campaign on Tuesday announced that former Democratic State Chairman and state Senate Majority Leader George C. Jepsen, the Democrats' candidate for lieutenant governor in 2002, had agreed to serve as chairman of Lamont campaign.

Lamont's campaign manager, Thomas Swan, said Jepsen would be a great asset "because of his political knowledge and his ability to forge a consensus among a broad section of Connecticut voters."
Let Losers Try To Win
Hartford Courant editorial
August 20, 2006
 
Some would like to see the Constitution State adopt a most undemocratic measure: the "sore loser law."

The law would bar a candidate like Sen. Joe Lieberman from running in a general election if he loses the party primary.

"I do intend to bring forward legislation to enact a `sore loser law' so that if you do lose a primary, that's your shot. You don't have a second bite of the apple," Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz said on WNPR-FM right after the primary. She later amended that to say she would investigate sore loser laws in other states, but not file a bill.

Please don't, Madame Secretary. Connecticut is one of the few states without this obstacle to exciting, healthy elections.

A sore loser law would have ended on Aug. 8 the most thrilling race in the nation, the contest between the three-term incumbent Sen. Joe Lieberman and businessman Ned Lamont. Mr. Lamont won the primary and is now the Democratic nominee for Mr. Lieberman's seat. Fortunately, Connecticut election law allowed the senator to petition his way onto the general-election ballot in November, as an independent.

"After all, Lieberman hasn't been rejected by the entire electorate of Connecticut yet; he has only been denied the support of his party," says Richard Winger, editor of Ballot Access News. Mr. Lieberman lost the party's support by only 4 percentage points. His centrist views may ultimately win over Connecticut's largest group of voters - the unaffiliated.

Sen. Lieberman is now leading by a dozen points, according to one poll of likely voters. A sore loser law would have scratched what is now the front-runner and narrowed November's choice to Mr. Lamont and a little-known Republican with a gambling past. Guess who would have won? Would turnout be anywhere near as high as a Lamont/Lieberman rematch could be?

A sore loser law would kill what little competition there is in elections these days.

It would have stopped Mike Peters from becoming mayor of Hartford in 1993. He had lost the Democratic primary to incumbent Mayor Carrie Saxon Perry but went on to win the general election as a petitioning candidate.

It would have barred Domenique Thornton from petitioning her way onto the ballot after losing the Democratic primary for Middletown mayor in 1997. Ms. Thornton went on to win the general election.

It would rid parties of challengers who may ultimately be more popular than nominees.

And why shouldn't Sen. Lieberman have one more bite at the election apple if his opponent has had two? Mr. Lamont lost the Democratic Party endorsement at the May convention, but advanced to the next round by winning enough delegate votes to qualify for the Democratic primary. (Likewise, Mr. Lieberman qualified fair and square for the November ballot by collecting the requisite 7,500 signatures.)

Mr. Winger says Connecticut is one of just a handful of states with no sore loser law or similar obstacle to general elections. He believes that's because Connecticut was the last state in the nation to adopt a primary (in 1955). It didn't experience, till now, such partisan furor over a candidate who wouldn't give up.

A sore loser law would have deprived Connecticut voters of the most invigorating political battle in recent memory. May the legislature never enact it.

 
Joe's Turn:   Lieberman's people are noting the loyal - and disloyal.
Hartford Courant
Kevin Rennie
August 20, 2006

The Democratic primary resolved nothing for the state's largest political party. The party's most active and interested members are in a fix. Out of fealty to the rule that says you back the winner, many have jumped from supporting Sen. Joe Lieberman to successful challenger Ned Lamont. But two respected polls show Lieberman recovering from his primary defeat and thriving as an independent.

The most common feature of this premiere campaign has been the regular changes in fortune each candidate has experienced. Lieberman appeared to find his footing as an underdog in late July, enough to narrow but not eliminate Lamont's lead in polls before the primary. On primary night, Lieberman looked defiant instead of bewildered for the first time in this long campaign. It suited him.

Innocent Democrats who just want to be on the winning side have been caught in the barrage between the campaigns. Both sides are calling the roll. Lamont's people are calling Democratic officials to make sure they are abiding by the will of the party's primary voters. They want, naturally, the party's establishment to fall in line and devote their full measure to the Greenwich scion.

The Lieberman people have their own bulging Rolodex. They've been on the phones, too, making appeals to personal rather than party loyalty. The Lieberman calls to local and regional Democratic leaders have not been nearly so upbeat and cheerful as the ones from the Lamont team. Loyalty and betrayal will be remembered.

With Lieberman breaking out into a 11-point lead in Thursday's Quinnipiac poll, active Democrats have to worry that they may be on the losing side by backing Lamont. Politicos, it should be remembered, are in the business of betting on winners. That Lamont should be trailing by a dozen after his historic victory has leaners in the party unnerved.

It's important to remember that in this race, both candidates have shown a remarkable facility for gaining and losing large leads in the polls.

Between now and November, Ned Lamont is unlikely to have as glorious a week as he did after winning the Aug. 8 primary. A lot of slogging and spending lies ahead. Lieberman congratulated Lamont on his "success" on primary night, but the word "victory" never crossed his lips. Lieberman conceded no ground in making the primary seem like a minor stop in a long road.

This will be an intense and ugly campaign. Both sides feature a candidate with a genial public personality. The troops behind the leaders, however, are demonizing the opposition. A shoving match outside a TV studio cannot be far off.

The ones who ought to be mightily discouraged are Republican Senate nominee Alan Schlesinger and Democratic gubernatorial candidate John DeStefano. What a dreary time for them.

Republicans are ignoring Schlesinger and treating Lieberman as their candidate. His image as a moderate has always appealed to Connecticut Republicans, and they've come to his rescue before. Republican defections from Sen. Lowell P. Weicker Jr. were essential to Lieberman's narrow victory in 1988.

Schlesinger is a non-starter. He has almost no money in the bank and no prospects of improving that. The White House started sending signals on primary day that Republicans should support Lieberman in an independent bid. The message has been received. Schlesinger will have a hard time picking off any chunks of the state's 450,000 Republicans.

DeStefano is in nearly as big a mess as Schlesinger. He emptied his coffers to win the primary and now faces popular Gov. M. Jodi Rell. In Democratic politics, the traditional contributors and fundraisers were largely with Lieberman. Lamont financed most of his campaign from his personal fortune. Team Lieberman got the impression during the primary campaign that enough of DeStefano's supporters were actively helping Lamont to cause alarm among some of the senator's key supporters. Treachery was noted.

The word is being passed among generous Lieberman Democrats that they ought to withhold their support from DeStefano and concentrate on the candidate who counts, their Joe. Since Republicans in astonishing numbers are sustaining Lieberman's independent bid, expect some cordial public exchanges of admiration between Rell and Lieberman to inflame the DeStefano and Lamont camps as summer melds into fall.
Lamont support growing
PETER URBAN and KEN DIXON CT POST Staff writers
Article created: 08/17/2006 04:43:04 AM EDT

Since last week's primary victory, Ned Lamont has become the darling among Democrats with presidential aspirations in 2008. Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts sent an e-mail Wednesday to 3 million of his backers, urging... 
 
"But let's face it, at the end of the day, this is about a race here in Connecticut, and it's the people of Connecticut who voted last Tuesday for real change."
Asked whether he is prepared to spend millions more of his own money on his campaign, Lamont hedged.

"I'm going to defend myself, depending on what kind of campaign Vice President [Dick] Cheney and Joe Lieberman throw at me," Lamont said. "I sure hope that's not the case."

Today, former Sen. John Edwards, of North Carolina, will be the first Democrat of national stature to campaign with Lamont when he appears at a rally with him in New Haven.

Edwards, the 2004 Democratic vice presidential nominee, will join New Haven Mayor John DeStefano and state labor leaders at a campaign rally for Lamont at Harkness Court. DeStefano is the Democratic candidate for governor.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., an early favorite to win the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, had her political action committee send Lamont a $5,000 check the day after  his primary victory.  Dan Gerstein, a Lieberman spokesman, said the jostling among Democrats to endorse Lamont is not surprising.

"It is politics as usual," he said.

Gerstein noted Lieberman had been endorsed by the same Democratic leaders in the primary and lost.

"In terms of swaying voters, it didn't really have that much effect in the primary and it will likely have even less effect in the general election where we face a much broader universe of voters," he said.

Lieberman's campaign is also not concerned about an influx of campaign cash to Lamont.

"Whether it comes from John Kerry's millions or Ned Lamont's millions doesn't really matter," he said.
 
A Real Choice In November;  Democrats Don't Have To Have The Last Word On Who Will Represent Connecticut In The U.S. Senate For The Next Six Years.
By Day Staff Writer
Published on 8/12/2006

The Democrats in Connecticut have spoken, choosing Ned Lamont to be their candidate for the U.S. Senate in November. And naturally, the party has embraced its candidate, although the newfound affection for Mr. Lamont from among Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman's former allies appears predictably disingenuous.

But this turn of events does not, and should not, preclude Sen. Lieberman from doing what he's doing, and running as an independent. There is no moral principle in politics, if that combination of words is more than an oxymoron, that dictates that the senator not exercise his legal right to petition his way onto the ballot as a third-party candidate..

As a matter of fact, while the senator's persistence may not be a good thing for Democrats, including Mr. Lamont, it is a good thing for the rest of Connecticut's voters, who otherwise would be denied a real choice on the matter of who best would represent them in the Senate. Independents who chose to remain independent and Republicans would be, in a manner of speaking, disenfranchised in determining whether the incumbent or Mr. Lamont would better serve the nation and the people of Connecticut (Republican Alan Schlesinger doesn't seem to have the enthusiastic support of his own party).

Sen. Lieberman no doubt already is under pressure to get out of the race from within his party, or as some would assert, his former party. He should resist those pressures, stick with the course he has taken and allow Connecticut voters of all political persuasions a real choice come November. Then the state and the rest of the country, which is looking on with great interest, can see how everyone eligible to vote feels about this match-up and the issues it has raised about the nation's direction.

A three-man race among Sen. Lieberman, Ned Lamont and the Republican candidate, Mr. Schlesinger, would deprive Mr. Lamont and the Democrats of the cakewalk they would naturally prefer. And they're probably right that the resumption of the contest between Sen. Lieberman and Mr. Lamont would take money and attention away from the Democrats' uphill gubernatorial race and some congressional campaigns. But that's a political issue, not a matter of general public interest.

Of greater interest is the unanswered question of whether Mr. Lamont and his views are as appealing to the whole Connecticut electorate as they are to political partisans in and outside of the state. Sen. Lieberman, with his long and distinguished record of public service, is entitled to find that out. So are the rest of the people of Connecticut. And by the way, the election laws of the state permit them that opportunity.



Amann repaying Lieberman's loyalty;  Defying party, Amann staying with Joe
KEN DIXON dixon.connpost@snet.net
Article created: 08/15/2006 04:44:13 AM EDT
 
HARTFORD — Speaker of the House James A. Amann on Monday endorsed U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman, breaking from other statewide Democratic leaders to support the three-term incumbent over upstart challenger Ned Lamont.

Lieberman, in appreciation of the assistance, said Amann was "gutsy" in going against most high-ranking Democrats who gathered around Lamont. "We're Americans," Amann said. "We have the right to choose who we want in the election."

After four telephone conversations with Lieberman — the loser by 10,000 votes of last week's primary — Amann, D-Milford, decided to stick with him. Amann believes that in November many Democrats — and others — will vote for Lieberman in the three-way Senate race.

"I know Joe Lieberman as a man of integrity and character," Amann told reporters at a press conference. "I know he's a man who has loyally supported me as a friend through my 25 years in politics, and it's time I repaid some of that loyalty."

Amann said that he doesn't know Lamont beyond the fact that he's against the Iraq war and he's a multimillionaire with inherited wealth from Greenwich.

"Ned Lamont would have significantly less influence and impact in Washington," Amann said, adding that the nation faces crises that demand experienced lawmakers. "These challenges prove this is not the time for on-the-job training."

Amann said that since Lieberman got more votes than Lamont in Milford, he believes he's also acting for his constituency by supporting Lieberman. Amann said Lieberman has a good record protecting Social Security, working for the elderly, children, veterans and working men and women.

Lieberman, in a statement, thanked  Amann for his support.

"Jim represents the best tradition of the Democratic Party and public service, and with his endorsement today he is showing why he is known around the state as one of the gutsiest and most principled leaders we have in either party," Lieberman said. "I cannot think of anyone I would rather have standing with me to fight for a new politics of purpose and unity and to get things done for the people of Connecticut."

Lieberman's campaign staff anticipates further support to emerge over the next few days. The firefighters union has announced that it is supporting Lieberman.

Nancy DiNardo, Democratic state chairwoman, said Monday that it was Amann's personal decision.

"As chairwoman of the party, I fully endorse Ned as our candidate for U.S. Senate," she said.

Liz Dupont-Diehl, spokeswoman for Lamont, said Monday that they anticipated that Lieberman will be looking for support within and outside the Democratic Party. "We're grateful for the Democrat support that has stepped up for us," she said.

Last week, 43 percent of the more than 700,000 registered Democrats cast ballots in the Senate primary. In the November general election about 454,000 Republicans, 4,400 minority party and 915,000 unaffiliated voters will be eligible to vote.
Amann Continues To Stand By Lieberman;  House speaker cites 'loyalty' to old friend, doubts about Lamont
DAY
By Ted Mann
Published on 8/15/2006
 
Hartford –– Breaking ranks with his party, state House Speaker James Amann said Monday that he would continue supporting U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman for re-election, even after Lieberman was beaten in the Democratic primary by challenger Ned Lamont.

The announcement from Amann, a self-described moderate Democrat from Milford, was not a surprise. The speaker had been one of the most outspoken defenders of Lieberman in the state legislature and had repeatedly questioned Lamont's credentials in the days leading up to last week's primary vote.

At a press conference in the offices of the House Democratic leadership here, Amann said his decision came after four conversations with Lieberman, during which the senator asked for his support, and amid lingering doubts that Lamont, a relative newcomer, could match Lieberman's efforts on behalf of the state.

Most of all, though, it was a pointed effort to stand by a friend.

“It's time that I repaid some of that loyalty,” Amann said, noting that his support for and friendship with the senator stretches back decades.  Amann said Democrats risked alienating their own conservative members if they penalized Lieberman for his staunch support of the Iraq war, and for other causes unpopular with the mainstream of the party.

“Ned Lamont has left many Democrats outside the tent,” Amann said. “ ... You can't say you're the soul of the party and you haven't reached out to moderates or conservatives.”

Amann conceded that Democrats are “split” over what to do in Iraq, and over who should pay the political price.  Democratic State Chairwoman Nancy DiNardo, who has endorsed Lamont, said she doesn't see that split as a fatal flaw for the party.

“I wouldn't say the war is dividing Democrats,” she said. “There's people who have strong feelings on both sides. I don't see it as something that's being divisive.”

DiNardo, U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd, U.S. Rep. John Larson of the 1st District and state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, among others, appeared together on the morning after the primary to formally endorse Lamont.

But just how far the party's leaders will go to pressure Lieberman into dropping his independent run remains unclear. DiNardo has said she plans to call Lieberman to urge him to quit, but has yet to do so. Dodd, while saying he regretted Lieberman's decision, said he would not call on his Senate colleague to quit, then promptly decamped for a family vacation in Ireland.

Meanwhile, there were more conflicting signals from Connecticut Republicans, who nominated Alan Schlesinger, a little-known former state representative and mayor, before it was clear that Lamont could win the nomination and Lieberman would force a three-way race.

Schlesinger continues to insist he will not drop off the Republican ticket, undaunted by revelations that he gambled under a false name in the 1990s and was sued by New Jersey casinos for unpaid debts, or by polls that show him with barely any support, even among fellow Republicans.

The scarcity of Schlesinger's support was even on display Monday at the White House when Tony Snow, President Bush's press secretary, ducked a question about whether the president is supporting Schlesinger.

“The president supports the democratic process in the state of Connecticut, and wishes them a successful election in November,” Snow said, according to an official transcript of the briefing. After reporters pressed for a clearer answer, Snow referred the questions to political advisers, adding, “I think you know the situation in Connecticut.”

Other prominent Republicans, including Vice President Dick Cheney, have voiced support for Lieberman since his primary defeat.
Independent Lieberman: He Can Now Be Himself!  Most Prominent Democrats Throw Support To Lamont
By Susan Haigh, AP Writer 
Published on 8/11/2006

Lieberman's first stop was in Waterbury, a working class, conservative Democratic city that gave him 60 percent of its Democratic vote in Tuesday's primary, which he wound up losing to Greenwich businessman Ned Lamont.

Lieberman, one of the most well-known centrists in the U.S. Senate, made it clear he's no longer trying to appeal only to Democrats, but also unaffiliated voters and Republicans. Meeting with about three dozen supporters at a Waterbury pizzeria, he said it was “un-American” to make national security a “partisan political football” in light of the terrorist plot uncovered Thursday in Britain.

The three-term senator was criticized by liberal Democrats when he made similar statements last year.

“I have been a Democrat, I will remain a Democrat. (But) in some ways this turn of events which I did not desire, but now gives me the opportunity to be what I always have been an independent Democrat,” he said.

Also Thursday, Lieberman picked up an endorsement from Arkansas Sen. Mark Pryor, his first from a Senate Democrat since losing the primary. “The Democratic Party needs moderate voices,” Pryor said. “I'm for Joe Lieberman whether he's a Democrat or an independent.”

Lieberman is also getting support from some Republicans, including U.S. Rep. Mark Kennedy, the GOP Minnesota Senate candidate; and Mike McGavick, the Republican Senate candidate in Washington. President Bush's top adviser, Karl Rove, said he called Lieberman on primary night and wished him well, although he denied offering the senator help in the election's final hours.

“I called him, he's a personal friend, and I called him Tuesday afternoon, five o'clock thereabout, and wished him well on his election that night,” Rove told reporters traveling with the president to Wisconsin. “It was a personal call.”

Top state and national Democrats have pledged support for Lamont, including Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd, Sens. John Kerry and Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, Sen. Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey and Sens. Chuck Schumer and Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a Democrat, said Thursday that he is also supporting Lamont and called on Lieberman to abandon his independent run.

Richardson, chairman of the Democratic Governors' Association, described Lieberman as “a good friend of mine, a true public servant who has served his constituents and the Democratic Party well.”

The governor said Lieberman should “respect the will of the voters and step aside.”

Lautenberg has also urged Lieberman to not run as an independent.

Christopher Kukk, a political science professor at Western Connecticut State University, said he's not surprised Lieberman is talking tough about homeland security. He said the senator's independent way of thinking plays well with independents, the largest single voting block in Connecticut.

Kukk said candidates typically have to play to the “die-hards” of their political parties when they compete in primaries.

“You have to play to their ideals and their notions of what a senator should and should not be, and that is very different from a general election when you have Republicans and independents,” Kukk said. “It's a very different crowd and a very different group. For Lieberman, I think his positions sit better with the general election.”

Waterbury Mayor Michael Jarjura, who attended Thursday's campaign stop, said he's sticking by his longtime friend. Jarjura, who considers himself to be a moderate to conservative Democrat, said he stands with people he believes in.

“I'm disappointed the Democratic Party has taken ... a shift away from mainstream thought of the people of Connecticut to the more liberal left,” he said. “I think what they're saying (to conservative Democrats) is, 'Guess what guys? You don't have a place our party anymore.'”

Lieberman said he is inspired by Jarjura's support. The mayor was re-elected as a write-in candidate last year after losing his Democratic primary.

Connecticut voters have embraced other independent candidates. Former Gov. Lowell Weicker, a former Republican who lost his Senate seat to Lieberman in 1988, ran for governor as an independent in 1990 and won.

Lieberman's 10,000-vote loss in the primary set up a three-way race this fall among Lamont, Lieberman and Republican Alan Schlesinger, who has trailed far behind both Democrats in recent polls.

Lamont had hammered at Lieberman's support for the Iraq war and accusing him of being too close to Bush, repeatedly noting an incident in which Bush appeared to plant a kiss on the senator's cheek after his 2005 State of the Union address. His campaign also was embraced by liberal bloggers, who saw a chance at a larger role in the party.

On Wednesday, Lieberman announced he is replacing his out-of-state campaign manager and communications director with people with longtime personal ties to the senator. Lieberman has also asked all of his staff, his pollster and media consultant to submit letters of resignation. They can reapply for positions in the campaign.
Independent Lieberman: He Can Now Be Himself!  Most Prominent Democrats Throw Support To Lamont
By Susan Haigh, AP Writer  
Published on 8/11/2006

Lieberman's first stop was in Waterbury, a working class, conservative Democratic city that gave him 60 percent of its Democratic vote in Tuesday's primary, which he wound up losing to Greenwich businessman Ned Lamont.

Lieberman, one of the most well-known centrists in the U.S. Senate, made it clear he's no longer trying to appeal only to Democrats, but also unaffiliated voters and Republicans. Meeting with about three dozen supporters at a Waterbury pizzeria, he said it was “un-American” to make national security a “partisan political football” in light of the terrorist plot uncovered Thursday in Britain.

The three-term senator was criticized by liberal Democrats when he made similar statements last year.

“I have been a Democrat, I will remain a Democrat. (But) in some ways this turn of events which I did not desire, but now gives me the opportunity to be what I always have been an independent Democrat,” he said.

Also Thursday, Lieberman picked up an endorsement from Arkansas Sen. Mark Pryor, his first from a Senate Democrat since losing the primary. “The Democratic Party needs moderate voices,” Pryor said. “I'm for Joe Lieberman whether he's a Democrat or an independent.”

Lieberman is also getting support from some Republicans, including U.S. Rep. Mark Kennedy, the GOP Minnesota Senate candidate; and Mike McGavick, the Republican Senate candidate in Washington. President Bush's top adviser, Karl Rove, said he called Lieberman on primary night and wished him well, although he denied offering the senator help in the election's final hours.

“I called him, he's a personal friend, and I called him Tuesday afternoon, five o'clock thereabout, and wished him well on his election that night,” Rove told reporters traveling with the president to Wisconsin. “It was a personal call.”

Top state and national Democrats have pledged support for Lamont, including Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd, Sens. John Kerry and Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, Sen. Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey and Sens. Chuck Schumer and Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a Democrat, said Thursday that he is also supporting Lamont and called on Lieberman to abandon his independent run.

Richardson, chairman of the Democratic Governors' Association, described Lieberman as “a good friend of mine, a true public servant who has served his constituents and the Democratic Party well.”

The governor said Lieberman should “respect the will of the voters and step aside.”

Lautenberg has also urged Lieberman to not run as an independent.

Christopher Kukk, a political science professor at Western Connecticut State University, said he's not surprised Lieberman is talking tough about homeland security. He said the senator's independent way of thinking plays well with independents, the largest single voting block in Connecticut.

Kukk said candidates typically have to play to the “die-hards” of their political parties when they compete in primaries.

“You have to play to their ideals and their notions of what a senator should and should not be, and that is very different from a general election when you have Republicans and independents,” Kukk said. “It's a very different crowd and a very different group. For Lieberman, I think his positions sit better with the general election.”

Waterbury Mayor Michael Jarjura, who attended Thursday's campaign stop, said he's sticking by his longtime friend. Jarjura, who considers himself to be a moderate to conservative Democrat, said he stands with people he believes in.

“I'm disappointed the Democratic Party has taken ... a shift away from mainstream thought of the people of Connecticut to the more liberal left,” he said. “I think what they're saying (to conservative Democrats) is, 'Guess what guys? You don't have a place our party anymore.'”

Lieberman said he is inspired by Jarjura's support. The mayor was re-elected as a write-in candidate last year after losing his Democratic primary.

Connecticut voters have embraced other independent candidates. Former Gov. Lowell Weicker, a former Republican who lost his Senate seat to Lieberman in 1988, ran for governor as an independent in 1990 and won.

Lieberman's 10,000-vote loss in the primary set up a three-way race this fall among Lamont, Lieberman and Republican Alan Schlesinger, who has trailed far behind both Democrats in recent polls.

Lamont had hammered at Lieberman's support for the Iraq war and accusing him of being too close to Bush, repeatedly noting an incident in which Bush appeared to plant a kiss on the senator's cheek after his 2005 State of the Union address. His campaign also was embraced by liberal bloggers, who saw a chance at a larger role in the party.

On Wednesday, Lieberman announced he is replacing his out-of-state campaign manager and communications director with people with longtime personal ties to the senator. Lieberman has also asked all of his staff, his pollster and media consultant to submit letters of resignation. They can reapply for positions in the campaign.


INQUIRING MINDS (VOTERS) WANT TO KNOW...who is Ned Lamont, anyway?
NED LAMONT EXPERIENCE IN ELECTIVE OFFICE;  IS NED THE SAME LAMONT WHO HELPED SAVE KELDA LANDS?
1987- 1989, Town of Greenwich Board of Selectmen
John B. Margenot, Jr., First Selectman
Paul B. Hicks, Selectman
Edward Lamont, Selectman
Peres Dines Out With Lamont In New York;  Discussion on how U.S. can help Israel
By Jennifer Medina, New York Times News Service
Published on 8/20/2006

Hartford — Former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres met with Ned Lamont, Connecticut's Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate, at a dinner in New York on Friday night to discuss the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.

Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, who lost to Lamont in the Democratic primary this month and is now running as an independent, has long been one of the most vocal champions for Israel in Washington, frequently traveling to the region and meeting with Israeli leaders.  Lamont, who has campaigned ardently against the war in Iraq, has also asserted his support for Israel in the past several months, saying that he believes the United States should do everything it can to help Israel.

Neither Lieberman nor Lamont has spoken extensively on Israel in recent days, since a tenuous cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon began. Earlier, both men had said they supported a cease-fire only if it would mean the disarming of Hezbollah.

Tom Swan, Lamont's campaign manager, said that a “mutual acquaintance” had helped organize the dinner, where a handful of others were also present.

“They talked about what the U.S. could do to help Israel,” Swan said, declining to provide further details.

Some of Lieberman's supporters have questioned Lamont's commitment to Israel, largely because he has received support from some Democrats who have mixed records in voting on pro-Israel legislation.  Peres, who is currently the deputy prime minister, is in the United States helping raise millions of dollars through the United Jewish Communities, which plans to use the money to rehabilitate northern Israel, which has been damaged in the conflict.

Peres is generally viewed as one of the more dovish leaders in Israel. Last month he was one of three members of the Israeli security Cabinet who did not vote in favor of the military's plan to move thousands more troops into Lebanon, arguing that Israel should continue more diplomatic efforts. Peres was also one of the chief negotiators of the 1993 Oslo peace accords.
Lamont Apologizes For Campaign Manager's Waterbury Comments
Hartford Courant
Associated Press
2:36 PM EDT, August 15, 2006

WATERBURY, Conn. -- Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Ned Lamont apologized on a local talk radio program Tuesday for his campaign manager's description of Waterbury as a place "where the forces of slime meet the forces of evil."

The comment, made by campaign manager Tom Swan to a reporter for an online news site, caused a firestorm in Waterbury, a gritty industrial city that voted overwhelmingly for Lamont's opponent, U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman, in last week's Democratic primary. Lamont won the overall primary with 52 percent of the vote. 
 
Lieberman is now running as an independent candidate in the general election.

"Look, I understand that Tom made some comments. I think they're unfortunate. We apologize for them," Lamont said Tuesday on WATR-AM's Talk of the Town program.

Swan had said earlier that the comments were in the context of a broader discussion of state politics in which former Mayor Philip A. Giordano was the "slime" and former Gov. John G. Rowland was the "evil."

Giordano is serving a long prison sentence on federal child sex charges and Rowland, a Waterbury native, was forced to resign in 2004 and served a federal prison term for corruption.

Swan said his statement was not meant to be reflective of the city and sent an apology to Mayor Michael J. Jarjura, one of few Democrats to publicly support Lieberman after the primary.

But Jarjura's chief of staff, Sheila O'Malley, called the program before Lamont spoke to say that apology was inadequate.

"While Mr. Swan can say, 'Oh well, what I meant was Rowland and Giordano,' what he said was Waterbury ... Waterburians do know how to read, we know how to write, and we even know how to vote," she said. "If you're going to be spokesman for a national campaign, you ought to be extremely careful about the selection of your words."

Jarjura became aware of Swan's comments Thursday when the Lieberman campaign sent an Internet link to the site where they appeared.

Lamont said Tuesday he's not sure what else he can do to make amends.

"I thought the comment was really unfortunate," he told a caller who said he did not buy Swan's explanation. "I've apologized for it, Tom Swan has apologized for it. I've tried to call your mayor, I'm talking to anybody I can, and I'm going to go down to Waterbury and I'm going to try to earn the respect and vote of everybody I can. I don't quite know what more to say." 
`Vets For Freedom' Creates Stir:   Group With GOP Ties Backs Lieberman; White House Declines To Endorse Schlesinger
By JON LENDER, Courant Staff Writer
August 15, 2006

Connecticut's U.S. Senate race continued Monday along its unpredictable way: The White House declined to endorse the nominee of state Republicans - and a new "Vets for Freedom" group with ties to the GOP advertised its backing of incumbent Sen. Joe Lieberman, who is waging an independent campaign for re-election after losing last week's Democratic primary.

The group's full-page ad Monday in The Courant created an immediate stir: Former Democratic State Chairman George Jepsen, a top adviser to Democratic primary winner Ned Lamont, said the ad showed that "national Republicans, in their effort to help Joe Lieberman, clearly have a well-laid-out strategy to attack Ned Lamont."

However, Lieberman's spokesman, Dan Gerstein, said the incumbent had nothing to do with the veterans' group or the ad, and "it's a shame that the Lamont campaign feels there is a conspiracy behind everything."

"Thank you Senator Lieberman," the ad began in large type. Then, in smaller print, it continued: "Iraq and Afghanistan are complicated wars. But you have not let politics influence your position. We are grateful for your integrity, leadership and unwavering commitment to America's troops. We are veterans of these wars, and we salute you."

The ad featured a photo of soldier Josh Clark, 24, of Willimantic, who was wounded in 2003 in Iraq, along with a quote attributed to Clark: "Senator Lieberman stood with me and my fellow veterans, and I am proud to stand by him."

The paid message was placed by the Virginia-based Vets for Freedom Action Fund, established last month under Section 527 of the federal tax code as a nonpartisan organization "to communicate with the public on veterans' issues and the war in Iraq."

The group has high-level Republican connections. It has used a public relations firm that includes Taylor Gross, a former White House official, and receives volunteer advice from GOP strategist Dan Senor.

But its executive director, Iraq war veteran Wade Zirkle, said its members are both Democrat and Republican and its main issue is whether someone is "simply pro-mission or anti-mission," referring to the U.S. mission in Iraq.

The ad surfaced on a day when White House spokesman Tony Snow would not commit himself on whether Republican President Bush would support Alan Schlesinger, Connecticut's Republican nominee, in the three-way race with Democrat Lamont and independent candidate Lieberman.

"The president supports the democratic process in the state of Connecticut and wishes them a successful election in November," Snow said. He was asked if Bush was holding back because he likes Lieberman or because Schlesinger is far behind in polls. "There may be a whole host of reasons ...," he began, adding: "I think that there are some peculiar characteristics going on in the Republican Party with the Republican candidate, and why don't you wait and see what happens?"

Snow's comments followed Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman's refusal, on Sunday's NBC-TV news program "Meet the Press," to say if he supports Schlesinger. Mehlman said he consults "our leadership in the states - and what my leadership in the state has said to me is: `You ought to stay out of this one.'" So, he said, he is focusing on U.S. House races and the governor's race in Connecticut.

Also Monday, Democratic House Speaker James Amann of Milford broke with other major state Democratic officials by announcing he'll maintain his support of Lieberman. "There are times when you stand with a friend, no matter what the political costs may be," said Amann.

But Monday's main event was the fight over the veterans' ad.

The Vets for Freedom Action Fund was registered with the IRS last month - about six months after the group Vets for Freedom was established - to support election of "pro-mission" candidates. Lieberman is the first, Zirkle said.

So-called 527s are political organizations set up under a section of the IRS code regulating nonprofit groups. They are not bound by federal rules on who can contribute or how much. They are required to disclose contributions and expenditures but file their reports with the IRS instead of the Federal Elections Commission.

The 527s cannot coordinate with or contribute to a federal candidate - Zirkle said he's had no contact with Lieberman - and can't expressly advocate for or against electing a candidate. But they can praise or criticize a candidate's record or proposals.

One of the most prominent 527s was the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which outraged Democrats in 2004 by airing TV ads questioning the Vietnam War record of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, though he had been decorated for bravery.

Jepsen, a senior Lamont campaign adviser, said he saw a similarity between the 2004 Swift Boat Veterans effort and Monday's ad by the Vets for Freedom.

"So, the swift-boating begins," he said. In 2004, he said, the Swift Boat veterans used "half-truths and lies" to take a Kerry strength "and distort it in such a way that was unjust and unfair." Now, he said, the new group's ad seeks "to make opposition to the war in Iraq somehow unpatriotic."

He said both Lieberman and Republican Vice President Dick Cheney suggested last week "that by casting votes in a free democracy [Connecticut Democrats] were aiding terrorists" by rejecting Lieberman. He called that an "incredible insult" to voters.

Cheney drew the Democrats' ire by suggesting Lamont's victory might encourage "al-Qaida types" who seek to "break the will of the American people in terms of our ability to stay in the fight and complete the task" in Iraq.

After news last week that Britain foiled a terrorist plot to bomb airliners, Lieberman criticized Lamont's stance on withdrawal from Iraq. "If we just pick up, get out by a date certain, like Ned Lamont wants us to do, it will be taken as a tremendous victory by the same people who wanted to blow up these planes...," Lieberman said. "It will strengthen them, and they will strike again."

The veterans' ad was a positive message about Lieberman, Gerstein said, adding that only the "reality-challenged Lamont campaign ... could turn a positive ad into something negative."

Zirkle said that "if anyone's getting swift-boated," it's his veterans' group - by "the Lamont campaign trying to smear us."

Jepsen said veterans of Iraq and other wars agree with Lamont that Bush's war has "destabilized the Middle East, empowered Muslim extremists and fostered terrorism."
City GOP refuses to accept apology: Waterbury officials still feel 'slimed'
Copyright © 2006 Republican-American
BY STEVE GAMBINI
Saturday, August 12, 2006

WATERBURY -- The city's top ranking Republican lawmakers say an apology is not enough, and that the man who referred to the city as the nexus of slime and evil should be fired.

"I just think it's unconscionable that someone in a position such as running for an office like that can make such remarks about a community he probably has no knowledge of," said Rep. Anthony D'Amelio, R-71st District.  Tom Swan, campaign manager for U.S. Senate candidate Ned Lamont called Waterbury the place "where the forces of slime meet the forces of evil" on election night after the city voted for Sen. Joseph Lieberman by a 2½-1 margin.

Those comments were published on an Internet political newspaper and came to the attention of city officials Thursday.  Mayor Michael J. Jarjura demanded an apology from Lamont and Swan to the citizens of Waterbury, but the comments Swan has made are insufficient, he said.

"That apology fell well short of being an apology," Jarjura said.

Swan had said the he was sorry Jarjura took personal offense to the comments. "I seldom link him to the long legacy of corruption in Waterbury," he said.  No one from the campaign had contacted Jarjura's office Friday, as Swan said he would do Thursday.  Lamont communications director Liz Dupont-Diehl said Swan was making private comments that were not aimed at Waterbury residents. She said the campaign is planning to write a letter to Jarjura explaining that Swan's comments weren't intended to reflect on the people of Waterbury. It might be a hard sell.

"It's insulting to the citizens I think," said Sheila O'Malley, Jarjura's chief of staff, said. "I have no doubt that the citizens of Waterbury are going to show their appreciation in November."

Shortly before city officials learned about the statments, Jarjura endorsed Lieberman over Lamont. Lieberman, who lost the primary and is now running for re-election as an independent, made Waterbury his first post-primary campaign stop on Thursday.  Some residents said they also were outraged by the comments.

"This is outrageous for a man who has Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson at his side," said resident Mike DeSantis "It doesn't speak well of his opinion of urban areas."

D'Amelio was joined in his call for Swan's ouster by Rep. Selim Noujaim, R-74th District.

"I am appalled by a statement of this magnitude. It is an offense to every citizen of Waterbury, whether a Democrat, Republican or Independent,'' Noujaim said. "I am proud of the neighborhoods and the people who live in Waterbury. A statement of this nature demonstrates a lack of responsibility and the person who made it must live with the consequences.''

Alderman Cicero Booker said he wasn't as troubled by the comments as some.

"His apology in my mind was accepted," Booker said. "I wasn't insulted, because the city's been called sin city by even one of our own former mayors. Other people have labeled the city the center of the universe, they've called it the crotch of the state."


At last, a Lamont scandal (only not so much)
Ted Mann, Day Staff Writer (blog)
Published on 8/11/2006
 
The good folks at the Stamford Advocate report that town officials disqualified the vote of Emily Lamont, 19, daughter of Ned.

Seems she was one of that much-analyzed bloc of unaffiliated voters for whom Ned and Joe will apparently be vying this November. (And of course, there continues to be Alan. At least for now.)

Given the tone so far, one can hold out hope for an indignant advertisement slamming the obvious attempt of the Lamont family to flout the rules of the Democratic primary process.

Or maybe not. The current senator, smarting from a 10,000-vote defeat, has set sail toward November with a new crew (the previous crew would be those shapes you see bobbing in the wake behind him) and a happier message.

Lieberman's new campaign spot, airing today, is sweetness and light. Or, "unity and purpose," rather. We'll be interested to see how that message appeals to his Democratic colleagues as he campaigns against the party's nominee.
Lamont's Daughter Wasn't On Voter List
By Jonathan Lucas, Hartford Courant
August 11, 2006

GREENWICH -- Democratic Senate candidate Ned Lamont's daughter, Emily, has gone out on the campaign trail for her dad and contributed more than $4,000, but the 19-year-old couldn't vote for him.

Emily Lamont's vote in Tuesday's primary battle between her father and U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman was thrown out yesterday after the Democratic registrar of voters in the family's hometown, Greenwich, determined she was ineligible.

"Her vote was rejected because she is not enrolled in a party," said Sharon Vecchiolla, Democratic registrar in Greenwich.

It didn't matter in the end, as Ned Lamont won with more than 52 percent of the vote. Lieberman has launched an independent bid to retain the Senate seat he has held for 18 years.  Emily Lamont registered in January 2005 as an unaffiliated voter. Only registered Democrats were eligible to vote in Tuesday's primary. Unaffiliated voters had until noon Monday to change their party status.

Lamont was allowed to cast a provisional ballot, but it was not counted after Vecchiolla determined she was ineligible.  Ned Lamont campaign spokeswoman Liz Dupont-Diehl said yesterday Emily Lamont was out of town and could not be reached for comment.

"It certainly would be disappointing," Dupont-Diehl said. "She's been extremely involved and volunteered tirelessly."

Lamont, a Greenwich High School graduate, will begin her freshman year at Harvard University -- her father's alma mater -- this fall. She has been helping organize voters on the Internet and reaching out to young voters in campaign stops, Dupont-Diehl said.  Lamont went to vote with her father at Greenwich High School on Tuesday morning. While a throng of media photographers surrounded her father around a voting machine, Lamont was told by the poll moderator that she was welcome to register as a Democrat but would not be allowed to vote.

The moderator, Dolores Trudden, said Lamont protested that she was a Democrat. After the media left the polling place, Emily returned with her mother and a campaign staff member, Trudden said.  During a tense exchange, the female staff member, whose identity is not known, demanded Lamont be given a provisional ballot.

"I had to make a decision -- do I give her a provisional ballot knowing it's going to get thrown out?" Trudden said. "I decided the prudent thing to do was to give her a ballot with the receipt that says her vote may not be counted."

Provisional ballots were established as part of the 2002 Help America Vote Act and first were used in the 2004 presidential election. The ballots are for people who cannot prove they are registered voters or whose residency is challenged at the polling place.

Most provisional ballots are not counted because it is determined the voters are not eligible, said Ted Bromley, a staff attorney at the state secretary of the state's office.

All six provisional ballots cast in Greenwich on Tuesday were rejected, Vecchiolla said.

"Somebody should have checked" her registration, Trudden said. "It could have backfired if it had gotten nastier." 


Or the short and to the point version...

Candidate's daughter has ballot disqualified
DAY
Aug 11, 10:58 AM EDT

GREENWICH, Conn. (AP) -- Town election officials have disqualified the vote cast by Democratic Senate candidate Ned Lamont's daughter in Tuesday's primary.

Emily Lamont's vote in Tuesday's primary battle between her father and Sen. Joe Lieberman was rejected Thursday after the Democratic registrar of voters determined she was ineligible.

"Her vote was rejected because she is not enrolled in a party," Sharon Vecchiolla, Democratic registrar in Greenwich said.

Emily Lamont, 19, registered in January 2005 as an unaffiliated voter. Only registered Democrats were eligible to vote in Tuesday's primary. Unaffiliated voters had until noon Monday to change their party status.
 
Lamont was allowed to cast a provisional ballot, but it was not counted after Vecchiolla determined she was ineligible.


U.S. SENATE PRE-DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY STORIES...

Democrat Primary 2006 precedes, according to the DAY, a campaign by the late Arthur Schlesinger for Senate on the Republican ticket - who has developed a gambling habit in after-life;  Senator Joseph I. Lieberman (joining friends after debate) battling Greenwich anti-war multi-millionaire Ned Lamont (seen with family after debate).  Our question:  if the challenger, Mr. Lamont, is in the cable broadcasting business, why didn't he show TV smarts from the get-go?
Lieberman For The Senate;  Respect for incumbent in both parties is an asset Democrats shouldn't sacrifice over one issue.
By Day Staff Writer
Published on 8/6/2006
 
Ned Lamont's primary challenge against U.S. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman is built around the view that Sen. Lieberman has betrayed the Democratic Party by not opposing the war in Iraq and by not speaking out more strongly against other Bush administration policies.

And Mr. Lamont, a Greenwich businessman, appears to have tapped into a strong reservoir of sentiment among Connecticut Democrats, for his campaign has brought him into a 13-point lead over the 18-year incumbent and one-time vice presidential candidate. The challenger's views resonate among Connecticut voters, not just Democrats, who are angry over the war and dissatisfied with President George W. Bush's leadership.

The Editorial Board of The Day finds itself confronted with the same dilemma, having vigorously opposed the Iraq war from the beginning. Mr. Lamont added to the difficulty the newspaper had reaching a consensus on the race because he is a credible candidate.

We expected a one-issue candidate, and instead discovered in Mr. Lamont a well-rounded politician with a breadth of good ideas, strong intelligence and surprising political skills for one with as little experience as he has had in this arena. He would be a good senator.

But what he has failed to do is make a convincing case that he would be better at the job than Sen. Lieberman, or that the senator's posture toward the war and the Bush administration is the liability to the state and the American way that the Lamont campaign contends it would be.

On the contrary, Sen. Lieberman has stood out as one of the hardest-working and most respected U.S. senators. He achieved this stature as a member of a group of Democrats who have camped out in the middle of their party and opted for collegiality over partisan warfare in conducting the nation's business. This posture is the mirror opposite of the Bush administration's approach, which is us against them.

His stature (which brought him within inches of becoming vice president), reputation as a fair-minded mediator, seniority, connections and berth on the Senate Armed Services Committee also add heft to the effectiveness of the state's congressional delegation in protecting Connecticut interests such as the state's defense industry, transportation dollars and dispensations from within the Beltway.

Better position for battling Bush

By earning respect among moderates in both parties, Sen. Lieberman has been in a better position to do battle with the president, as when he and Sen. John McCain, Republican of Arizona, fought for the creation of a commission to examine the nation's failure in the 9-11 attacks, over the strong objections of the administration. Sen. Lieberman was instrumental in shaping the nation's homeland-security policy after the 2001 attacks.

In the old days, this quality of collegiality and working across partisan lines was referred to as statesmanship. Sen. Lieberman, in this regard, has had much in common with centrist Republican colleagues like Sen. McCain, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island (and his late father, Sen. John Chafee), Olympia Snowe, of Maine and Arlen Specter, of Pennsylvania. All of these moderates look to the tradition in the Senate of dealing respectfully with politicians on the other side of the fence as the best route to achieve progress. As in Sen. Lieberman's case, they are often held in contempt by colleagues in their party who fault them for fraternizing with the enemy and abandoning “core values.”

The characterization of Sen. Lieberman as a Bush ally is exaggerated. He has opposed the administration's Neanderthal-like environmental policies, its excessive tax cuts and the record deficits they have produced. Sen. Lieberman also vigorously opposed other Bush follies such as domestic spying, rendition and torture.

The country is slowly emerging from the darkness of the waning Bush years. An era of divisiveness marked by obsessive secrecy, cynical manipulation and ferocious partisanship is, we would hope, drawing to a close.

More politicians like Sen. Lieberman, not fewer, are needed in Washington to overcome the polarization that has overwhelmed the ability of the national government to attack fundamental issues like Social Security, health care and education.

Lamont's right to focus on war

Of course Mr. Lamont is right to put the war front and center in this campaign. The war and deteriorating situation in the Middle East have kidnapped the entire American agenda, even national defense not related to Iraq. It is, as Mr. Lamont argues forcefully, a strain on the national budget that compromises the nation's ability to address the needs of Americans. Every issue, including health care, seems to have taken a backseat to this conflict.

But this is not reason to cast out Sen. Lieberman for sticking to what he believes is right.

Were Sen. Lieberman the political opportunist his critics accuse him of being, he would not have taken the forthright stand he has in favor of this American intervention, and would by now have retreated from his position as public opinion turns against the Bush policies.

But his views on the war are as principled as Mr. Lamont's. Mr. Lamont fears getting caught in a costly, Vietnam-variety quagmire. Sen. Lieberman is concerned that a precipitous retreat from Iraq would throw the entire Middle East into a chaos that would endanger world security. Neither party has figured out yet which is right.

These aren't merely the differences between Republicans and Democrats. Democrats in the Senate differ widely over U.S. policy in Iraq, and Sen. Lieberman isn't alone in his party opposing a deadline or timetable for U.S. withdrawal from Iraq.

His position on the war is the one his conscience dictates. This doesn't make him a bad Democrat. The senator votes with his party on most other issues. But in his many years in public service, he has brought to politics a sense of decency and civility that has earned him respect as an exceptional politician. He has staked out a position that gives him the capacity to shape national policy and look after Connecticut's interests that a newcomer like Mr. Lamont, as impressive as he is, would be hard-pressed to duplicate for some time.

The Day endorses Joseph I. Lieberman for the Senate nomination.
 
Senator Predicts Lieberman Would Abandon Run If He Loses The Primary
DAY
By Devlin Barrett, Associated Writer 
Published on 8/5/2006

Washington — In a fresh sign of trouble for embattled Sen. Joe Lieberman, a fellow lawmaker and campaign ally suggested Friday that the three-term Connecticut incumbent drop plans to run as an independent if he loses Tuesday's Democratic primary by a wide margin.
“I think he really has to take a look at what reality is,” said New Jersey Sen. Frank Lautenberg, who campaigned by Lieberman's side earlier this week.

Lautenberg also said he would switch his allegiance if anti-war challenger Ned Lamont prevails in the primary. Lieberman, the 2000 Democratic vice presidential nominee, trails his primary rival by double-digit margins in public and private polls heading into the campaign's final weekend.

Lieberman said Lautenberg's assessment “doesn't come from me.”

“There is no basis for that conclusion by anybody. ... I have not said that to anybody, we have not discussed such a possibility. So, that may have been Frank's personal point of view, but it doesn't come from anybody in my campaign,” he told Connecticut Radio Network.

With his remarks, Lautenberg went further than other prominent Democrats by suggesting that Lieberman decide to accept the verdict of the primary voters as final.

Other party leaders have said they intend to support Tuesday's winner, with a formal announcement possible as early as Wednesday. But they have avoided speculation about Lieberman's post-primary plans, saying they did not want to convey the impression that they expect his defeat.

Lieberman said as recently as Thursday that he would run as an independent if he failed to capture the Democratic nomination.

“I frankly believe that if there is a significant margin of victory, if Mr. Lamont wins, I find it hard to believe that Joe Lieberman would challenge that, but it's his decision. I am going to support the Democratic candidate,” Lautenberg said in an interview with National Public Radio.

Asked what sort of margin he would consider significant, Lautenberg answered: “I think if oh, let's say 20 percent of the people, or 10 percent of the people in the Democratic Party, and they're signed up as Democrats, don't want to give him a vote, I think he really has to take a look at what reality is.”

“I also think that the prospect of a loss, another loss would be very, very unpleasant to imagine,” Lautenberg said, adding that Lieberman has not told him what he would do.

A Quinnipiac University poll released Thursday showed Lamont, a political novice, leading Lieberman 54 percent to 41 percent among likely Democratic voters. The margin of error was plus or minus 3 percentage points. Campaign officials say private polls generally track the public survey results.

Nearly 11,500 unaffiliated voters have switched their registration to Democrat since May, reflecting the strong desire of many to vote in the primary between Lieberman and Lamont. Unaffiliated and unregistered voters have until noon Monday to register with a political party.

In Connecticut, more than 942,000, or 45 percent, of the state's approximately 2.1 million voters are unaffiliated. More than 702,000 are Democrats and more than 456,000 Republicans.

Although Lieberman has said he intends to run as an independent if he loses the primary, it is not clear that he has made an irrevocable decision to do so.

In addition to costing him his party's support, a primary defeat would leave Lieberman with the daunting challenge of raising money for a fall campaign against Lamont, a multimillionaire, and Republican Alan Schlesinger.

Asked Friday about abandoning the race if he loses the primary, Lieberman said, “No, no, because I'm going to win the primary.”

Only a week earlier, Lautenberg had appeared at a Lieberman campaign event, declaring: “Joe, we want you back. The Senate needs you. The country needs you.”

In the radio interview, Lautenberg said the enthusiasm of the pro-Lieberman crowds left him stunned by the new poll numbers showing Lamont with a double-digit lead.

“I'm very sad to see what the polls are saying at this point in time,” Lautenberg said.
 
Primaries Get The Juices Of Democracy Flowing
DAY
By Bethe Dufresne
Published on 8/4/2006
   
Feeling bogged down by all the political heat?  Try focusing on this thought: Primaries are cool.

Primaries show us that participatory democracy still lives in the United States of America, and that we voters don't have to resign ourselves to choosing between candidates anointed by incumbency or links to the party powerful.

Tuesday's Democratic primary between Joe Lieberman and Ned Lamont does not, unfortunately, demonstrate that a sitting U.S. senator can be challenged today by anyone other than a multimillionaire. But one step at a time. Any expanded choice in this Age of the Imperial Congress is in itself cause for celebration.

So avail yourself of it, for heaven's sake, if you're a registered Democrat or new or unaffiliated voter. The latter have until noon on Monday to register as Democrats, and while the idea of joining this or any other any political party may be repugnant to some, you can always change your affiliation later on.

So much has been said and written of late about the dismally low voter turnout for U.S. elections that there's no need to wail on about it here. Rather this might be an opportune time to consider why we vote, or not, and if or when voting matters.

Pundits recently had a heyday when the Associated Press reported that more votes (63.4 million) were cast to choose the last “American Idol” than in any presidential election. Frankly, however, that statistic didn't bother me.

First off, many “Idol” fans managed to vote (legally) multiple times, so comparing the numbers to presidential elections wasn't fair.

Second, it's safe to assume that the overwhelming majority of “Idol” voters had diligently followed all the campaigns.

They knew all the candidates and the scores, and they cared deeply, even if irrationally, about the election's outcome. On top of that, both the stakes and the contenders' personal records, unlike in most political elections, were perfectly clear.

I'll confess to having sat out a number of elections through the years, including the local school board and the “American Idol” finals. I'm not proud of this, but I knew next to nothing about the candidates, the outcome didn't frighten me or directly affect me, and the bottom line was that I simply didn't care.

I happen to believe it's crazy not to care who represents you in the U.S. Senate, and criminal not to hold those accountable who have blood on their hands. Nevertheless, there's surely no intrinsic honor or benefit in voting just because you can.

Therefore if you don't know much about the candidates in Tuesday's senatorial primary and don't feel passionately about the issues, feel free to stay away. Perhaps when America gets ready to choose its next “Idol,” I'll owe you one.
 
Times backs Lamont; Wash. Post, Courant, Conn. Post back Lieberman
Jul 30, 8:03 PM EDT

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) -- U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman earned the endorsement of The Washington Post Sunday in his bid for a fourth term, while The New York Times backed his opponent Greenwich businessman Ned Lamont in the Democratic primary, criticizing the three-term incumbent for his support of President Bush's national security policies.

The Post commended Lieberman for his ability to work in a bipartisan manner to help advance legislation in Washington, while noting that his support for the war, the galvanizing issue in the race, is a legitimate issue to raise.

"But it seems that Mr. Lieberman is also being pummeled for his ability to work with Republicans and get things done in Washington - also rare traits - and that's a criticism that strikes us as shortsighted even from a partisan Democratic point of view.

Throughout his Senate career, Mr. Lieberman has been faithful to the fundamental values that most Democrats associate with their party...This is a talent and temperament that is helpful to the Democrats in the minority but will be needed even more if there's a change in power in one or both houses of Congress or, in 2008, in the White House. Then, more than ever, the Democratic Party, if it hopes to accomplish anything, will need people such as Mr. Lieberman who bring some civility to an increasingly uncivil capital," The Post wrote.
 
The most recent Quinnipiac University poll has Lieberman and Lamont in a statistical dead heat heading into the Aug. 8 primary.

The New York Times said the primary has become a referendum on what it called Lieberman's "warped version of bipartisanship."

"In his effort to appear above the partisan fray, he has become one of the Bush administration's most useful allies as the president tries to turn the war on terror into an excuse for radical changes in how this country operates," The Times wrote. "If Mr. Lieberman had once stood up and taken the lead in saying that there were some places a president had no right to take his country even during a time of war, neither he nor this page would be where we are today. But by suggesting that there is no principled space for that kind of opposition, he has forfeited his role as a conscience of his party, and has forfeited our support.

"Mr. Lamont, a wealthy businessman from Greenwich, seems smart and moderate, and he showed spine in challenging the senator while other Democrats groused privately," The Times wrote.

The Hartford Courant and the Connecticut Post also backed Lieberman on Sunday.

The Courant wrote that it does not usually endorse candidates in primaries, but did so now because the race has drawn national attention and is a "defining moment" in the debate about the war on terrorism.

"Mr. Lieberman's history of enthusiasm for military interventions overseas is an anomaly in a man famous for mediating among warring factions in Washington," The Courant wrote. "But to dismiss this moderate - a vanishing breed in a Congress sundered by extremism on both sides - for dissenting on a single issue would be a terrible waste. And a mistake."

The Connecticut Post asked if Connecticut Democrats are "ready to discard a proven leader in the U.S. Senate because of intense division on the war in Iraq?"

"There have been many times when we've disagreed with the senator, but his overall record is commendable and the record of a fighter who has been there for Connecticut in the areas of defense contracts, the environment, education, health care, civil rights and transportation," the Connecticut Post wrote.

What's in a name?  ARTHUR Schlesinger, now he would have a chance in the Democrat Primary!  As we always say, all the news that fits we print!
Spirited Race Deserves More Debate
DAY editorial
By Morgan McGinley
Published on 7/16/2006
 
The U.S. Senate campaign in Connecticut heats up every day. The idea that a three-term Democratic senator, a vice presidential candidate with the long-term recognition of Joe Lieberman, would be facing the fight of his political life reflects the frustration Democrats feel about losing the White House twice and both houses of Congress. Democrats in Connecticut have shifted to Lieberman much of the animosity they feel toward President George W. Bush and the Iraq War. And they have added their own disappointment with Democrats who have not stood up to the president and acted like Democrats.

Lieberman must be wondering how it is that so many Connecticut Democrats, and especially local leaders and town committee members, feel so negatively about him. They possibly could cost Democrats a Senate seat. Lieberman must think he's traveling through a dream.  But a dream, it is not. Ned Lamont, a wealthy Greenwich businessman, is a tough, well financed challenger who is able to articulate the issues. And he continues to gain momentum.

Lieberman hasn't helped his cause with Democratic primary voters by announcing that he will petition his way onto the general-election ballot so that he could run if he loses the Democratic primary. Many Democrats feel he considers himself more important than the party by refusing to abide by whatever decision the Democrats make when they vote in the primary. No doubt the senator is thinking, hey it's summer, people are away and anything could happen in the primary. I had better get on the ballot as an independent, too. But his decision to petition does not play well among loyal Democrats.

Lieberman appears to be ducking debates, too. He has debated Lamont just once — in a WVIT TV studio where no protestors could be present and there was no audience. Lamont's camp is willing to debate in virtually any public forum but Lieberman has not yet accepted any more debates. Perhaps that's because Lamont stood up vigorously to Lieberman and didn't look like a political rookie except in his initial nervousness.

Many Democrats see Lieberman's reluctance to debate as cowardly, since he is seeking a fourth term in the Senate and should be willing to stand up and debate frequently.

The race is attracting so much attention that both “Face the Nation,” and “Meet the Press” have invited the candidates to appear on their national TV network shows. Lamont is willing, but Lieberman has not accepted. “We have told them we have a number of requests to do debates and the in-state ones are more important because our interest is here in Connecticut,” a Lieberman spokeswoman said.

Meantime, the Lieberman race is killing the notion of media attention for Democratic gubernatorial candidates who are playing second fiddle to Senate candidates in the news. John DeStefano Jr. and Dan Malloy, the mayors, respectively, of New Haven and Stamford, are vigorous thinkers, full of ideas and anxious to debate the issues.

But the interest in the Lieberman-Lamont Senate primary has sucked the air out of their efforts to get the attention of voters. Since both men are running far behind Gov. M. Jodi Rell in the polls, they desperately need voters to pay attention to what they are saying.

Now there are four candidates running for the Senate in Connecticut: Lieberman, his primary challenger Ned Lamont; Republican Arthur Schlesinger, and state Rep. Diana Urban (NOTE:  UPDATE - Representative Urban collected approximately 6,500 signature, 1000 short of the required 7,500, to become a candidate on the November 7 ballot), the North Stonington Republican who is trying to petition her way onto the ballot. Urban, whose father is a former GOP state chairman in New York, is a Rockefeller Republican. She has felt uncomfortable with many of her conservative Republican colleagues in the Connecticut House and has angered the party leadership with her independent attitudes and voting patterns.

Schlesinger got into difficulty recently when it was disclosed that he had gambled at Foxwoods casino using an alias. Bradley Beecher, a former state police officer who had been assigned to the casino enforcement unit, wrote to Gov. Rell to say that Schlesinger had used an assumed name in the 1990s to gamble. Schlesinger dismissed the disclosure as much ado about nothing. He said he used the alias to cover his identity because he was a state representative and mayor of Derby at the time.

Gov. Rell didn't take the news so calmly. She and GOP State Chairman George Gallo both said Schlesinger should reconsider running for the Senate.

But Schlesinger said at a press conference Thursday that he has no intention of stepping down as a candidate.

He was thought to have little chance against Lieberman. Now that it's possible that Mr. Lamont may be the Democratic nominee, Republicans may be thinking differently about the potential to capture Lieberman's Senate seat.

The U.S. Senate race has all the earmarks of a wild rollercoaster ride. It is healthy for the Democratic process to have such a spirited campaign. But for Malloy and DeStefano, who want to debate the serious problems facing Connecticut — health care, transportation, jobs, tax reform and others — the din of the Senate race is a cacophony that drowns them out.

Yes Virginia, there's a race for governor, too. But right now the nation's eyes are on the Democratic Senate primary.
 

Dems' Fighting Words;   Acrimony Marks Battle Over Identities, Party Loyalty
By MARK PAZNIOKAS, And CHRISTOPHER KEATING Courant Staff Writers
July 7, 2006

WEST HARTFORD -- Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman relentlessly attacked Ned Lamont during a televised debate Thursday, painting his challenger as a rich neophyte with a single issue - the war in Iraq.

Unlike the collegial tone employed in his vice presidential debate with Dick Cheney in 2000, Lieberman was alternately caustic and dismissive, leaving Lamont wide-eyed and visibly rattled in the opening minutes of the one-hour confrontation.

But at the end of the nationally televised debate, each side claimed victory. The incumbent's camp said Lieberman dominated, while Lamont's backers said the challenger showed he could stand up to a three-term senator...

With Nation Watching, Testy Exchange Of Views
By ROGER CATLIN, Courant TV Critic
July 7, 2006
 
In a campaign that has gained national attention but has been reflected on television mostly by negative ads, the only scheduled TV debate between U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman and challenger Ned Lamont was a kind of feast for political fans.

Never mind that both men quoted liberally from their negative ad campaigns; at least they had to face one another. And it was clear that Lieberman, a national figure after having run for vice president in 2000, was running for his political life.  In an era when candidates are coached not to refer to their opponents by name, Lieberman called out Lamont immediately in his opening salvo and proved tougher against the Greenwich anti-war businessman than he had been against Dick Cheney in the vice presidential candidate debates in 2000.

Thursday's hourlong event, aired live from the West Hartford studios of WVIT, was the biggest national showcase for a debate in Connecticut since President Clinton's first presidential debate against Bob Dole at The Bushnell in Hartford in 1996.

But WVIT went a little overboard in self-promotion because MSNBC and C-SPAN audiences were tuning in nationally. NBC30 logos adorned the front of each lectern the candidates stood behind, the microphones they spoke into and a flat-screen image that floated between them. It was overkill and a tad bush league.  This was underscored by a few technical glitches, the most glaring of which was a superfluous 11 o'clock news promo that interrupted Lieberman in the middle of an answer ("Tonight at 11: Pool safety!").

The questions were pretty direct, not that moderator and host Joanne Nesti could restrict the candidates to answering them. At one point she started twitching when Lieberman wouldn't stop his rebuttal to a rebuttal. The senator well knows it's good to get in the last word no matter what.

He also knew when to get in any number of glib sound bites that will serve him the rest of his campaign, from echoing the late Sen. Lloyd Bentsen ("I know George Bush, I've worked against George Bush, I've even run against George Bush. But Ned, I'm not George Bush") to quoting Ronald Reagan's favorite debate remark: "There you go again."

Lieberman even held up a sheet of paper supposedly running down Lamont's various positions on an Iraq pullout, though he stopped short of borrowing the Bush campaign snipe, "flip flop."

Lamont initially seemed so unprepared that those not following the campaign may have wondered how he could be doing so well in the polls.  When he finally figured out what camera to look at, Lamont appeared a bit startled, his eyes wide, eyebrows up, his head seeming to bob atop a wide, sky-blue collar with blue polka-dot tie. "I'm not a traditional, uh, puh, politician," he said.

No kidding.

His speech initially was halting; it took a long time for him to decide where to look: His opponent? The newscasters? The TV audience?

He didn't get his footing until halfway through the debate, about the time he was defining himself by saying in part, "We're not going to cozy up to the Bush administration." At one point, he stopped a Lieberman interruption by ad-libbing, "This isn't Fox News, sir."

Lieberman was buttoned up in a pinstripe suit, slick and businesslike, conducting himself like a chairman of the board dismissing a middle-management whippersnapper at a boardroom meeting.

The debate was just getting warmed up when it ended. So it's too bad that there will be no more televised debates before the Aug. 8 Democratic primary, and the arguments will be now framed once more through negative ads.


Lieberman To Start Petition Drive
By MARK PAZNIOKAS, The Hartford Courant
12:45 PM EDT, July 3, 2006

Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman is to announce today he will petition for a place on the November ballot as an "independent Democrat," giving him a chance to stay alive politically should he lose an Aug. 8 primary for the Democratic nomination.

Lieberman, 64, a three-term senator whose outspoken support of the war in Iraq has brought months of grief and inspired a strong primary challenge from Greenwich businessman Ned Lamont, intends to announce his decision this afternoon at the State Capitol.
 
Even should he lose in August -- and the most recent public poll shows him leading Lamont by 15-percentage points among likely primary voters -- Lieberman would retain his status as a registered Democrat, but his name would not appear on the ballot line with other Democrats.

Lieberman began making courtesy calls to leading Democrats late this morning.

Most other Democratic candidates already have said they would support the winner of the Aug. 8 primary.

For months, Lieberman has refused to rule out running as petitioning candidate should he lose the primary, though he said recently he would not withdraw from the primary under any circumstances.

Lieberman will need to gather 7,500 signatures to guarantee a ballot place, an effort likely to begin next week.

Lamont, 52, the founder of a cable-television company, has contributed $1.5 million of his own money to his campaign. Lamont also has raised hundreds of thousands of dollar in small donations, mostly over the Internet.

His candidacy has been widely supported by a network of local and national Web logs.
 

Lieberman Goes It Alone;   Senator Breaks With Democrats In Otherwise Partisan Debate On Plans To Pull Troops From Iraq
Hartford Courant
By DAVID LIGHTMAN, Washington Bureau Chief
June 22, 2006 (note - later report reveals that five other Democrats joined Senator Lieberman;  one Republican Senator[Chaffee, Rhode Island] crossed Party lines)

WASHINGTON -- A somber Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman stood alone on the Democratic side of the Senate Wednesday and broke with his colleagues on the Iraq war, announcing he would oppose today two Democratic-authored blueprints for pulling American troops out of Iraq.

Lieberman, the first and so far only Democrat to declare plans to vote against both measures, spoke near the end of a tense day of partisan debate over Iraq policy.

Setting a deadline for redeployment or withdrawal, he said, could have dire consequences.

"I fear that it would also send another message to our terrorist enemies and to the sectarian militias in Iraq," Lieberman argued, "that America is not prepared to see this fight through until the Iraqis themselves can take over."

The senator is facing a tough political fight against Greenwich businessman Ned Lamont, whose anti-war position has energized his insurgent primary campaign. Anyone looking for symbolism dramatizing Lieberman's plight could find it all around him as he spoke.

Lieberman was introduced not by a member of his own party, but by Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John W. Warner, R-Va., the Bush administration's chief Senate spokesman on military matters. When Lieberman was done, Warner got up and praised the Democrat.

"You have shown tremendous leadership," Warner said. "Each day you grow in stature as a statesman."

Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., seconded that sentiment, saying Lieberman had made an "incredibly articulate" argument.

Lieberman stood expressionless, surrounded by none of his Democratic colleagues. It was not until the end of his 14-minute remarks that one entered the chamber; she sat in the back, waiting for her turn to speak.

Lieberman's remarks changed the rhythm of a debate that had proceeded exclusively along party lines.

Democrats and Republicans had been alternating speeches for more than six hours, with GOP senators accusing Democrats of wanting to "cut and run" in Iraq, while Democrats insisted the American public wanted some strategy for reducing U.S. involvement.

"Iraq's problems are essentially political problems that call out for political solutions," said Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, D-Conn. "It's becoming increasingly evident, I think, to all of us that a continuing substantial U.S. troop presence in and around Iraq's cities is not the answer at all."

Lieberman came to the Senate floor early in the evening.

He faced a difficult political choice. Side with the Democrats and their resolutions, and he could be accused of softening his position on the war just weeks before his Aug. 8 primary against Lamont.

But if he wound up as one of the few Democrats to oppose the more moderate proposal calling for a phased redeployment, he would stand out as someone aligning largely with Republicans.

The Lamont forces were eager to pounce on Lieberman's isolation in his party.

"This vote will clearly be a part of our making the case for the need for change in Washington," said Tom Swan, Lamont's campaign manager.

The resolution most likely to win Democratic support, sponsored by Senate Armed Services Committee members Jack Reed, D-R.I., and Carl Levin, D-Mich., urges the U.S. to "begin the phased deployment of United States forces from Iraq this year."

It also requires the president to submit to Congress a plan by the end of this year "for the continued phased redeployment" of U.S. troops, "with the understanding that unexpected contingencies may arise."

A second measure, pushed by Sens. John F. Kerry, D-Mass., and Russell Feingold, D-Wis., would have all U.S. troops out of Iraq by July 1, 2007. That measure is expected to win little support; Dodd is expected to oppose it, along with most other Democrats as well as Republicans.

Swan said that Lamont backed the Reed-Levin plan, which is expected to win the votes of at least 40 of the Senate's 44 Democrats, even though it was "watered down."

Lamont was "sympathetic" to the Kerry proposal, Swan said, but "he wouldn't necessarily vote for it, because he wants to be a uniter among Democrats."

Lieberman delivered his remarks in his trademark style - calm, methodical, logical. His voice rarely changed tone or volume, and his hands moved only inches, to his desk, where he would tap the top with three fingers to gently make a point, or to his chest, where he would clasp his hands when he wanted special emphasis.

He read from a text he had been revising almost until the last minute. He never touched the 8-ounce glass of water on his left.  Instead, he plowed ahead, the analytical author, explaining how he came to his positions.

He was not eager for war, Lieberman said: "I personally hope, as I'm sure all members of the Senate do, and I believe that we will be able to withdraw a significant number of Americans from uniform from Iraq by the end of this year."

Lieberman insisted that that should be a decision made by generals, not politicians; Reed-Levin supporters say that by setting dates for beginning redeployment, Iraqis will understand the U.S. is not willing to stay forever and be more vigilant about taking responsibility for their own security.

"We know the status quo has not, is not and will not create the conditions needed for the Iraqis to achieve the stability and security [the Iraqis] seek and for us to bring home our troops," said Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y.

Dodd agreed. "I don't mean to suggest that U.S. forces should in any way be precipitously redeployed to Iraq next week or next month," he said. "That would be a mistake, in my view, but I do think it is imperative for planning purposes to think about the benchmarks in a realistic time frame."

That's a false hope, Lieberman contended.

"I believe the Iraqis know very well that our commitment is not open-ended," the senator said, becoming slightly more animated as his hands rose slightly into the air. "I tell you that I personally said that to their leaders directly every time I've met them here or there."

Lieberman may have been standing at his desk in the third row, left aisle of the Democratic side of the Senate, but he sounded a lot like GOP senators from the other side.

"We cannot afford a strategy that includes running away from responsibility," said Sen. John R. Thune, R-S.D. "Is Iraq the front line of the war on terror? I believe it is."

Lieberman echoed that theme as he closed his remarks.

"We cannot and must not concede any battlefield to our enemy in this most unconventional but deadly serious war," Lieberman said. "I do not think it is an overstatement to say that our freedom and security and that of most of the rest of the world, Muslim and non-Muslim, depends now ... on American persistence and fortitude."

Warner then offered his praise. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., walked to her seat to prepare for her own speech, resuming the Democratic argument for the phased withdrawal.
Shaken But Not Stirred
Hartford Courant
Kevin Rennie
June 18, 2006

U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman will soon have to decide if he is going to seek an independent spot on the November ballot. Lieberman, though ahead in the polls, is struggling in the Democratic primary race against insurgent Ned Lamont.

In the perverse game of expectations, Lamont's showing at the Democratic state convention last month transformed him from meteor to planet in the political constellation. He is now a force and it shows.

The Lamont campaign is busier than the Arizona border on a moonless night. Volunteers are pouring in. The campaign now boasts six offices across the state and is looking for space in three more Democratic towns. The field offices are buzzing with 20 three-hour shifts of volunteers calling Democratic voters.

Ten thousand people, according to Lamont campaign manager Tom Swan, have volunteered or made a contribution. The campaign is using house parties to build a network of "friends, families and neighbors" so that "we'll be able to withstand any of Sen. Lieberman's attacks."

He need not worry. So far, Lieberman's been tame listing to docile in taking on Lamont. Lieberman has been shaken but not stirred.

Last week, a Lieberman ad featured an attack not so much on Lamont as on his opponent of 1988, Lowell P. Weicker Jr. The bewildered sheep nudges the sleeping bear. Not the stuff of victory.

Lieberman also ran an advertisement criticizing Lamont for some ancient votes he cast as a member of the Greenwich Board of Selectmen. And Lieberman castigates Lamont for being a Greenwich millionaire.

That's it? Greenwich millionaire? It won't work in Connecticut, which has shown a taste for Greenwich millionaires for decades. Prescott Bush, Weicker and Richard Blumenthal come to mind. Lieberman himself no doubt has sought help from Greenwich millionaires, including Lamont, in his state and national campaigns.

We had hoped for something more spirited from the quavery-voiced senator. Lamont handed him an opportunity in the first round of ads, but Lieberman let it go.

Lamont had featured popular left-wing blogger Markos Moulitsas Zuniga in an ad. With his blog Daily Kos, Moulitsas is a force in the world of "netroots," who were early supporters of Lamont. But what was Moulitsas doing sitting next to Lamont in the ad and grinning at the camera? After all, Moulitsas is the guy who kicked up a storm two years ago when four American contractors met a grizzly death in Iraq; Moulitsas responded with a chilling "I feel nothing over the death of mercenaries" and a "Screw them" that resounded throughout the blogosphere.

Now, there's the stuff of a campaign ad. You run a clip of Lamont's ad, underscore it with a Darth Vader narrator and ask, "Who supports Ned Lamont?" Who's worse, lefty Moulitsas or vicious right-winger Ann Coulter? Let the media consultants try to convince us.

Get some debates scheduled. Lamont is eager, and Lieberman campaign manager Sean Smith said last week that the senator wants to debate on television. Lieberman will need to do better than he did in his last important debate, in 2000, when Dick Cheney ate him for dessert. This time he'll face a much different opponent: a grown-up Wally Cleaver with dough. Nevertheless, "the people of Connecticut deserve to see the candidates side by side," says Smith.

And that's where the campaign strategies fundamentally differ. The Lamont campaign's tone, ads and rhetoric emphasize the Aug. 8 showdown, which between now and then will be the most important political contest in the nation. Lamont must win on that day to advance to the final round.

Lieberman casts a broader net to all the voters of the state who will be eligible to decide in November. Polls show he still enjoys strong support among unaffiliated and Republican voters, who could save him in November against Lamont if Lieberman decides to run as an independent. But these numbers, as he's seen with his own Democrats, can change quickly. If Lieberman lurches to the left for the primary, Republican State Chairman George Gallo has pointed out, he may alienate some Republicans for the November contest. And looking like a loser would also hurt Lieberman.

Connecticut Republicans have nominated former state Rep. and former Derby mayor Alan Schlesinger. He's tried to revive the tradition of the campaign song by setting his last name to the tune of that Disney classic, "The Mickey Mouse Club March." A candidate with a silly song, no sense of irony and a cellphone is all the Republicans have offered in this riveting race. And that may be the best news Lieberman's had this year.