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:
A story that keeps 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:

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 m