Matt Stoller today:
Lamont himself is a lot more focused and smooth than he was when I first met him in February.
From the New Haven Register on March 14:
Riding a wave of anti-Iraq War sentiment, Greenwich businessman Ned Lamont formally opened his long-shot challenge for the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination against incumbent Joseph I. Lieberman.
So a month before he declared, Lamont was consulting with netroots leadership.
In my posts on Hank Johnson below (you gave him money, right?), someone asked why I was OK with web support for Johnson challenging McKinney, but opposed to Lamont challenging Lieberman. I replied in comments that:
PD – I actually had a paragraph on that issue exactly when I did the original post on Johnson, but edited it out because I thought it was distracting; it was certainly something I thought about.
There are in my mind two key differences; First, and foremost that Lamont’s campaign is to a large extent the creature of the netroots (he obvious has support in CT, but he had dialog with them before he declared, and they have been integral to his strategy). Next, and kind of instrumentally, Lamont doesn’t have a significant chance of winning. I don’t much like Lieberman, as I’ve said. I’d love to see a candidate who I like better take his seat. But it’s colossal hubris to attack a sitting candidate who’s almost certain to be in the chair in DC in January, whether with a D- or an I- after his name.
Johnson’s campaign was organic (to the extent that any large campaign can be). I didn’t solicit him to run, and only got involved when he’d already – with a strong local base – forced McKinney into a runoff without any blog attention.
And Johnson has a darn good chance of winning.
So, like it or not, there’s my explanation…
A.L.
Just thought I’d point that out…
Michael Schiavo is campaigning against Lieberman: http://www.reason.com/hitandrun/2006/07/lieberman_on_li.shtml
So now “meeting” with someone automatically has to equal “consulting with netroots leadership”?
What exactly are you trying to prove? Because whatever it is, this evidence is exceedingly weak.
Just thought I’d point that out.
I don’t even know who Stoller is but I just had to see if Andy could be on to something for once.
Sadly, no.
Wow. It shows hubris to vote against an incumbent who’s likely to win? How do the voters find out if they’ve been granted leave to oppose a sitting Senator? Will his office make a proclamation to the State, or should constituents make a pilgrimage to DC to ask permission?
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2289232,00.html
Israel backed by army of cyber-soldiers
From Yonit Farago in Jerusalem
WHILE Israel fights Hezbollah with tanks and aircraft, its supporters are campaigning on the internet.
Israel’s Government has thrown its weight behind efforts by supporters to counter what it believes to be negative bias and a tide of pro-Arab propaganda. The Foreign Ministry has ordered trainee diplomats to track websites and chatrooms so that networks of US and European groups with hundreds of thousands of Jewish activists can place supportive messages.
In the past week nearly 5,000 members of the World Union of Jewish Students (WUJS) have downloaded special “megaphone” software that alerts them to anti-Israeli chatrooms or internet polls to enable them to post contrary viewpoints. A student team in Jerusalem combs the web in a host of different languages to flag the sites so that those who have signed up can influence an opinion survey or the course of a debate.
Zed, that’s totally irrelevant to this thread.
A.L.
Andy (great name) is onto something I think, in that, while I think Lieberman is being treated abominably by some real political idiots, I can’t take issue with what they are inherently doing. They don’t like Lieberman for Reason X, so they are (through Lamont) running against him.
That’s what it’s all about, and many Lamont supporters are correct when they point that out. And they may also be correct in assuming that if Lieberman wins in the end, even if as an Independent, well, they are all right back where they started anyway, since no Republican is going to win in Connecticut (I assume).
Where they are truly blowing it is, well, ideologically (though I cannot claim lack of bias here). The “nutroots” have seemed since day one to start from the inherent assumption that a good 60% of the American populace (at least) is cheering them on and praying nightly to… um… something, I suppose…. for their inevitable triumph. And of course, the only reason the will of that 60% is thwarted is because of evil Fox News, evil Diebold machines, evil judges, etc etc.
This is, of course, insane, but trying to talk the (I’m guessing) 25% TO 30% of the population who believe they represent 60% out of that belief is like trying to talk Pat Robertson out of Christ’s divinity. Or teaching a pig to sing: getting nowhere and annoying the pig.
So many Lamont supporters and their ilk remain oblivious to not only this reality, but equally to the way that their actions and genuine black-hearted hatred is seen by that, say 25% of the population, that does not loathe and despise Bush, even voted for him, but could be convinced to vote Democratic by people who seem sane and centered.
That I’d say is a reason why Lamont’s supporters are off-base, and even hurting their own party. But “Leiberman’s gonna win anyway” is no reason not to try to unseat him from the left, and if they did so in a sane and honorable manner that spurned hate entirely (fat chance), they just might win and deserve to.
Unfortunately, such is not and will not be, the case, and they will thankfully lose.
God help the US if the Democratic Party does not wake up soon to the reality that much of their base has succumbed to the same awful and base instincts of the Klan and the Michigan Militia types.
I don’t know who political junkie is on Kos, but here he is on January 6, 2006:
bq. Do you want Joe Lieberman out of the Senate? Or maybe I should ask: how badly do you want Joe Lieberman out of the Senate? Hang on Kossacks, help is on the way in the form of Ned Lamont. . . . After spending an hour talking with Ned Lamont yesterday, I can assure you, he is the real thing. . . . In the coming weeks and months, Ned will lay out his plan to use the grass-roots and the net-roots to dethrone Lieberman and then proceed to Washington to take back the power in this country from the huge corporations, special interests, big-money lobbyists and their obedient minions in Congress. Stay tuned. And remember – you heard it here first.
“I just met the progressive Dem who will dethrone Joe Lieberman”:http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/1/6/16528/39352
Further down in the comments, p.j. says “the net-roots will be a critical element of this campaign.”