EDIT: Joe becomes one of the 'Lost Boys'
By: Bill Doak 08/18/2006
U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman didn't waste any time firing his campaign staff, a move that came the day after Ned Lamont scored a 10,000-vote Democratic primary victory here in Connecticut.
And well he should. But the truth of the matter is Connecticut's voters basically fired Joe on Tuesday.
To say it was a referendum on the war in Iraq oversimplifies the result. Lieberman, a moderate on social issues, earned the respect and admiration of his party's centrists enough that they were delighted to have him on the presidential ballot in 2000 and again in 2004 even though there were plenty of signs that the wheels were coming a little bit loose on the Joementum bandwagon.
If the national media was looking for answers they need not have looked much farther than the band operating the Lamont-ade stand on the Town Green August 3.
Jerry Ingallinera was there as were the district chairmen of the town's Democratic Party, Tony Kayser, Chairman, 2nd District Democratic Town Committee and Joe Carlson, East Hartford Town Treasurer. They waited pa-tiently for Ned Lamont to show. He was supposed to arrive at 5:45; he didn't appear to nearly 7 p.m. Then the group made its way through the crowd of music fans listening to Aces & Eights. He and his wife, who hail from Greenwich, remarked about the town's relatively new Green to the point where one realized residents of that part of Connecticut don't have reasons other than a statewide election campaign to visit town - unless they plan to unload their broken jewelry at Good Ole Toms. His clientele crosses all economic strata.
No, Jerry said. "I would have been for Joe but he never called back. He didn't have the time to come here. It was the same when he ran the last time and the time before that."
East Hartford is not a hotbed of liberal anti-war activism as we all know. So, it wasn't the war that cost Joe here. The Peter Pan bus arriving at the Farmer's Market, then Augie & Rays brought us a state senator who, while he may not be living in Never-Never Land, got his passion from condemning rap lyrics. War, however, is a grown up affair.
As the numbers came in, settling just past the 130,000 number for Joe and Ned each did it occur to either candidate that number is exactly the troop strength level in Iraq? Or that, due to the mishandling of absentee ballots by 75 of Connecticut Town Clerks, those same troops were getting their primary ballots long past the time when they could be returned to Connecticut to make a difference in the election?
The point isn't that the election was close enough to call for a recount. The point is how could we, over here, deprive those soldiers of their right to cast a vote for Lieberman or a vote for Lamont? Out of respect for the duty and service they perform, Governor Jodi Rell should have postponed the election two weeks. That would have been the right thing to do, all things considered.
But late in the game Lieberman had only his "get out the vote" theme to play. It was a weak argument for staying with the little guy who squandered so much of his political capital it made one feel sorry for the guy. Sorry be-cause you get the feeling Joe himself wouldn't blame Democrats for not voting for him, given the circumstances. Imagine spending your last campaign primary dollar turning a last-minute speech in a senior center into a non-stop commercial me culpa.
There was no crime here. Compared to recent elections, the Lieberman Lamont fight managed to turn on issues rather than court documents. That alone had to be refreshing for Connecticut voters.
The question now is whether Republican Alan Schlesinger, who trails badly and has been asked to step out of the race by none other than the state's Republican governor, has gotten the message. And will Republicans, who haven't been that convinced of Joe's loyalty to their party, will stay on the sidelines or catch the Joe Train.
Did Joe keep too much of his campaign war chest in reserve, planning to go all out in November anyway? That would have been a little too shrewd, even for Senator Joe. Still, this is also possible, and it is also possible Joe will call Jerry and finally listen to what he has to say.
All of which proves next to nothing, as Lieberman could still lose whatever remains of his politically conservative Democratic base. These are not exactly the types of people who are willing to go for Joe and jump the party ship.
It's all political physics. Sometimes your Joementum can build up, like a ball rolling downhill, to the point where it cannot be controlled.
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