CW ON CT

by digby

In case anybody’s wondering what the conventional wisdom on the Lamont-Lieberman race is, check out this TV report from Chris Matthews on MSNBC:

Chris Matthews: The Connecticut senate race was called a political weathervane suggesting that Ned Lamont’s anti-war win would blow away suporters of the president’s tactics in Iraq. So why is Lieberman running ahead in the polls right now? NBC’s Chris Jansing is following the race up in West Hartford.

Chris, so what’s wrong? Can’t Lamont get the Democratic vote?

CJ: He can’t get any votes right now. And this is a surprise, most people thought that he was going to be the golden boy, but there’s a couple of reasons this whole Iraq referendum isn’t working. It was the number one issue for voters in the primary, now only 35%. For those for whom the war is the number one issue, they go Lamont. Every other area, voters are going for Lieberman.

He also made some missteps and you really hit on one of them when you had Lamont on Hardball Chris. You said, “Look when you had him down after the primary in August, why didn’t you step on his neck” and he said, “well, we needed a break after the primary.” Mistake. Another mistake a lot of people think Lamont made is he used these kind of off-beat political ads using the same guy who got Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura elected. But Connecticut isn’t Minnesota and so he squandered a lot of money there. He’s only started running more conventional ads in the last couple of weeks.

This is a very expensive race for a small state like Connecticut. Take a look at these numbers Chris. Almost 13 million dollars spent by Ned Lamont against — some people say, not well used. Almost every penny of it, by the way, out of his own pocket. And Joe Lieberman loses the primary but raises more money than any candidate in the history of Connecticut — 15 million dollars. And if you’re wondering what happened to Alan Schlessinger just take a look at that, he’s raised less than 195,000 dollars not that Republicans have ever run strong here but that is obviously a very poor showing. So, since August, this has been great political theatre but it sure hasn’t followed the script that Ned Lamont thought it would.

CM: Has the national party basically declared neutrality in this race? With all that money going to Joe you’ve got to believe that nobody told them not to — because they’re all Democratic givers probably — nobody told them don’t give to Joe, he’s not the Democratic candidate. It looks to me like somebody waved a white flag up at the headquarters.

CJ: It seems like everybody likes him. I mean, not only are they giving him the money but you’ve got people who are saying “hey, if he gets elected we’re gonna let him caucus with the Democrats.” He says he will caucus with the Democrats. You’ve got Republicans who are liking him. I mean, what what was it Dick Cheney said, “he is one of the most loyal and distinguished Democrats of his generation.” You’ve got basically everybody praising Joe Lieberman and so Ned Lamont is left out there saying “hey what happened, where is everybody who’s supposed to be supporting me?” He does have, I grant you that one ad with Chris Dodd…

CM: You mentioned some ads, some numbers there, but it seems to me, as a state — I just looked at here — 46th on how much they like President Bush, 46th in approval — the president’s down to 31% approval in that state, that means the Iraq war is way down. People who are against this Iraq war in the worst way are going to re-elect the strongest hawk on the Democratic side.

CJ: Well they might not re-elect him, but you have to look again at that number. 35% of people say that Iraq is the number one issue. For the rest a very strong percentage are those care about the economy. And remember Chris, when the Groton sub base was going to be closed, Joe Lieberman went in and got it to stay open. That’s 31,000 jobs right there. He is somebody who they think can go back to Washington, he may be in the Democratic majority and they’re saying “Look, I don’t think any single Senator can necessarily change the course of where we’re going in Iraq but they can make a difference about the things that matter to me like the economy, like jobs, like gas prices. That may be the ace in the hole for Joe Lieberman.

CM: I just don’t want to hear from those people later about how terrible the war is because the one thing about these elections is that in every national poll the number one issue is Iraq and the issue is going to turn on that elect because we are already seeing develop a new policy refinement based upon these new political circumstances right now.

A couple of things about this are just glaringly wrong, of course. Joe is not getting money only from Democratic givers. Republicans have been giving big money to his slush fund as well. And, Lamont most certainly is getting some votes from the grassroots Democrats who put him on the ballot, who I guess are considered useless pieces of nothing to these people. And it’s always funny to hear people sound as if there’s something wrong with Lamont spending his own money — as if it shows he’s some sort of phony when, in fact, he’s relieving the party and the party donors of the obligation to fund their nominee. (Sadly, many of them then felt “free” to give to his opponent, the Lieberman for Lieberman nominee.)

But I do find Matthews’ comments interesting. He seems to be scolding the voters of Connecticut, who hate the war and loathe George W. Bush, for failing to notice that they are voting for a warmongering Bush enabler and are out of step with the rest of the country by doing it. I feel like scolding them too. (And I especially feel like scolding “headquarters” who do seem to have waved the white flag. More on that later.)

And anyway, for all that stroking and smooching George W. Bush, what did Joe Lieberman get for it? Not much.

Well, they did get this:

WASHINGTON – Senator Joe Lieberman (D-CT) today hailed President Bush’s signing of a bipartisan resolution giving the President the authority to use military force to eliminate the threat posed by Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. Lieberman, who was one of the chief sponsors of the resolution in the Senate, attended the bill signing ceremony at the White House today.

“Saddam Hussein is the most significant threat to our national security, and we must take strong action to pry the poisons, toxins, and the plans for nuclear weapons out of his hands,” Lieberman said today. “This resolution not only expresses our resolute support for President Bush as he seeks international backing to finally force Saddam to disarm, but also strengthens his hand as commander-in-chief to take decisive action if Saddam does not comply or if the United Nations fails to act.”

Lieberman said this is the proper time for action, saying, “The question isn’t ‘why now?’ but ‘why not earlier?’ Over the last decade Saddam has built up weapons of mass destruction, developed the means to deliver them on targets near and far, and consistently ignored and violated U.N. resolutions. We’ve waited too long to address this threat.”

He wasn’t just a typical Democratic war supporter. He was one of the most enthusiastic war supporters in the congress. He can say now that he wants “peace with honor” or whatever Nixonian formulation he’s come up with today, but he’s the most hawkish Democrat in the Senate — so hawkish, Dick Cheney is counting on him to help him stay the course. He is not just another conservative Democrat. He’s the conservative Democrat most responsible for the Iraq bloodbath and he deserves to pay for that great error in judgment with his seat.

Connecticut Dems who are voting for Joe and yet are against the war need to wake up.

Update: D-Day has a transcript from Tweety’s show yesterday:

MATTHEWS: If you’re against the war, vote against it. You only get one vote. Shouldn’t you vote against it, if you care about it? If you care about other issues more, fine.

(crosstalk)

DICKERSON: That’s where they’re coming down, is they’re saying they like, you know, the war is complicated, a lot of positions, they like Joe.

MATTHEWS: There’s nothing complicated. Use your intelligence and vote your brains.

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