News and a Critique

So there were two big bits of news today. Dan touched on the good news for the Lieberman camp - Bill Clinton is coming to stump for Lieberman next week, just a week before the primary.

The bad news is that the latest poll from Quinnipiac has Lamont leading Lieberman 51-47%. Statistically it's a dead heat, but anyone would be lying if they said that Lamont hasn't had the Ned-mentum for the past month or two (or five).

(Disclaimer: The next several paragraphs contain an unflattering analysis of how Lieberman's campaign has been run)

The reason why is simple - Joe Lieberman's campaign has looked as if it has been in a constant state of panic ever since Lamont's campaign started to look serious. The deer-in-the-headlights look that was on Ned Lamont's face in the debate has been in the collective eyes of the Lieberman campaign for months. Even Lieberman himself has acted like he never saw this coming. Many political observers have noticed it, and so have I.

Ned Lamont has every right to run against Joe Lieberman in the primary, and Democratic voters have every right to support him - just as Lieberman has every right to run as an (Dem-caucusing) indy candidate in November and have Democratic voters support him. Some bloggers try to claim that Lieberman is acting like a man desperate to cling onto power. I don't buy into that one bit. Sorry, but being the junior Senator from a small state in the minority party does not exactly qualify as sitting in Caesar's palace.

Far more likely is that Lieberman simply never saw this coming, and still hasn't gotten over the initial shock of Lamont's entry into the race. The initial surprise is somewhat understandable. He's a three-term Senator with a strong record on nearly all progressive causes who has not faced a serious electoral challenge at home in 18 years. Lieberman realized that most Democrats in his state disagreed with him on the Iraq War, but it probably was hard for Lieberman to imagine that any single issue could fuel a serious intraparty challenge to him.

His campaign staff also seems like they never expected to have to run a real campaign. So at first they seemed to ignore Lamont's challenge, probably expecting it to fade fast. It didn't, and Lieberman's campaign came to realize that Lamont's challenge was serious. And what they did next is mind-boggling: Instead of reminding the voters of Lieberman's strong history on progressive causes, their campaign increasingly focused on disqualifying Lamont.

I can't think of a polite word to describe that strategy. I agree with the general rule that if the incumbent's campaign can make the election about the challenger, that the incumbent will almost certainly win. But that simply was never going to happen and will never happen in this race. Lieberman is one of the most prominent politicians in the state's - and indeed in the nation's - recent history. By contrast, Lamont has no record, and virtually no one had ever heard Ned Lamont's name before this year. Ned Lamont is a vehicle for opposition to Lieberman; the campaign will never be about him.

Every time they have polled the race, Quinnipiac has asked respondents whether their vote was more for their candidate, or against the other candidate. Here are the results from each of the past three polls:

AMONG LIEBERMAN SUPPORTERS
May 2 June 8 July 20
For Lieberman 92% 90% 86%
Against Lamont 4 5 11


AMONG LAMONT SUPPORTERS
May 2 June 8 July 20
For Lamont 20% 19% 33%
Against Lieberman 77 78 63

Consistently, the vast majority of voters voting for Lamont were doing so not because they supported Lamont, but because they were against Lieberman. Consequently, any campaign strategy that was designed to damage Lamont in the eyes of voters has always been and will always be doomed to failure. As the Hotline On Call blog asked this weekend "Are negative ads what really what Lieberman needs right now? Aren't voters looking for a reason to come back to Lieberman?"

They are, and they have plenty of reasons to. Joe Lieberman is hardly out of the mainstream of the Democratic party - one need only look at his voting record to see this - and Lieberman's long history of fighting for progressive causes cannot seriously be questioned. Iraq is admittedly a big thorn in Lieberman's side, but less than a quarter of all voters and just 33% of Democrats said Iraq was the top issue for them in this election.

Lieberman clearly can improve if his campaign just reminds voters of how strong he is on the traditional progressive issues of education, the environment, civil rights, choice, worker's rights, and virtually every other progressive cause that you can think of. Those same Quinnipiac polls still show that a majority of Democrats think he deserves to be re-elected, and the loyalty of his supporters runs deep.

The Quinnipiac polls show, as they always have, that Lieberman would easily dispatch of Lamont in the general election. However, it really should not come to that, and it's never too late to break bad habits. There are plenty of reasons for Democrats to vote for Lieberman. He and the members of his campaign need to remind voters of what they are, or else be willing to accept a good share of the responsibility if Lieberman loses on August 8.