The Daily Background

Washington Post wrote what we want to hear:

At a minimum, the Connecticut primary is likely to ensure that Democrats of all stripes — those who initially supported the war and those who have opposed it — take a more aggressive posture in combating the president and his policies at home and abroad.

WaPo also has a seperate article chronicling Lamont’s campaign from the beginning (they spell Netroots “Net Roots” but that’s only a minor pet peeve).

Across the pond, the BBC flashed the headline “Shock loss shows US anti-war mood” on its front page late yesterday.

NYT had this to say:

Even as the senator announced his new candidacy, Democrats across the country were planning to close ranks around Mr. Lamont in the hopes of eventually easing Mr. Lieberman out of the race. Although Mr. Lieberman faces a deadline of 4 p.m. Wednesday to file the paperwork for an independent bid, some advisers conceded that he could change his mind later if numbers for Mr. Lamont began to swell.

Senators Reid and Schumer:

“The Democratic voters of Connecticut have spoken and chosen Ned Lamont as their nominee. Both we and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) fully support Mr. Lamont’s candidacy. Congratulations to Ned on his victory and on a race well run.

“Joe Lieberman has been an effective Democratic Senator for Connecticut and for America. But the perception was that he was too close to George Bush and this election was, in many respects, a referendum on the President more than anything else. The results bode well for Democratic victories in November and our efforts to take the country in a new direction.”

Senator Kennedy and DNC Chairman Howard Dean also support Lamont. John Edwards has called Lamont to robustly congradulate him him, Hilary Clinton is giving Lamont 5,000 dollars, so has Barack Obama. Senator Kerry has announced his full support for Lamont. Russ Feingold has congratulated Lamont, and General Wes Clark has publicly said that “we cannot let Joe Lieberman be this year’s Ralph Nader.” [Source]

As for Lieberman, Republican NYC Mayor Bloomberg has endorsed him, and President Bush reportedly got Karl Rove to call Lieberman up after his loss and offer any support they could give (surely this will turn into a campaign issue). A Republican state congressman has also supported Lieberman’s run as an independent. Congressman Rahm Emanuel (D-IL, head of the Democratic take-back-the-House strategy this year) has reiterated a previous statement, saying “This shows what blind loyalty to George Bush and being his love child means.” Vice President Cheney has said Lieberman is “a good man” and if he leaves the Senate the Democractic party will be worse off.

In his shameless concession speech to the Democratic primary last night (in which he had the utter classlessness to ask for donations for his independent run), Joe Lieberman thanked his supporters for making the race a lot closer than the DC pundits thought it was going to be. Presumably he meant that he came a lot closer to beating Lamont than some people were expecting in the days right before the election.

But the problem is, for 95% of the race, DC pundits were expecting Lieberman to absolutely crush Lamont. Lieberman’s statement actually turned out to be close (DC pundits and commentators never expected the race to be this close), but for the exact opposite reason that Lieberman gave.

Filed under: Lieberman Related, Z-TDB Blog