Below is my letter to Manchester Journal-Inquirer editorial page editor Keith Burris setting him straight about Ned Lamont after he went after Ned in a bizarre oped recently.
I was, frankly, dismayed by your oped regarding Ned Lamont and his possible run for governor of the state of Connecticut ("Lamont for Governor?"). First, you suggested that Mr. Lamont lost the general election because he wasn't a very good politician and Joe Lieberman was. Furthermore, you went on, Mr. Lamont still isn't a very good politician. Let's take a look at the facts.
To begin, let's keep in mind what actually happened: in August 2006 a guy named Ned Lamont, whom virtually no one in the state had heard of six months before, defeated Joe Lieberman, a three-decade incumbent politician, one of the best-known politicians not only in the Constitution State, but in the entire United States, in the Connecticut Democratic primary that featured an overwhelming turnout. Now a guy just doesn't come out of nowhere to defeat Joe Lieberman if he's not one heckuva politician. Lamont went on to lose the general election to Lieberman, but look what he was up against.
In the general election, Lieberman enjoyed tremendous assistance from 1) the overwhelming support of the Republican Party, including the Republicans' decision not to field a strong candidate and to withhold virtually all financial support from that candidate, 2) close strategic guidance from Karl Rove, who was on the phone with Lieberman virtually on a daily basis, 3) Republican operatives to run his campaign seconded from Mayor Bloomberg to Lieberman's campaign, and 4) massive financial support from Republican donors mobilized by the Republican Party. And Lieberman had the support of not only the up-and-coming Illinois senator Barack Obama, who spoke on his behalf at the party's JJB dinner, but also the most popular Democrat in the country and the state in Bill Clinton, who filmed TV ads for Lieberman near the end of the primary campaign. Last, virtually the entire Democratic establishment either stayed clear of Ned Lamont during the general election campaign, or, as did Jim Amman, defied the primary vote and supported Lieberman.
Lamont also had to contend with Joe Lieberman's pledge that he was and always would be a life-long Democrat, and that he would work hard to elect a Democratic congress and a Democratic president. That promise, which Lieberman promptly broke, was enough to keep a third of Democratic voters, mainly older voters, in Lieberman's stable. But keep in mind that Ned Lamont, the guy you contend is a "poor politician", still took two-thirds of the Democratic vote from the guy who had run not long before as the Democrats' vice-presidential candidate, and he also took close to half of the independent vote. Now for someone to pull that off, he just cannot be a "not very good" politician.
Since Lieberman's re-election, the website Daily Kos has commissioned four polls by the national polling firm Research 2000 asking respondents in Connecticut for whom they would vote in a rematch of the 2006 general election. In each one of those polls Ned Lamont comes out as the winner. Indeed, the last poll taken in mid November of last year showed Lamont clobbering Lieberman in a rematch by 25 percentage points. Clearly for that "not so good" politician Ned Lamont, who hasn't run for office since 2006, to beat Lieberman so handily certainly suggests that he's far more savvy than you give him credit for.
What have both of these men been doing since the 2006 general election? I don't have to remind you how energetically Lieberman campaigned for McCain, his sliming of Barack Obama, who went out of his way in 2006 to support Lieberman in his primary and spoke on his behalf at the Jefferson Jackson Bailey dinner in Hartford. I don't have to remind you how Lieberman campaigned for Republicans around the country, including Susan Collins of Maine, and Republican candidates here in Connecticut, how he supported Sarah Palin at the Republican Convention and later on the campaign trail. And you probably recall how Lieberman indirectly and repeatedly supported Republican congressman Chris Shays in his race against Democrat Jim Himes. Lieberman showed himself to be a miserable politician by throwing in his lot with the losing presidential candidate, maneuvering himself out of the vice-presidential slot, and infuriating voters in Connecticut by going back on his promise to support Democrats for office.
Ned Lamont, on the other hand, has been a dynamo of action for Democratic politicians and causes. He stumped for Chris Dodd in Iowa and New Hampshire. And when Dodd bowed out, he went to work heading up Barack Obama's campaign in Connecticut. You will recall that on Super Tuesday Lamont's campaign delivered the only New England state to Obama, and was one of the Obama campaign's few bright spots. Again, would a "poor politician" steal an election from Hillary Clinton right in her own backyard?
Furthermore, Lamont has been active in other areas in Connecticut, helping found an institute for the study of politics at Western Connecticut State University, and teaching as an adjunct professor at Central Connecticut State University. He has also actively supported and been involved in Democratic party activities across the state. By contrast Joe Lieberman is so despised by Democrats that he simply cannot show his face at any gathering of Democrats in the Nutmeg State. Remember how Ned Lamont was given a sustained standing ovation at the 2007 JJB dinner, even after his defeat? Now how does a "poor politician" manage that?
And Do you think that President Obama would return to Connecticut in 2012 to stump for Joe Lieberman if Obama's former campaign chairman Ned Lamont were running against him? Not a chance. My guess is that Obama will have become so fed up with Republican intransigence and with obstructionist attempts by conservative Democrats and Lieberman that he will, as did FDR approaching his second term, go all out to get strong Democrats elected to push through his agenda. And if Ned Lamont were to take on Republican Rell for governor, would President Obama hesitate to use his 61% vote in the general election and even higher approval ratings to campaign for Ned? Of course not. He'd be here in the drop of a hat.
Ned Lamont has been very clever in positioning himself within the Democratic Party, while Lieberman has burned all of his bridges. That "poor politician" Lamont surprised the country once before, and he's in a far stronger position for 2010. And that is the sign of a brilliant politician.
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