Lieberman sees numbers collapse

Although to be fair... (4.00 / 2)

Lieberman gets very high approval ratings from his core constituency...the Health insurance Industry.

But let justice roll down like waters...Amos 5:24a

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by: Jake Blount @ Thu Jan 07, 2010 at 10:51:01 AM CST

That's why I predict he will retire in 2012 for a consulting job with them (4.00 / 1)

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by: Larkspur @ Thu Jan 07, 2010 at 11:54:03 AM CST

But what use would he be to them then? (4.00 / 1)

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by: thomashooker @ Thu Jan 07, 2010 at 13:05:17 PM CST

[ Parent ]

He'd have to wait a bit to lobby (0.00 / 0)

under the new laws, right?


Drinking Liberally in New Milford
ePluribus Media

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by: Connecticut Man1 @ Thu Jan 07, 2010 at 13:08:46 PM CST

[ Parent ]

And the Public Option (0.00 / 0)

is more popular than most of the politicians out there.

It is becoming pretty clear that the Democrats will have to adopt the more popular Nancy Pelosi's House version of healthcare reform with a Public Option as opposed to the Joe Lieberman's Senate dungpile if they want to keep any voters, not just the left or their base, interested in their brand.

It's important to remember that all four leaders are unpopular. Pelosi, with a 42%-49% approval rating, only looks good by comparison. Her counterpart, Mr. Boehner, remains roughly as popular as a case of chlamydia (18%-62%). McConnell (18%-64%) is even worse off. And less than a third of respondents (32%) approve of the job Harry Reid is doing.

Yet, the trend lines tell a story. The Republicans have seen only two upticks all year, and they were during the August recess teabagging insanity and during the debate over the Senate Health Care bill (the House passed their version on Nov. 7th) when the Republicans were using every obstructive trick in the book. Clearly, the Republicans have found their only rewards when they've been maximally oppositional.

On the Democratic side, I'm guessing that Pelosi has benefitted from her ability to pass legislation while the country watched Harry Reid struggle to get anything done in the Senate. Yet, when Reid finally cobbled together the 60 votes he needed to pass the Senate's version of health care reform, his numbers started to trend back up.

Reid's numbers may have trended up, but the reality is that they probably only went up because finally finishing his job meant high expectations of what would result AFTER they added the Public Option back in during conference.

The Public Option is much more popular than all of the key leadership and most of the politicians out there.

   Just under 60 percent of those surveyed said they would like a public option as part of any final healthcare reform legislation, which Republicans and a few Democrats oppose.

   Here are some of the results of the telephone survey of 2,999 households called from November 9-17 as part of the Thomson Reuters PULSE Healthcare Survey:

       * Believe in public option: 59.9 percent yes, 40.1 percent no.

       * 86 percent of Democrats support the public option versus 57 percent of Independents and 33 percent of Republicans.

       * Quality of healthcare will be better 12 months from now: 35 percent strongly disagree. 11.6 percent strongly agree. 29.9 percent put themselves in the middle.

       * Believe the amount of money spent on healthcare will be less 12 months from now: 52 percent strongly disagree, 13 percent strongly agree.

And, YES! The Public Option is more popular than Obama if you look at these numbers released from yesterday's polling of Connecticut:

Q1 Do you approve or disapprove of Barack Obama's job performance?

Approve .......................................................... 54%

Disapprove...................................................... 38%

Not Sure.......................................................... 8%

Q2 Do you support or oppose President Obama's health care plan, or do you not have an opinion?

Support ........................................................... 47%

Oppose ........................................................... 43%

No Opinion...................................................... 10%

The Democratic Party is in for a rude awakening in the next couple of elections unless they turn it around NOW. Because right now? The base will turn on you, while indies that went your way in the last couple of elections will ignore you, and even the few remaining "normal" conservatives that you might have a chance of pulling out of the boiling pot of GOP/Teabagrrrrs whackjobbery will have nowhere to go, either.

Everyone gets that the Senate version, excepting for some parts of it like the Sanders' legislation, is a huge corporate giveaway without a public option available to everyone that wants it. Everyone, left, right and center.

The people that might stick with you want a public option now. And you, President Obama, need you to stand up for what you campaigned on. You can deliver or risk losing all that you and the Dems have gained in the last few years.

I know I am giving a harsh assessment of this sitch, but it is more realistic than just passing anything and crossing your fingers hoping people won't notice. And I guarantee this: If you stick with the Senate version and it is so full of the holes that it has? As soon as it passes the media will begin to pick it apart to the GOP's advantage.

Same thing they do every time. Thankfully at least one of the major media sources is telling you the truth about this on TV. KO on Countdown:

Drinking Liberally in New Milford
ePluribus Media

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by: Connecticut Man1 @ Thu Jan 07, 2010 at 12:34:44 PM CST

Oh goody! (0.00 / 0)

Kos says they will be polling Lieberman match-up hypotheticals shortly... A little far out, though. lol


Drinking Liberally in New Milford
ePluribus Media

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by: Connecticut Man1 @ Thu Jan 07, 2010 at 13:14:39 PM CST

one election (4.00 / 2)

too late.

Ned, imagine the good you could have done for the country had you not listened to Mrs. Clinton's advisers and went on vacation after you beat Lieberman in the primary, but continued to pound on him?

Ah, 20-20 hindsight.

Too bad so many of us were asking where you were after the primary, so you can't say you "didn't know."

That vacation cost this whole country a great deal.

The question is not what you are, we already determined that, we are now negotiating price.
electrealdemocrats.com Online since 3/07 -- TimetogoJoe.com Online s

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by: Met00 @ Thu Jan 07, 2010 at 18:11:59 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Maybe, maybe not (3.00 / 3)

Lieberman closed to within 4% in the closing days before the Democratic primary, having been down over 10. He had help from Bill Clinton, Chris Dodd and others to gain back that lost ground.

After that the polls didn't change much from Aug all the way to Nov, where Lieberman won by 10% or about 113,000 votes. For Lamont to have won he would have had to won the Independents and won more of the Democrats than the 67% he did win. Were those votes ever there? It's hard to say authoritatively but if they were Lamont would have had to win a very high percentage of them to make up the difference. A real Republican in the race, backed by that party would have made a huge difference, of course, but that's not how things were.

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by: Scarce @ Thu Jan 07, 2010 at 19:20:51 PM CST

[ Parent ]

First you put the cat in the bag... (4.00 / 2)

Then you tie the top closed...
Then you put that bag into another bag filled with rocks...
Then you tie that closed....
Then you push it off the side of a boat in the LI Sound.

First you get into the primary.
Then you win the primary.
Then you bash the crap out of Joe until he says he is out of the General.

You don't go on vacation and let Joe hog the news cycles for two weeks while he works a backroom deal with Rove.

You call him out. You get every other major Dem in the country to call him out. You work the phones and get the public statements. You make the Sunday shoes and talk about why party matters. You get The Majority Leader to publicly state that Joe's been a good man, but it's time to say goodbye or whatever crap you tell someone when they have been tossed from their party. You have a rally to thank the people that voted for the Democratic ticket with every major pol in the CT Dem party on Saturday after the election.

The only way you "stop" the fight is when the bag has sunk to the ocean floor and Joe says "Congratulations, and it has been a pleasure serving CT, goodbye."

You don't let the man who threatened to return in the General up. You don't go on vacation.

And just to be clear, I was saying this then. This isn't some new tune. This is the same old song.

Scarce, too many people worked too damn hard to see Joe sitting there. It's one thing to cut the deal, but we needed a closer and Lamont didn't close it after the Primary. Now, I have no proof that it was Clinton's people that said "don't worry about it, take a vacation, you deserve some time to decompress." But it sure as hell wouldn't surprise me in the least.

The question is not what you are, we already determined that, we are now negotiating price.
electrealdemocrats.com Online since 3/07 -- TimetogoJoe.com Online s

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by: Met00 @ Thu Jan 07, 2010 at 23:46:26 PM CST

[ Parent ]

I know....and others of us said similar things (4.00 / 4)

Even the next morning after the primary election when Lieberman was on all the morning shows, every damn one, and Ned was no where to be seen anywhere.

But you know what, those next two weeks did not decide the General. Ned Lamont did not lose the election in those two weeks. Convincing voters that were never going to be convinced, short of Lieberman committing a crime or being involved in a sex scandal, was always a near impossible task.

So it it makes you or others in the blogosphere feel better to believe otherwise then fine. Facing the alternative, "If it was near impossible to beat Lieberman then why did we bother? Why did we put our hearts and souls in such a fool's errand?" We did so because we had to. Ned Lamont felt compelled to do so too, and he put a good chunk of his own money in it as well as his sweat. He didn't have to do any of that but he did. And he deserves our admiration and respect for having done so. Not our scorn and ridicule for "not having closed the deal".

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by: Scarce @ Fri Jan 08, 2010 at 05:58:17 AM CST

[ Parent ]

about that $387,000 (4.00 / 1)

Somebody has to say something about the system within which Lamont was earnestly trying to run a fair race.

Has anything ever been established about the $387,000 in petty cash that was unexplained in Mr. Lieberman's FEC reports?  MOney that ay have been used to buy votes, aka street money, walking around money?

Is it possible to have a complete conversation about what happened in this race without talking about the possibility that money was used to buy or influence votes? Or do political consultants just normally factor that in as a certain percentage by which one has to win, to counter that type of effort?

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by: greenpeas @ Fri Jan 08, 2010 at 12:32:53 PM CST

[ Parent ]

scorn and ridicule? (0.00 / 0)

I have not changed my tune on Ned since the vacation. He had every opportunity to kill Lieberman FROM running in the general, and he didn't do it. Lieberman was making noise about running if he lost, and Ned didn't pull the Democratic Party leadership down on his head.

Al Gore walked away from an election that was stolen from him. Joe Lieberman LOST and he should have been forced to walk away.

You take it as a given that Ned would have had to face Lieberman a second time. I said then, and I still believe, that had Ned not disappeared he could have made it almost impossible for Lieberman to run again in the General with constant refrains of "Sore Loserman" following him around.

A number of times I have posted here about "Frames" and setting the stage for the debate so that your side has the advantage. By allowing Lieberman unfettered and non-disputed access to mass media in those two weeks Lieberman got to frame the debate. Instead of being a sore loser, he was able to re-frame the debate to "the far left threw me out".

If you want to believe that owning and defining the frame makes no difference, feel free. But I know of no person who has worked as paid staff for a campaign that doesn't know what the value of owning that frame is; and Lamont gave Lieberman ownership of the frame rather than creating one that put Joe into a massive hole. I said that the, I stand by it now, and it in no way reflects on my admiration for his decision to take Joe on when Bloomy and the rest of the Democratic establishment of CT wouldn't.

The question is not what you are, we already determined that, we are now negotiating price.
electrealdemocrats.com Online since 3/07 -- TimetogoJoe.com Online s

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by: Met00 @ Fri Jan 08, 2010 at 13:40:28 PM CST

[ Parent ]

You neglected to say... (4.00 / 1)

...that Lamont was in a battle against TWO political parties.  The Lieberman Party, and the Republicans For Lieberman Party!  That, coupled with a handful of turncoat Democrats who campaigned for Lieberman even AFTER the primary, and the vast number of Democrats who sat on their hands when they may have helped Ned made it mathematically impossible for him to win.

Yeah, I wasn't thrilled about Ned's vacation either, but I think the Republicans are what won Joe that election. They didn't support their own GOP nominee, but their votes for Joe more than made that 10 pt. difference.

Connecticut Bob

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by: Bob Adams @ Fri Jan 08, 2010 at 13:44:52 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Joe shouldn't have been able to run... (0.00 / 0)

If after the election and the win Lamont called on The Majority Leader and a number of key Senators to "Thank Joe for his service, and wish him well as a regular citizen." just how well do you think Joe would have been able to redefine the loss as a bunch of liberals and that he needed to hear from all of CT?

How many times does one have to state that owning the frame is the key to managing perceptions? It's not health care reform, it's health INSURANCE reform. It's not gay marriage, it's civil rights. The best example of this ownership of the frame is the constant battle between pro-choice and pro-life. How you define that choice shows which frame you accept. A Pro-life person never refers to it as a pro-choice debate and visa-versa.

The only reason Lamont had to battle between "TWO political parties" is because Lieberman was allowed to frame, without anyone working another frame, his loss as a bunch of lefties who took away CT's residents opportunities to vote for the better man. He made the Lamont Primary win questionable when there was no question that he lost. He created an acceptable version of a truth where there was none. He made a frame which allowed him, no required him, to run in the General to correct an obvious wrong. It was a brilliant re-frame of what happened and while eh was doing it there was absolutely no push-back from the reality-based community.

The question is not what you are, we already determined that, we are now negotiating price.
electrealdemocrats.com Online since 3/07 -- TimetogoJoe.com Online s

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by: Met00 @ Fri Jan 08, 2010 at 14:02:35 PM CST

[ Parent ]

I agree completely (0.00 / 0)

Coming from a town that Ned won, the 24 percent that the Republican candidate got was certainly a key part of Lieberman losing here.

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by: notcho @ Fri Jan 08, 2010 at 15:51:55 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Lamont and his staff deserved that short vacation (0.00 / 0)

They over came a 59 pt defict to win by 4 in the primary.  They were burned out and needed to recharge.  The Clintonistas had nothing to do with Lamont and his staff taking a well deserved short break after the primary.

Lamont lost the election by still trying to convince the 25% of Liebercrats (Dems for Lieberman) to support him after Labor Day.  He should have concentrated on winning over the Unaffiliates after Labor Day.  Also, they should have hired a full time scheduler to replayce Kim, who unfortunately went down with a severe case of Lyme disease.  Lamont missed a lot of opportunites to meet Unaffiliates in town hall forums without Lieberman. I had a woman who was willing to setup such an even in Northeast CT, but the campaign never called her back.  Scheduling by committee was a disaterous decision.

They should also have gotten Sen. Feingold to visit CT after Labor day.  Having another Jewish senator but one who opposed the Iraq war would have helped against Lieberman.  And they should have aired that Wes clark ad right after Clark's visit in mid-September. You are right about not attacking Lieberman over his Iraq stance, which he was starting to water down after the primary.  Clarks ad and one with Feingold in it would have put Lieberman on the ropes over Iraq.

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by: Larkspur @ Fri Jan 08, 2010 at 10:16:46 AM CST

[ Parent ]

somehow (0.00 / 0)

I don't remember everyone saying "we need a two week vacation" after they worked their ass off to get the vote to put him in the Primary at the CT Convention.

As long as Lieberman wasn't saying "It was a pleasure to have served and I wish Ned the best possible results." then it wasn't a win, and it wasn't "over".

Lamont lost the election by still trying to convince the 25% of Liebercrats (Dems for Lieberman) to support him after Labor Day.

makes the assumption that Joe creating the Lieberman for Lieberman Party was a given. My point is that it was not a "given", but was in fact "given to him" by allowing him to reframe the loss. Imagine the difference had, after the Primary, every major leader gotten on the air and thanked Joe for hes service and wished him well in his future as a non-Senator. Imagine Lamont being on the news talking about how committed to change the people of CT were, and how Joe is doing the right thing by listening to the people who voted and stepping down.

As I said then, and still believe, the vacation was a massive error in judgment. It allowed Lieberman to define the frame and then get into the General. Once Lieberman had done that it was the same uphill battle that there was before, but this time against Rove and the GOP money.

The question is not what you are, we already determined that, we are now negotiating price.
electrealdemocrats.com Online since 3/07 -- TimetogoJoe.com Online s

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by: Met00 @ Fri Jan 08, 2010 at 13:50:26 PM CST

[ Parent ]

The vacation was right after the primary (0.00 / 0)

and there were 2 weeks left before Labor Day after their vacation was over.  Heck, I was burned out after the primary and I didn't work as hard as the campaign staff did.

The vacation did not kill Lamont's chances.  Bad strategy and missing key personnel were the real killers for Lamont's '06 general election campaign.  

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by: Larkspur @ Fri Jan 08, 2010 at 15:20:14 PM CST

[ Parent ]

So, let me understand... (0.00 / 0)

Joe just finished a bruising Primary. He lost. But instead of going on vacation and licking his wounds, he went on every TV show he could. And Lamont was nowhere to be seen. And you feel this had no effect?

It was the breath of life into his opportunity to re-run in the general. By the time Lamont returned to the campaign trail everyone knew that it was those crazy lefty loons that forced poor 'lil Joe to have to run in the General as an indy. That the lefty loons stole his party from him. That was the "story" that was set in stone by the time Team Lamont finished their breather.

I'm at a loss for words. Those that don't learn from history are bound to repeat it. And it is clear that no one seems to have learned. Team Bush got out and created the frame in 2000, and Lieberman did it against Lamont.

The game was lost when Team Lamont didn't quash the little bug after he didn't concede.

The question is not what you are, we already determined that, we are now negotiating price.
electrealdemocrats.com Online since 3/07 -- TimetogoJoe.com Online s

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by: Met00 @ Fri Jan 08, 2010 at 20:57:35 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Lamont did not lose the general election during his post-primary vacation (0.00 / 0)

Hell the people of CT were tired of the battle by then.

Most non-political junkies didn't pay any attention to Lieberman after the primary.  Summer vacation was in full swing for most people in the state.  Most people are not political junkies, like you, Met00.

After Labor Day when people return from vacation and the kids are back in school are when most people start paying attention to the political news they see on the TV.

Lamont lost the general election because of a lot of problems.  Not because he went on vacation right after the primary and before Labor Day.

And Lamont would not have stopped Lieberman from running in the general election if he didn't go on vacation.  The Bush Machine got behind Lieberman before the primary and as long as Lieberman had money, he was going to run in the general election.  Lamont could not have stopped the Bush Machine from funding Lieberman's general election campaign.

You're right that Lamont lost the framing battle, but he could have won it after Labor Day if his campaign had a frame other than trying to win over Liebercrats.  I credit Weicker and the Clintons with giving Lamont bad advice.  Weicker isn't like by alot of non Democrats I know, so he was a poor spokesperson for Lamont.  Hell, I didn't like Weicker either.

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by: Larkspur @ Fri Jan 08, 2010 at 22:28:54 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Terrible Campaign Staffing (0.00 / 0)

 I continue  to believe  that Lamont wasnt helped by an "amateur hour"  campaign manager and staff...there were numerous gaffes and mistakes that hurt Lamont after the primary.Most any well known liberal Democrat who was against the Iraq War would have beaten Lieberman in that primary,the true test of the staff was after the primary,where they fell down big time.

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by: BruceRubenstein2 @ Sat Jan 09, 2010 at 09:53:11 AM CST

I would add that the primary campaign staff was burned out after the primary (0.00 / 0)

overcoming a 59 pt deficit was a huge mountain to climb.

True an experienced anti-war Democratic candidate could have easily defeated Lieberman in the primary, but none of them were willing to step up and do the job.  Lamont was originally part of a team trying to find such a candidate but none wanted to risk their personal safety nets, thus Lamont did the courageous thing and primaried Lieberman.

Lamont did really well for a neophyte candidate, but his inexperience showed in the general election.

Crying over spilled milk is pointless, but we can learn lessons from what Lamont's campaign did right and wrong in 2006.

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by: Larkspur @ Sat Jan 09, 2010 at 11:06:49 AM CST

[ Parent ]