CTKeith, Ned, The Kiss Float: Back in the News Again

by: CaptCT

Thu Sep 06, 2007 at 00:03:16 AM EDT

The discussion comes around to the Lamont-Lieberman 2006 Senate campaign, with a mention of CTKeith, the Kiss Float, and the national bloggers who helped rally the troops.

I haven't read the book, but some reviews are coming in, including this one by Armando Llorens of the U.K.'s Guardian. Llorens thinks Bai misses the boat on some key points, particularly where the power of the netroots originates -- bottom up or top down. He used the Ned Lamont - Joe Lieberman Senate race to make a point:

Bai's view of the netroots is also reflected in his discussion of the Lamont versus Lieberman primary contest of 2006. Thus, Bai speaks of Lieberman's "latent vulnerability" as demonstrated by the Connecticut activist and blogger Keith Crane (of "The Kiss" fame) as something to be recognized and exploited by the "real" decision makers in the netroots. His discussion of Matt Stoller's process of deciding to support the challenge to Lieberman is almost surreal, as if the involvement of Stoller, Jane Hamsher and even Daily Kos's Markos Moulitsas, was necessary to drive the challenge to Lieberman. I anticipated that this is how someone like Bai would see these events in this post on the eve of the Connecticut senate primary.

Not sure if the out-of-state bloggers were "necessary" but they did help.

As the reviews were coming in, Bai was liveblogging on the Huffington Post, mixing it up with the very same netroots he writes about. Along the way, this interesting exchange took place:

CAMERON: Given that Lieberman misrepresented his position on Iraq -- that "no one want[ed] to bring the troops home more than" he did -- do you think Connecticut voters are happy with sending him back to the Senate, and was it a mistake for the blogosphere to put so much weight behind Lamont?

BAI: Well, Cameron, I have no idea what Connecticut's voters think, beyond my mother, who likes Lieberman a lot less than she did five years ago. So that's a statistical sampling of one. But I don't at all think the bloggers made a mistake, given their aims. It's possible to lose and still win, as conservative groups like the NRA and the Club for Growth have proven for years. Sure, Lamont lost in the end, but as Markos likes to say, "No one wants to be the Joe Lieberman of 2008." If you can scare incumbents into thinking they might face a serious challenger, then you've gained some significant power over the party. And that's what happened for the bloggers and other progressive activists when Lamont won the primary.

I haven't read the book yet, but it's obvious that the impact of CT bloggers and Ned Lamont's candidacy continues to be widely felt.