The campaign of Jim Himes announced the schedule of upcoming debates with Republican Congressman Chris Shays. There are six debates scheduled over a one-week period.
The first two are set for Tuesday, October 14, one in the morning and one at noon. The morning debate, which starts at 8:00 AM, will focus on health care.
Date: Tuesday, October 14, 2008, 8:00am
Hosts: Bridgeport Regional Business Council, Fairfield County Medical Association, Housatonic Community College, Connecticut Post
Location: Beacon Hall, Housatonic Community College, 900 Lafayette Boulevard, Bridgeport
(Health Care Specific)
For Information: http://brbc.org/
The fourth debate of the campaign took place at Yale tonight. Well, sorta.
The Yale Daily News Political Union hosted a sparsely attended debate between the three candidates, but only one was there, Alan Schlesinger. Lanny Davis stood in for Joe Lieberman, with Irv Stolberg doing the same for Ned Lamont.
It was, as all good political debates must be these days, kinda boring, except for the policy wonks. At its best, the three panelists came across like Borscht Belt comics with table manners. Most of the time they came across as the highly intelligent, polite, and committed partisans they are. They all showed the sincerest respect for each other and, as they say in showbiz, when you can fake that you've got it made. At its worst (and this was mercifully brief), the conversation descended to petty remarks about "personal shots." When it was over, I wanted to go to the nearest bar for my own personal shot.
Matt Stoller was there (and asked a profound question that I found profoundly incomprehensible), so I will direct you to MyDD for the "official" version of the night's conversation. I suspect the Yale Daily will have something up tomorrow. Also, TrueBlueCT was running video in the back of the room, so maybe there'll be video as well. I will content myself with a few inane and snarky remarks.
And now for a more "in-depth" quick overview of the debate, which I was pleased to have attended. (One out of three ain't bad.)
Joe was once again dead center, although apparently position in all debates was determined by lot. He's one lucky guy.
The first thing that struck me was how true to form Lieberman was. Apparently, by mutual consent of the participants, there was to be no opening statement. Joe went first and prefaced his answer to the first question with an extended opening statement in which he said something to the effect that he hoped there would be "no finger pointing" and complaining about each other, but that "we will talk about what we will do for Connecticut."
When he finally got around to addressing the question -- so much later that it drew laughter -- he immediately began finger pointing and comjplaining and did virtually nothing else for the entire evening.
The crowd was very clearly Lamont's. It seems Lieberman had so few takers that they had to give tickets to people whose allegiance they didn't know. Several people sitting near me, who were Lamont supporters, had gotten their tickets from the Lieberman camp.
The result was an imbalance that was clearly obvious in the crowd reaction -- and Lieberman gave them plenty of reason to groan and even hiss. Add to this the disruption (already noted below) by a bunch of nutjobs from the LaRouche cult and I'm afraid the Lieberman campaign will spin the evening as yet another example of those wild-eyed leftists who have taken over the Democratic Party disrupting Joe's freedom of speech.
Still Joe got the able assitance of press questioner Mark Davis, who served as a surrogate attack dog for Joe, needling Lamont and exchanging nods, winks, and smiles with Lieberman when others were speaking.
Schlesinger seems to have made an attempt to rein himself in and be more "senatorial," but he was at his best when his irrepressibility refused to be repressed. He had the best lines of the debate, including spinning Joe's promise to serve only three terms: "He meant he wanted to serve three terms as a Democrat and three terms as a Republican an Independent."
George Stephanopoulos did a pretty mediocre job of moderating and it was fun to watch Schlesinger cut him down to size (if that's the right expression).
The hottest moment came when Lieberman as much as called Lamont a liar and Lamont called him on it. Lieberman's own lies and prevarications were on abundant display and regularly drew boos, hisses, derisive laughter, and even the occasional shout of "Shame!"
The most bathetic moment came when Stephanopoulos held Lieberman to a 90 second statement and Joe whined that he was being unfair (because the LaRouchies had drowned him out earlier). Just pathetic.
The debate ended with Lamont calling for more debates and Schlesinger readily agreeing (or was it vice versa?). Lieberman seemed none too interested. If I was advising the Lamont campaign, I'd suggest they arrange a debate with Schlesinger for Thursday. Let Joe show if he wants.
I urge you to seek out the video when it becomes available. The consensus of everyone I spoke to was that this was the most entertaining debate of the bunch.
It could be the most important one liner of the debate.
"You goddamned son of a bitch, how dare you accuse me of voting for the Energy Bill because I got a contribution."
Those were the words allegedly spoken by Joe Lieberman to Ned Lamont immediately after tonight's debate at the Garde Arts Center in New London. And although Lieberman cupped his hand over his mic, looking for all the world like he was taking the Pledge of Allegiance, his bitter remark was picked up on the audio feed, according to the report I heard. It didn't make the air (that had already been cut) but, if the report is accurate, WTNH should have the audio.
Proving you can't spell Hackett without "hack," the Norwich Bulletin scribe had this to say on the subject of the gubernatorial debates:
On my blog last week, I described the first debate in football terms. It's the fourth quarter and the incumbent had a solid lead. She played defense and let the clock run out. DeStefano was on offense and came out aggressively. He moved the ball down the field, but never got it into the end zone.
Tonight's debate is the two-minute warning and both teams need to adjust their game plans.
Would someone please put Ray out of his misery?
BTW, The Bulletin won't let you get to Ray's blog (at least today) without giving them your demographic information and email address. I guess they really don't want anyone reading it.
Well, lordy, lordy. I may have to take back al those nasty things I've been saying about the New Haven Register. Their headline today gets it exactly right.
Mark Pazniokas of the Courant apparently couldn't ignore Schlesinger, but also couldn't resist trying to marginalize him.
Andy Warhol was almost right, except that in the U.S. Senate race, everybody gets 17 minutes of fame - even the neglected Republican nominee, Alan Schlesinger.
Still, he had the good sense to continue...
With a forceful debate performance, Schlesinger reminded voters, the media and possibly his own party Monday that Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman and Ned Lamont are not replaying their Democratic primary.
Meanwhile, the newspaper of record continues doing its best to peddle the little Joe David vs. Greenwich Goliath story line. The headline on the edition deliverede to my door this morning reads, "Lieberman and Lamont Turn Debate To Home Front." There's a more accurate head on the online version.
Schlesinger makes his appearance in the second graph as the inevitable "little-known Republican." Well, duh! When every major papaer in the region pretends you don't exist, of course you're going to be "little known" by people who foolishly rely on those papers for what passes for "news" these days.
Finally, Shelley Sindlund of Fox 61, who is IMHO the best political reporter in the state, nailed it in her report on the debate on last night's 10 o'clock news.
[B]oth Ned and Alan stuck around to speak with the media. Joe, unfortunately, literally cut and ran (with pep in his step) out of the hall, refusing to answer questions and went right up to his room.
One of the moderators was just scouring the hall looking for ANYONE from the Lieberman campaign, but can’t find anyone. Word is that Joe ran up the back stairway. Out of sight, quick as a flash.
It will be interesting to see if anyone in the so-called MSM to reports this.
Tickets for the Oct 23 Lamont-Lieberman Debate will be handed out starting tomorrow, Monday, between 8:30 am and 4:30 pm at the offices of the New London Day:
New London Office
47 Eugene O'Neill Drive
P.O. Box 1231
New London, CT
06320-1231
The DeStefano campaign has announced that it has come to an agreement with the Rell campaign for two one-on-one televised debates between Democratic nominee John DeStefano and Governor Rell. Also agreed upon is a single one-on-one debate between the candidates for Lt. Gov., Mary Messina Glassman and Michael Fedele.
The DeStefano campaign also wants to participate in additional televised debates and forums with all candidates for governor. ... DeStefano is scheduled to participate in at least one candidate forum with the Green Party candidate.
It's official. George Stephanopoulos will moderate the October 23 debate between Democrat Ned Lamont, Republican Alan Schlesinger and Connecticut For Lieberman candidate Joe Lieberman in New London.
There's an excellent post over at CTBlue that rips apart The Day's biased editorial page coverage of the Courtney-Simmons debate. It's complete with video excerpts from the debate used to devastating effect to back up the points made. A case study in what blogs do best.
Angry. Petulant. Self-important. Nasty. These are some of the words that come to mind as I think back on Joe Lieberman in last night's debate.
There are other voices this morning after:
• There's commentary and an interview with John Hartwell at ConnecticutBLOG.
• The Independent's Paul Bass was there for the post-debate spinning.
• There's a poll for you to take on the front page of the Courant. (Look for it in the small print in the box about the debate.) Their TV critic was downbeat.
• This Kos Diarist does a good job of covering Friday morning's Connecticut press coverage, so I don't have to. (Whoopee!)
• Spazeboy has video of local news coverage, which was on balance pretty godawful.
• Politics TV has a whole raft of debate video, including the whole enchilada.
• Rolling Stone weighs in on, among other things, Joe's "non-Kosher defense of pork."
• And even the usually Lieb-leaning Connecticut Local Politics has a good post-mortem -- with yet another poll for you to take.
I think Ned did brilliantly! This was a smashing victory for the Lamont campaign and I can only imagine that people on the campaign staff are dancing around wildly.
Lamont did exactly what he had to do and so much more. Joe's toast.
What say you all?
Updates: MSNBC just showed The Kiss float! Yay for us. Wed're changing history, boys and girls. Pause and be proud.
Just heard word from the Lamont campaign: As I predicted they're ecstatic.
The desperation is showing! The LieberTrolls are out in force. Yet more proof Lieberman's hopes were mortally wounded tonight.
Settling in in a comfortable living room on the Branford shore with a broad spectrum of local Dems raninging in age from the early twenties all the way up to the eighties. There are DTC members here along with college kids and the proverbial suburban housewives (none of them desperate, on would hope).
In C-Span's warm-up, Mark Pazniokas just gave us bloggers for creating a movement before there was a candidate. Yay for us!
7 pm. They're off an running.
Just over 20 of us here. The youngest just arrived, a beautiful one year old.
The debate is now just hours away. Be sure to bookmark Debate Headquarters, which will be providing the sort of in-depth back up you won't get from the MSM.
Hopefully, we'll have some live blogging here, as well. Jane Hamsher will be live blogging, too, from the Lamont war room at Firedoglake.
Also, be on the lookout for Joe "Squinty" Scarborough (MSNBC - 9 p.m.) to jump on any perceived "gaffe" on Lamont's part. He was among the first, if not the first to jump on the so-called "Dean Scream."
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