As I was looking for something else this morning, I found the following Word file which includes:
> A message sent to the DCCC and DSCC explaining why I support individual candidates, but won't contribute to their "umbrella" fund-raising efforts, AND
> A June '06 letter to Senator Schumer -- written by Robin Winick and me, and read by 31 Connecticut voters who endorsed its contents. It's small consolation that we were so on target. Given Lieberman's continuing outrages, and Ned's possible run for Governor, I thought it would be interesting to see what fell on deaf ears at the time.
The letter also is relevant to this week's close House vote on health care. While Republicans vote in lock step, Blue Dog Democrats continue to thumb their noses at meaningful reform. Why on earth should we support those who ignore their own constitutencies?
And aren't those of us who blog on and read My Left Nutmeg getting tired of the endless copy written about Joe? I apologize in advance for contributing to his obvious hunger for public attention -- however negative. . . .
It was 2 years ago today that we helped Ned Lamont overcome a 60 pt deficit to defeat Joe Lieberman by 4 pts in the Democratic Primary. Daily Kos salutes Lamont, the Kiss float, and those of us who volunteered for the Lamont campaign.
Here is an op-ed at the UCONN official newspaper, the Daily Campus, that talks of the Lamont/Kucinich event there back in April. FYI, to no ones surprise the author gets his facts wrong about the questioner mentioned in the commentary, and he tells liberals to "shut up"! http://www.dailycamp...
Of course there is a systematic suppression of political free speech at UCONN, including possibly fraudulent "noise complaints" against an October 2006 Ned Lamont/Wesley Clark rally from the UCONN School of Business. That "noise complaint" blocked the right of the UCONN Dems, rightfully according to the UCONN Student Union rules, to have music at later rallies with Ned Lamont and state Senate President Donald Williams. Of course, the UCONN School of Business has a clear bias:
The UCONN School of Business gets funding from the state budget, and maybe Donald Williams should know about their attacks and bias against his and the UCONN Dems' free speech!
You can send a note about these and other UCONN matters to the UCONN president Michael J. Hogan at:
president@uconn.edu
and Donald Williams at:
Williams@senatedems.ct.gov
the local Democratic state rep:
Denise.Merrill@cga.ct.gov
and the attorney general at:
attorney.general@po.state.ct.us
(Bob on Ned Lamont: I have to say this about Ned...after his defeat, it would have been the easiest thing in the world for him to say "the heck with it", and retire from the political arena. In fact, everyone would have totally understood if he did that...He's spending an incredible amount of time and personal effort to help us all get better government. He stands as a prime example of what a single person can do to change things. - promoted by Scarce)
Last year's Democratic candidate for senate Ned Lamont took some time to help raise funds for Kerri's campaign and endorse her as the next mayor of Milford. Also in the video, Kerri relates a story about why she's going through all the effort to help change things.
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.
(Will you all join me in reprising the appreciation chant we all shouted at the primary victory party when Ned Lamont thanked Tom Swan, "who first believed we could win this primary when no one else did"? SWANNY! SWANNY! SWANNY! - promoted by Maura)
On behalf of all of the Lamont campaign staff I wanted to thank our friends at MLN. The MLN community was an instrumental part in kicking Joe Lieberman out of the Democratic party one year ago today.
From signing up our initial 1,000 volunteers, to turnout at Naples Pizza to meet Ned, to our founding meeting in New Haven, to Ned's announcement, to organizing house parties, to the convention, to signing up people for FFN, to primary day the MLN community was there.
We changed the national debate and together we have much to be proud about.
I believe that no campaign has ever combined the grassroots and the netroots in such a powerful way.
Unfortunately, our success did not carry over to November, but our impact could be seen as Democrats took back Congress which has at least resulted in some efforts to end the madness in Iraq and hopefully will begin to hold the Bush administration accountable.
I, like so many others, was very invested in this campaign and have had a very difficult time bouncing back. The retrospective here and elswhere has helped.
This campaign may be over, but the fight for social justice, peace and equality is a long one and we have a lot of work to do.
In closing I want to thank the MLN community, my friends, and family for helping us all to make history one year ago today.
(Video coverage and transcript of a Ned event in New Hampshire... thanks, mbair -- and hello to any granite-staters visiting MLN for the first time here! - promoted by mattw)
I went to a NH meet and greet with Ned Lamont appearing on behalf of Chris Dodd for President. It was old school Granite State grassroots with about 30 people attending an open discussion of current events in a lovely private home.
Ned came to discuss why he thinks that Dodd is the best choice for the nominee and why he thinks the NH voters should give Dodd "a fair shot," but Lamont also spoke for himself on issues ranging from Iraq to hedge funds and gave some very funny and illuminating remarks on his race for Senate in Connecticut last year.
Lamont was very relaxed and charming as it was an informal setting and he came across as genuine. He didn't have an answer from Dodd on every question posed, but he did answer our questions directly and engaged us all in that living room Sunday night in Portsmouth, NH.
Follow me below the fold for all the video of the remarks and the Q & A.
Bill Curry again on Huffpo, this time he comes out swinging at King George.
Bush says we will "help Iraqis... secure neighborhoods... help protect the local population... help ensure... the security Baghdad needs." It sounds like a support role. His real plan is to put more troops in even greater danger: door to door urban warfare of the sort any army dreads.
Bush said we sent too few troops to Iraq and placed too many restrictions on them. He left out that our ineptitude bred chaos; that our hunger for oil and military bases bred cynicism and that our few allies were quietly going home. The only mistakes he admitted were tactical errors of his previous commanders.
What's amazing is the poor job Democrats do refuting him. With an electoral mandate, the support of the old foreign policy establishment and wide support even among the military, you'd think they'd be eager to expose his dissembling and make the case for change. Not quite.
They have their own problems with the truth. On 'Meet the Press,' Joe Biden claimed the constitution won't let Congress end the war. Clinton alum Leon Panetta said "the system" prevents Democrats from taking action. Barack Obama saw it that way too, but then hedged.
It isn't all bad. Chris Dodd wants to cap troop levels. Hillary Clinton now says she's for a cap too. Credit Ned Lamont's primary win for showing Democrats early on you can't support the war and win a primary. The presidential primary debate has begun driving debate in Congress and that's a good thing.
Curry goes on to talk about about a new politics - not a politics of hope, but a politics of reality and truth. Personally, I think the best way to get there is to knock the Fox News satellite out of orbit, but in lieu of that I guess we have to keep blogging, writing LTTE's and communicating with our neighbors.
Joe Lieberman's rant this morning in the Washington Post was a finger in the eye of Connecticut voters. In effect he told them, "Yes, I lied about wanting to end the war in Iraq. But I'm good for another six years and there's nothing you can do about it." The conservative editorial boards that endorsed him all have egg on their faces.
But at least one publication, the New Haven Register, published a few words of sane commentary regarding Lieberman this morning. They reprinted an editorial titled "Joe Rewrites History" from Wednesday's Minneapolis Star Tribune.
From Connecticut Bob comes this video of the screening party last week. Bob posted on his blog a few days ago but for anyone hasn't seen it yet here it is. A good time seems to have been had by all.
Blog Wars airs December 28 and 30 on the Sundance channel.
I've been thinking a lot about the wonderful community created via the Lamont campaign - very much like the Dean campaign in many ways. How can we keep our newly created family together? What should we work on? Monthly meetup were, and remain, an integral part of the Dean campaign. Should Lamont meetups start up around the state? Either to organize in order to work on issues/for candidates or to simply stay together as a group of like minded friends who want to get together. I don't have the time right now to organize these - but if there is interest - perhaps something to think about?
A Republican National Committee (RNC) ad that was on the GOP website for several days last August. It appeared August 9th, one day after the primary. At Maura's urging for something else I managed to dig this up, going around the usual channels to get it.
The evil bloggers story. Chris Matthews talks to Smith like he's a retard (not a stretch by any means if this were the metric used) yet Tweety keeps talking to him. Later in the day even Matthews got tired of this dog & pony show.
From August 8, 2006. The Connecticut primary day. Clip is about 10 minutes long.
Will Yoon and other media outlets that reported on the "hacking" now update their stories? Don't hold your breaths.
If there's one rule of media and politics -- and this is what's truly Rovian -- is that the steno press (with a few exceptions) will uncritically parrot your talking points, smear attacks, and accusations, without you suffering the indignities of having that bullshit exposed for being the bullshit it is.
I remember taking breaks from pollstanding on primary day and the hacking story JUST WOULD NOT STOP. This crap is too easy for the MSM to pull, and it's too easy for politicians like LIEberman to get away with it. I just wish we'd hear about it on the news a little bit more. So far, no story on the courant.com website...
(Unauthorized trailers in da house! - promoted by Matt Browner Hamlin)
(Cross-posted from Spazeboy.net)
I'm playing right into their hands. I bet James Rogan pitched it like this (to be read with a British accent): "If I make a film about bloggers, it'll get all sorts of amateur buzz marketing. Think Snakes on a Plane meets Roger & Me."
You should keep in mind that when interviews for this film were first taped, that Snakes on a Plane had not yet bombed at the box office. Of course, because I have such great taste in movies (for example, I don't care for Star Wars), I enjoyed the motherfuckin' snake movie.
(I hear the Kiss Float is prominently featured! - promoted by Jon Kantrowitz)
Today I received my screener's copy of "Blog Wars".
It's a lot of fun!
But boy, we bloggers need to do something about our potty mouths! (Tim and Keith!)
We're going to schedule a public screening next Tuesday so anyone who was involved in or simply followed the campaign can see it before it airs on "The Sundance Channel", on December 28th and rerun on the 30th. Details below.
(We'll post the video highlights (or lowlights) when it appears. Thanks. - promoted by Scarce)
This just in: Lieberman Lost the Election
I lucked into attending a panel discussion at Yale today, presented by the Yale Political Science Department and the Center for the Study of American Politics, featuring people involved in the Lamont, Lieberman, and Schlesinger campaigns for US Senate.
The Senate race is over. Lamont won the primary. Lieberman won the general, and now representatives from both their campaigns and Republican Alan Schlesinger's, will come together to discuss their decisions and strategies.
The intention was there, but some of the panelists were less than generous when it came time to discuss their campaign strategies.
Moderators:
Mark Pazniokas and Kevin Rennie from the Hartford Courant
Panelists:
Lanny Davis, Roy Occhiogrosso, and Sean Smith (Lieberman)
George Jepson, Tom D'Amore, and Bill Hillsman (Lamont)
Dick Foley (Schlesinger)
Readers will be thrilled to know that Pazniokas' background introduction began with "The Kiss" at the State of the Union Speech, went from there to the buttons, Ed Anderson, and the Float (which he said should be in a museum).
After that, there was some rudimentary and mundane discussion of candidate selection, who did what and when, etc.
It started out smoothly enough, but when Lanny Davis got a chance to speak ... it became clear that Lieberman actually lost this election. The body language from the Lamont and Schlesinger side of the panel was open and relaxed, while the palpable tension of Occhiogrosso and Smith was added to by Davis' constant twitching, twisting, and grunts of disgust.
I'm cross posting this from my Saramerica blog, because I thought you guys might like to see some of the cr*p mail that is one of the "joys" of being a political columnist.
This one particularly pissed me off because it was written by the father of my daughter's best friend from nursery school. But read on, my fair MLNers:
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