You heard it here first. Today is election day in Connecticut, the polls are tightening they say, but the decision's already been made.
I don't live in Connecticut, obviously, so I have only been following the Lamont/Lieberman primary battle with half an eye on the news. Sunday, on This Week with George Stephanopoulos, both Senator Lieberman and his challenger Lamont were interviewed at length. I watched this closely, trying to put myself in the mind-set of the Connecticut voter who, after all, have been living with these two guys and this campaign for a while now. How do they come off?
Finish Line of a 30-Year Run
{Photo by New York Times}
Ned Lamont is going to win on Tuesday and everyone is going to say it's all about the Iraq war as a wedge issue and talk about how the party rejected Lieberman because he was out of step and how the bloggers turned the tide, especially by relentlessly hammering on the famous "kiss of death" that George Bush gave Lieberman at the 2005 State of the Union Speech. They'll say that when the New York Times endorsed Lamont it made him credible. All of that is true but it's not the main reason Lamont is going to win.
Ned Lamont is going to take the primary on Tuesday because he's today's news. He's younger, got more zing in his step and, frankly, in his one-on-one with Stephanopoulos he seemed to be extremely confident, forthright and no bullshit. Lieberman is a great guy, I like him, but he looks like he looked in the last days of his 2004 presidential run. He knows it's over and so do the voters. After 30 years, the voters are ready for a change anyway, and the future for Joe Lieberman probably is in lobbying.
Ever since JFK took out Nixon in the 1960 debates, TV has determined the majority of our high profile races. People get a chance to see the two candidates and basically vote on how they make them feel, not on the actual specifics of the issues. The reason Lamont has gone from being way, way behind to up by thirteen points is no fluke -- it's television. That's it. End of discussion. And it isn't just how the two candidates appear on TV, it's how TV has been used against Lieberman in the age of YouTube. That is my so-called "expert" opinion as a guy who ran the TV Academy for a couple of years, but it is also my opinion as a viewer and a voter.
Joe Lieberman will lose on Tuesday. Even if he sticks to the plan to run as an Independent, the next Senator from the state of Connecticut is going to be a guy named Ned Lamont.
The Political Kiss of Death for a Democrat
