Ned-renaline Level Dropping Fast - Campaign Dispirited

The New York Observer has an article today that looks at the sad state of the Ned Lamont campaign six days out from election day.

Democratic strategists and consultants, some of them sympathetic to the campaign, are already talking about it in the past tense.

“I think it was possible for Lamont to pull it off,” said Bob Shrum, a veteran political analyst. “There were moments right after the primary where it was basically a tied race.”

Yeah, that's quite the analysis from the "loss leader" himself. Shrum has the distinction of managing eight losing Democrat Presidential candidates. It would seem that it's all over but the finger pointing.

The apparent end of the much-ballyhooed Lamont phenomenon is causing a great deal of soul-searching and recrimination in all corners of the Democratic Party. The bloggers that once championed Mr. Lamont as an awkward but earnest savior now alternately blame WashingtonÂ’s strategists for hijacking their candidate and Democratic leaders for abandoning him. Beltway consultants fault the Lamont campaign for failing to move the candidate beyond his left-wing celebrity and define him for a greater electorate.

There's plenty of blame to go around. But if those that make up the nutroots are honest with themselves they'll consider the possibility that Bush-hatred is not enough to win support outside of their fringe movement and win in a general election. Though the chances of that are slim. The biggest target of blame seems to be aimed at Howard Wolfson, the consultant to Hillary that Her Shrillness lent to Lamont's campaign.

Still, bloggers held Mr. Wolfson responsible for the campaignÂ’s derailment. This month, the left-wing Huffington Post compiled its readersÂ’ grievances about the fizzling campaign into a premature concession speech for Mr. Lamont.

“I turned my campaign over to hired guns who think that running to the middle is a winning strategy—even though it’s proven to be a loser time and time and time again,” the post read.

In a recent post for his popular left-wing political blog MyDD, Matt Stoller called Democratic leaders “moral lepers” for abandoning Mr. Lamont.

“What I have seen in this race is a complete abrogation of responsibility on the part of everybody except the netroots and Ned Lamont,” Mr. Stoller said in a telephone interview. “Trusting these people is a huge tactical error. Never trust anything that these insider Democrats tell you,” he said, adding, for good measure, “Bill Clinton is a liar.”

Bill Clinton is a liar? You're just catching on to that one, huh?

But the significant line out of that quote goes to the heart of their problem: "running to the middle" as a strategy is "proven to be a loser time and time and time again".

Actually what's proving to be a loser time and time and time again is Left-wing radicalism. That giant sucking sound you hear is the air blowing out of the balloons at Lamont For Senate headquarters.

“I’ve become a little anxious about the quiet that seems to have set in,” added Catherine DeNunzio, an elegant 83-year-old woman wearing a blue sweater and matching eye shadow. She also complained about the enthusiasm leaking from Mr. Lamont’s campaign and wasn’t optimistic about his prospects. “But we might have shaken things up anyway.”

Shaken up? Hardly. If an Independent Joe Lieberman is returned to the Senate by a significant margin in a state as Blue as CT, what does that say about the significance of the nutroots?

Oh, and did I mention the Quinnipiac poll released today that has Lieberman up 12?

Posted by: Gary at 02:13 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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