The Clinton sellout

The Clinton TV Ad Blitz to Come in Connecticut

by Matt Stoller, Wed Jul 26, 2006 at 01:38:25 PM EST

Apparently, Bill Clinton's face is going to be all over the airwaves in Connecticut. And Lieberman's field campaign is ramping up, big time.

His campaign is currently producing a TV commercial from video shot at yesterday's rally with Bill Clinton but his campaign has pulled back on TV ads this week.

"We're going to have money on TV but we're also going to have money in other areas of voter contact, including door to door canvassing and turning people out to vote," says Sean Smith, Lieberman Campaign Manager.

The increase in staff is very noticeable at Lieberman's Rocky Hill headquarters. Lieberman now has twice as many paid campaign staff as Ned Lamont.

This is now a fight between whether Lieberman can lie and snooker enough reporters to reprint his lies, or whether Connecticut voters will have the opportunity to vote on Joe Lieberman's war. The whole Democratic machine from DC is helping Lieberman, including ex-President Clinton and lobbyists galore.

Lieberman's meltdown has stopped. This is going to be a dogfight from here on out.

Paid staff with a bad strategy is not the same as volunteers with a good strategy. Lamont's team needs to whip out footage of Lieberman chiding Clinton, to remind people of how untrustworthy he is and use the war against him. And then with Bush

Lieberman waited awfully late to whip this strategy out. I mean, really late. He can spend money, but he should have started that July 1. What he wants people to do is to forget that he's been allied with Bush.

Clinton's popularity is seriously overrated when it comes to elections. Now, if he had opposed the war and his wife had opposed the war, Lamont might have an insurmountable problem. But as Iraq spins out of control, he has the wedge issue he needs to win. It isn't entirely about the war, but when it comes to a yes or no vote on Lieberman, it does come down to the war.

I'd love to get that letter writer's father or mother to do a Lamont ad, hell, anyone who Lieberman didn't help. We'll see by next week if the ad buy is moving voters. But the fact is that once an establish pol loses supporters, they don't go back. Because the reasons they're leaving him are serious. Lamont should not have ever led Lieberman. Now, if Lieberman can gain ground, ok, but I think that the whole Clinton thing is directed towards one voting block: black voters, especially middle aged and elderly black voters.

His people think they see an opening because Lamont is a WASP millionaire. And the people his campaign are giving street money to are being sold that bill of goods.

What's street money? As I explained to the nice young woman who asked me last week, it's the money campaigns hand out to locals for everything from leaflet drops to GOTV. Someone has to pay for the vans who go from the Senior Center to the polling place.

And their consultant is an "expert" on getting out the urban, black vote. So Lieberman's last polling hope are black voters, who he hopes will stick with him.