Matt Stoller
Lieberman hired kids, Lamont hired adults
I knew Joe Lieberman was going to lose this race when Jane Hamsher sent me an e-mail saying that Lieberman was shifting his efforts to win black voters. That was the last ditch effort to save his miserable ass.
I take a lot of shit for predictions here, and I don't mind. Even Jen chides me on them. But you make guesses because that's politics in America. You guess, you get things wrong and you move on. It's not a terribly serious business in journalism.
But this time, Lieberman did everything wrong. Every fucking thing. The biggest mistake was shitting the bed when Lamont challenged him. He could have brushed this away and he didn't. You fuck up that much, you do not win. I learned that playing football.
I know it got exciting towards the end, but in reality, anytime a sitting incumbent is down, by any amount, he's likely to lose unless some real momentum happens to him, or the other guy makes a mistake.
But Lieberman ran a seriously inept campaign. Seriously inept. More than you could imagine.
More on that later.
But it was pretty clear that Lieberman wasn't going to win it. He got a lot of union people to stick with him, but he lost the small towns and they came out to send him packing. Once I read that, the people who should be his base, were rejecting him, it wasn't much more to worry about.
It wasn't the national bloggers like yours truly, Stoller, Atrios and Kos who made the difference, but Ct Blogger, Spaz Boy, Maura and the rest of the local blogging community who did the heavy lifting. We helped them where and when we could, but we didn't even raise money for them.
And make no mistake, they are the blogging heroes here, not us. We just helped tell their story. Regional bloggers are going to watch races and cover campaigns. They provided critical intelligence for other bloggers and the campaign.
They made sure Lieberman was finished and that Lamont had a clue. They deserve a round of applause at a minimum.
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