Sunday, September 17, 2006
Lamont's new TV ad is interesting for what it shows as a difference between the two campaigns: You Don't Switch Teams Just Because You Lost. Featuring a Yankee and a Red Sox fan sitting at a table, they complain that Joe Lieberman is a "turncoat" (read: traitor to the Democrats) for continuing his campaign. This is representative of understandable frustration and satisfying to the true-believers. As one Lamont commenter notes:
But the primaries are over and Lamont already won. He needs to do more than appeal to the base. I'm not sure that an ad like this really appeals to that vast swath of voters one needs to win a general election, where loyalty to party politics is probably not a great selling point. Advantage Lieberman for his blackboard ad and current "I'm above political parties" posture.
As another commenter notes:
That about sums it up.
Short takes:
Ray Hackett checks out the accusation of "negative campaigning" in some of the Connecticut races:
Add to that another poll, an independent survey of likely voters released last week, that suggests 57 percent of those supporting Lamont are doing so only so they can vote against Lieberman.
Those numbers are seen as advantages the Lieberman campaign is trying to exploit. The objective is to keep the unfavorable ratings as high as possible and chip away at the other 43 percent of his support by portraying Lamont as running a negative campaign. The more you say it, the more believable it might become...
Meanwhile, while Lamont is still appealing to his base, pols in other parts of the country are using Lieberman to polish their centrist bona fides. For instance, in Ohio, Republican Congresswoman Deborah L. Pryce...
"He was someone that results mattered to more than partisan politics," said Pryce, an Upper Arlington congresswoman. "And because of that, the left wing of his party kicked him off. And the more that happens, you lose the reasonable people in the middle" — people, she made clear to her audience, like herself...
"You Don't Switch Teams Just Because You Lost." Nor do you redeploy to Okinawa just because the war got tough.
"they complain that Joe Lieberman is a "turncoat" (read: traitor to the Democrats)" but a patriot to the United States of America. On the other hand, if he had changed side for the sake of his Party, then he would be a turncoat to his conscience, a turncoat to his country.