5/19: Lamont, Lieberman, and Leopold

Reputations are on the line in lefty land. Author and blogger Jason Leopold is looking for vindication from a possible WH dep. CoS Karl Rove indictment 5/19. Also as much as the biggy lefty bloggers can try to down play cable co. exec. Ned Lamont's CT Dem. convention performance, if Lamont does miss 15% it offers all of Kos' critics another "defeat" arrow to attack him with. Meanwhile the drumbeat of low poll numbers and scandals is producing noticeable strain on the righty blogosphere while Gen. Wesley Clark and son raise their blogosphere profile.

Lefty bloggers were out in force downplaying cable co. exec. Ned Lamont's chances at the 5/19 CT Dem. convention. Matt Stoller at MyDD guessed Lamont "will get between 5-15%." DavidNYC at Swing State Project, kos and firedoglake all agree that Lamont will not get the 15% necessary to qualify for the ballot.

The talking points didn't end there though. All four bloggers go on to claim that going the signature route would actually be better for Lamont. Swing State Project: "When you have to petition to get on the ballot, that does two things for you. First, you're forced to ramp up your field operation early. Second, you get the names of tons and tons of supporters." kos: "But Lamont will get the signatures he needs. And it's the better way to go -- having 500 volunteers farming out across the state, educating their Democratic neighbors about Lamont and informing them that this August they will have a choice." Firedoglake: "It's probably much better from a symbolic point of view if Ned makes history by being the first candidate to force a primary by collecting signatures and going around the party machinery, which would happen if he didn't get 15% of the convention delegates." The Blogometer notes that evil political consultants only dream about message discipline like this.

Left bloggers also highlighted reports that Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT) has backed out of a pledge to Sen. Dem. leaders not to run as an independent should he lose to Lamont in the primary. Matt Stoller at MyDD: "And Lieberman keeps making political mistakes, apparently going back on his word to Reid and Schumer by failing to rule out running as an Independent. I'm not 100% sure that the reporter is quoting Lieberman after he made the promise to Reid, but it does look that way. I'd put a call in to the Lieberman office to find out, but he doesn't talk to bloggers." Firedoglake: "Matt Stoller reported Harry Reid made a deal with Holy Joe whereby he pledged to run as a Democrat, and in return they would endorse him. Quite predictably, Lieberman is already selling Reid out. From today's Hartford Courant: "Lieberman has since refused to rule out an independent run for the Senate, should he lose the primary in August."

In response to Lieberman campaign manager Sean Smith'sLA Times quote on Lamont's ads: ""They're cute little spots. But cute never saved a job or stood up to the big oil companies," Atrios retorted: "Neither did Joe "Voted for the Energy Bill" Lieberman."

Matt Stoller at MyDD was surprised to see The Connecticut Employees Union Independent back away from Lieberman: "This is surprising. I was told early on that labor support would be critical for Lieberman, and that his record on labor was very good. Then again, neither Iraq nor Alito are particularly good for any of us."

Lamont's new ads finally got righties talking about the race. TKS at NRO, Hit and Run, Done with Mirrors, and protein wisdom all hope kos has a long career appearing in Dem. campaigns.

Message discipline was not confined to the left ... a number of righties hit Lamont for being a one issue candidate. IOWAVoice: "That's what the Democratic Party is running on this year, folks. Not immigration, not the war, not taxes, not abortion, not the budget, not corruption. Just "let's get George." Sundries Shack: "So, basically, Lamont is running on the platform of "Elect me and we can forget all about those mean terrorists." Blue Crab Boulevard: "In an abundance of zeal to unseat Lieberman, who is a very reliable party-line voter on almost every Democratic issue, the Lamont supporters are taking a major player out of the national campaign. Lieberman is an utterly reliable Democrat except on the issue of Iraq."

Ex-Director of The Heritage Foundation's Center for Media and Public Policy Mark Tapscott at Tapscott's Copy Desk set off a righty blogswarm this week with a post titled "Conservative Battle Fatigue" which looked at tanking GOP poll numbers and mused on whether it might be better for the GOP to lose Congress in 06 to "setup for a strengthend conservative majority to return in Congress in 2008, most likely with a White House occupant wise enough to recognize that the "emerging Republican(i.e conservative) majority" had become a reality."

TKS at NRO didn't want to go that route: "But I've also been thinking lately about how life rarely seems to go according to plan. ... Bush's approval rating will take another hit after he vetoes the "Every Voter Gets Free Health Care And Free Prescription Drugs And Rent Or Mortgage Subsidies And A Pony Too Act of 2007." ...Maybe the public will strongly oppose the Democratic agenda after two years. But then again, maybe they'll like it...Maybe. Or, you know, Republicans could skip the losing part and try the crazy idea of winning this year." TKS also wasn't ready to concede 06 is going to turn out as bad as current poll numbers suggest.

Professor Bainbridge thought Tapscott might be onto something: "Suppose 2006 is as bad as 1974, when the Senate went from a Democrat majority of 56-42 (with 2 independents) to 61-37 (ditto) and the House went from a Democrat majority of 242-192 to 291-144. Six years later we got Ronald Reagan in a landslide. Granted, I don't see another Reagan on the horizon, more's the pity, but the larger point is that the country managed to muddle along. Maybe partisan politics just doesn't matter as much as those of us in the blogosphere like to think it does."

Hugh Hewitt was having none of it calling Tapscott and Bainbridge "conservative Jacobites" and worrying that a Dem. Congress would "almost certainly cost President Bush at least some of his most lasting domestic legacy --a federal judiciary committed to the rule of law not the rule of courts."

The vast majority of righty bloggers were with Hugh:

• Right Wing Nut House: "But unless something horrific happens to change my mind between now and election day, I plan on trudging down the street to our 100 year old city hall and doing my civic and patriotic duty by voting Republican on November 6."
• The Anchoress: "I only know what's in my gut, and my gut says "embracing the loss" doesn't live peaceably with my notion that there are no negatives in Christ."
• RedState: "Stay home on November 7th, and you punish House Republicans first. The same House Republicans who are standing up to the Senate and pushing a tough pro-enforcement bill. President Bush is not on the ballot this fall. The people fighting hardest for immigration enforcement and a border fence are. ...The 2007 immigration bill would be a compromise between McCain-Kennedy (by then renamed Kennedy-McCain) and whatever the rampantly anti-enforcement Speaker Pelosi and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Conyers cook up. Think about it: Ted Kennedy and John McCain would actually represent the more conservative side of the conference committee!"
• Lorie Byrd at TownHall: "Perhaps emboldened by the outcome of the Miers nomination, some conservatives...are now going so far as to talk about impeachment in the current debate over immigration policy. ...Disagree, dissent, march, email, telephone the White House and the Congress, heck, even mail a brick, but it doesn't make sense...to destroy the Republican Party unless you are ready to accept the agenda of Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid."

Mary Katherine Ham at Hugh Hewitt thinks the GOP can save itself and points to the "Pennsylvania Primary Earthquake of '06." Blue Crab Boulevard also sees hope from the Keystone state: "Whether national level politicians in the Republican party are smart enough right now to understand what just happened in Pennsylvania only time will tell. The party base revolted and threw out a large number of incumbents. The people who got tossed were very senior, had an enormous amount of clout and had strong fundraising ability."

Captain's Quarters sees similarities between PA and the Golden State:

This reminds me of the first shot in the conservative re-emergence: Proposition 13 in California. My home state had an out-of-control property tax regime that would simply re-appraise property whenever it needed to boost revenues. The instability in the tax rate made home ownership more risky, and it affected rents as well. When Howard Jarvis and Paul Gann put Proposition 13 on the ballot, the state's political intelligentsia fought it bitterly, spending millions of dollars to convince Californians that the state's problems involved a lack of revenue and not out-of-control spending. No one thought that California voters would pass the referendum -- but it turned out to be highly popular indeed, winning by a large margin and shocking the political establishment. That victory started a nationwide demand for tax reform that continues to this day, forcing Rockefeller Republicans out of the GOP leadership and paving the way for Ronald Reagan in 1980.

Not everyone on the right saw the PA results as the second coming. Done with Mirrors: "There's a tendency to try to read into this result: Do the voters want more conservatives? Fewer Republicans? What does it bode for Bush? Don't get too excited about any of that. ...The losers lost because they voted themselves a 16 percent pay raise, in the middle of the night, with no debate, and then dove through a loophole that allowed them to take the money right away, rather than waiting till the next year, as the state constitution requires."Callimachus at Winds of Change: "I'm going to register my dissent from the emerging meme that the "Pennsylvania Revolt" in the GOP primary essentially was a popular uprising against "a state legislature that rejected conservative values". The confusion is understandable, since the incumbents who were overturned were those who engaged in the kind of reckless spending and money-grubbing conservatives despise. But this was a single-issue revolt...Nobody out here is getting a 16% raise (minimum) overnight, and nobody likes to see his public servants vote themselves one, out of his pocket."

Ridenbaugh Press highlights state Controller Keith Johnson's (R-ID) latest ad trumpeting that "2 out of 3 left wing, Idaho bloggers endorsed Robert Vasquez in the GOP primary for Congress. Because he would ensure the Democrats a win in November. The third endorsed Sheila Sorensen. Enough said." Ridenbaugh comments: "What does it mean to endorse? Is writing favorably about the idea of someone's election enough? Newspaper endorsements are typically clear-cut; they say that "we endorse X for election," or something clearly similar. On the web, the situation is a little less certain." Ridenbaugh checks out the sites in question and concludes: "So let's call it two and a half out of three for the Johnson campaign."

Moving south Matt Stoller at MyDD notes a poll dip for Sen. Jon Kyl: "I just got an email about a new Rocky Mountain poll on the Arizona Senate race:

Pederson Cut Kyl's Lead By 22 Points Since January. According to a Rocky Mountain Poll released today, Jim Pederson's initial ad campaign has had a "dramatic" effect. Since January, Pederson has narrowed Kyl's lead from 29 points, at 55-26, to just seven, at 40-33. [Rocky Mountain Poll, 5/18/06]

"Pederson's been on the air, which means that this is the first time voters have realized that there's an opponent to Kyl. Pederson's had some trouble with his campaign, but the recent collapse of the GOP is giving him another chance. The immigration fiasco is also wreaking havoc in this border state."

Moving east Virginia Virtucon reports on a recent conversation with UVA Prof. Larry Sabato: "...he seems convinced that there is a large Democrat contingent who will never vote for Jim Webb on the sole basis that he was a Reagan appointee. ... Aside from Democrats not voting for Webb on the basis of his ties to the Reagan Administration, Sabato claimed that there are organized efforts by Republicans to vote in the Democrat primary for Miller on the basis that he is such a horrible candidate and would lose worse than Webb to Allen in November. (If there are indeed such efforts, I have yet to hear of them.)

Senate votes on immigration bill amendments are coming so fast and furious that the 'sphere can't quite decide which ones they hate/love the most. So in no particular order:

Righty bloggers were big fans of the Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) English as the nation's official language amendment. Powerline: "Right next door, in Canada, we have the starkest possible evidence of the catastrophic consequences of bilingualism." Lefties thought the Senate should focus on more important matters. Georgia10 at DailyKos: "Here's a bright idea. Instead of wasting time on "symbolic" measures, why doesn't Congress do something about the millions of illiterate Americans who can't read or speak English (and no, Rep. Tancredo, I'm not talking about Mexican immigrants)."

Captian's Quarters focused on Dem. support for Sen. John Kyl's (R-AZ) amendment banning a guest worker path to citizenship: "They were Robert Byrd of West Virginia, Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, and Ben Nelson of Nebraska. All three hail from red states, and two of the three face re-election in states that went for George Bush in 2004. The only Senator of these three not facing elections in November is Byron Dorgan, whose partner voted against the measure.

Tom Bevan at right leaning Real Clear Politics looks at Sen. Mel Martinez (R-FL) evolution on the issue: "Mel Martinez's position on immigration that appeared on his 2004 campaign web site is noticeably at odds with the piece of immigration legislation Senator Mel Martinez put his name on recently. Here is what Martinez said in 2004 regarding the issue of immigration: We are nation of immigrants. ...I oppose amnesty for illegal aliens. I support a plan that matches workers with needy employers without providing a path to citizenship. Immigration to this country must always be done through legal means."

Hugh Hewitt took the opportunity to plug the opponents of Sens. voting against the 5/17 amendment for a wall: "Two Democratic incumbents facing re-election --Maria Cantwell of Washington State and Robert Menendez of New Jersey-- voted against the Sessions Amendment which mandates 370 miles of fencing and 500 miles of vehicle barriers. So if the Minutemen spokespeople are correct, the opponents of Cantwell and Menendez should not only sweep to victory in the fall, they should also be gathering enormous support from the rank and file. Those opponents are: Mike McGavick in Washington State (you can contribute online here) and Tom Kean in New Jersey (you can contribute online here.) If the "tough on illegal immigration" caucus is as strong as its proponents say it is, McGavick and Kean will be attracting thousands of new supporters in the next couple of days.

Few surprises in 'sphere reactions to Gen. Michael Hayden's CIA/dir. confirmation hearings. Righties think he's doing great and lefties think he is evasive (that script sounds familiar). Mahablog makes a good observation though: "Charlie Savage of the Boston Globe writes that the White House is trying to separate Hayden from the NSA spy scandal in an effort to keep the Senators from dwelling on Hayden's role at the NSA. Last week conventional wisdom said that Hayden was chosen as the nominee because Karl Rove wanted a public fight on the NSA. ... Something happened to make Karl change his mind. The White House doesn't want a fight over the NSA after all."

Righties impressed with Hayden's performance include: In From the Cold,IOWAVoice , and Blue Crab Boulevard.

Righty Big Lizards was concerned when "Hayden said he had been uncomfortable with some of the prewar analysis coming from the Pentagon suggesting there was a link between al Qaeda and then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein." But Big Lizards was mollified when he concluded: "The question may have specifically been couched in the timeframe of 2002, and Hayden may have been saying that at that time, he was uncomfortable with that claim."

Libertarian Ronald Bailey at Hit and Run was concerned about Hayden's grasp of checks and balances: "Former NSA head and prospective CIA director General Michael Hayden testified yesterday before the Senate Intelligence Committee that when he set up the various secret communications monitoring schemes that he "consulted both his lawyers and his conscience when starting the program in October 2001." When asked how the program avoided abusing the civil liberties and privacy of citizens, he replied, "We have a very strict oversight regime." Oversight by whom? A federal court? Congressional committees? Not really. The "oversight" was apparently exercised by the yes-men at the NSA and the Justice Department."

The Democratic Daily complained that Hayden was evasive while The Left Coaster thought he was disingenuous: "Hayden actually complained this morning at his confirmation hearing that the collection of intelligence has become politicized. General Hayden, you are a rube. Who was it that excluded Democrats from intelligence briefings? The Bush Administration."

DarkSyde at DailyKos reports that he was: "was star-struck to learn that the YearlyKos Science Panel will have the honor of hosting an actual four-star General! But then again, I'm not surprised that General Wesley Clark would value science given his former occupation and his lifelong commitment to scholastic excellence."

Meanwhile Hollywood scriptwriter Wesley Clark Jr. sat down with The Huffington Post blogger Cenk Uygur for his The Young Turks Sirius Radio show. It's an absolute must see.

Raising Kaine has highlights: "Basically, Wes Clark, Jr. says almost everything I've been thinking for years now, but haven't had the balls to say out loud. Stuff like: *how politicians don't "give a damn what you think" ...*how "10%-20% of the people who are involved in politics all the time, year-round are downright pathological" ...*how Joe Lieberman is "such a tool" ...*how the Democratic Party is "a collection of victims' groups" ...*how "you should feel free to fight somebody and not worry that you're gonna lose"

LEST WE FORGET: I Pity The Fool Who Don't Take A Lemon Bar Out My Head.

The Sneeze loves cookies. However: "There's tons of inappropriate merchandising and tie-ins out there, but it's the ones that bring together tough guys and p***y-ish items that are my favorites. And ironically, as much as cookies kick ass, they just aren't "tough". I don't care how huge you are, or how deep your voice is... you can't intimidate me saying, "Gimme another snickerdoodle."