7/11: The Future Is Now

Plenty of pixels continue to be spilled over why progressive bloggers are singling out Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT) for ex-communication and what this means for Dems everywhere. But CT SEN is also serving as a preview for what awaits all WH'08 hopefuls as the blogosphere continues to mature (and we use that term loosely). Those who want to know how the future will look need look no further than a tiny Irish bar in Stamford, CT, where a local blog diarist crashed a Lieberman campaign stop and managed to get her face-to-face exchange with Lieberman captured on video by the local news. The clip is now on YouTube and can be seen by junkies from IA to NH. Lieberman comes out decently in this edit, but next time a fellow blogger with a less than balanced agenda might be behind the camera and the results could definitely be worse. How will campaigns respond to the threat/opportunity of every campaign misstep/victory instantly captured and spread for all to see?

CT SEN I: That's What You Get For Campaigning In A Pub>

A 7/10 Stamford, CT Irish American Dems' campaign stop for Sen. Joe Lieberman (D) did not run as smoothly as planned. Besides Sen. Joe Biden's (D-DE) no-show My Left Nutmeg diarist Maura made the most of her Lieberman face-time, asking: "You mentioned how Irish American Democrats are great supporters because they're not fair-weather friends, and I totally agree. So why are you being a fair-weather Democrat, saying you'll only respect the results of the Democratic primary if you win?" NECN caught her question and Lieberman's response on video available here. Maura on the whole experience: "I was really shocked at how much attention my comment got, since I didn't shout it out to get attention during Lieberman's talk, but rather approached him one-on-one. Apparently, some Lieberman staffers told reporters who were talking to me that I was a Lamont campaign plant, which is completely untrue."

Fellow progressive Spazeboy posts more local TV coverage here and adds: "What troubles me is that the Lieberman campaign tried to paint Maura as some kind of plant by the Lamont campaign. Don't get her wrong, she is a proud supporter of Ned Lamont but she doesn't take her marching orders from Lamont HQ. I received the same kind of treatment from Marion Steinfels at the diner event where I met Joe 31 days ago in Bristol."

ConnecticutBLOG passed on some other event lowlights: "Lieberman snuck in the back door rather than face the couple of people outside with anti-Joe Message signs; Only 20-25 people showed up for the event. There were more Lieberyouths there (at least 30) than guests; Lieberman's staff were trying to sell the story that Biden missed the train because he returned late from Iraq." Atrios wasn't buying the train excuse either: "Rumor is Biden's a no show to stump for Lieberman, claiming he missed his train. If true that's hilarious. There's a train from Wilmington to Stamford about every 45 minutes in the morning."

ConnecticutBLOG also has video of cable co. exec. Ned Lamont's (D) latest TV ad asking Lieberman to stop negative campaigning and mocks Lieberman's choice of party name for his indy run: "Joe Lieberman's new party name (drumroll please): Connecticut for Lieberman. Oh, I can see it now Sen. Lieberman (Lieberman-CT)."

Matt Stoller at progressive activist MyDD compares SUSA approval/disapproval ratings for Lieberman from 12/05 through 6/06: "These numbers are rather remarkable. While Democrats are abandoning Lieberman, with a 27 point swing against him, Republicans are abandoning Lieberman almost as quickly. About a quarter of Democratic voters have changed their mind about Lieberman, and slightly more than one eighth of independents and Republicans have done the same."

CT SEN II: All Or Nothing For The Netroots

Left-of-center TNR's Jonathan Chait looks at CT SEN and sees no good outcomes for Dems: "Consider the scenarios. If Lamont wins the primary and the general election, which is akin to drawing an inside straight, then the direct effect is positive. But, as I argued in my previous Lieberman/Lamont column, if you defeat Lieberman, "he'll play the same role as before, only this time with the power of martyrdom behind him: the virtuous anti-Democrat, too good and honest for his party." And that's the liberals' best-case scenario! If Lieberman wins the primary, or if he wins as an independent, then he retains his perch, and is likely to be even more alienated from liberals than ever before. If Lieberman runs as an independent and allows the Republicans to pick up the seat, then it's a huge net loss. ... In summary, I think there are two important ramifications to the Lieberman/Lamont primary fight. The short-term one is how it will affect Lieberman's role within the Democratic Party. As I argue above, I think the effect is likely to be negative. The longer-term question is how it is likely to effect the campaign by Markos Moulitsas and others to reshape liberal politics along Norquistian lines, and I find that troubling as well."

Chait isn't the only one on the left concerned about the post-CT SEN world. Obsidian Wings has no love for Lieberman but "when you're trying to retake the Senate, I'm mystified by the logic that suggests weakening one of your own candidates would be a good thing. The Democrats already need just about everything to break right for them in November to retake one or both chambers of Congress. Had they left Lieberman alone, his seat was rock solid; there's no way on Earth the Republicans could run anyone who was going to take down Lieberman. Now there's a very small possibility the Republican could win if Lieberman and Lamont split the vote just right, and a better possibility that Lieberman will still be Connecticut's senior senator in January 2007, but with a sizeable chip on his shoulder regarding the treatment he's received from the netroots."

Ezra Klein at the liberal TAPPED notes Chait's admitted dislike for Lieberman and wonders why Chait refuses to find common ground with the the Kossacks: "But Markos isn't up for re-election, Joe Lieberman is. And he's battling it out with this dude named Ned Lamont. And Chait appears to agree that Lamont is a better guy than Lieberman, and would carry a less objectionable ideology and political style into the Senate. Yet he can't support him. Because he doesn't like Markos, who's shown neither an interest nor appetite for imposing his antiwar views on the party. It's just a remarkably strange approach to the issue. ... Indeed, for all the theorizing over why the Netroots have gone after Lieberman, the answer is easy: They oppose him because he opposes them. And reading Chait, it's hard to believe that his stubborn opposition to a blogospheric crusade he supports on the merits doesn't rely on exactly the same grounds."

But for some on the left the race will still always be about Iraq. Middle Earth Journal: "They make it sound like this is a personal vendetta against the man, Joe Lieberman. This is where they miss the mark. For most of us it's not. It is a vendetta against the failed ideology that got us bogged down in the quagmire in Iraq, is losing the all important war in Afghanistan and making the world a much more dangerous place by antagonizing the rest of the world community.

From the right Silflay Hraka notes that the stakes are high for both Lieberman and the Kossacks: "Having so obviously targeted Lieberman, the netroots/nutroots/Townhouse crew must now defeat him, or risk being seen as irrelevant, especially considering their dismal electoral record thus far. National races are one thing, but If the LeftNet cannot elect a candidate of their own choosing in a Democratic Primary in one of the most liberal states in the Union, then they can't win elections, period. If that happens, it should become obvious to one and all that the Emperor has no clothes."

Also on the right NRO's Jim Geraghty suggests no such drama could ever be repeated on the GOP side: "Imagine if the conservative bloggers got together and decided to focus an inordinate amount of their energy and rhetoric upon defeating ... Arnold Schwartzenegger. Or Chuck Hagel. Or Olympia Snowe or Arlen Specter. Many conservatives don't like their stands on this issue or that issue; Pat Toomey got plenty of grassroots support a few years back. But the rage-to-irritated-tolerance ratio is positively milquetoast compared to the lefty "netroots." ... Even if you take the least conservative Republican lawmaker on the national scene, Lincoln Chafee, the disdain rises to making the face that you make when you smell sour milk. Many on the right would really like to see Chafee defeated in this year's primary. But there's no equivalent "Rape Gurney Joe" nickname, no Powerline guys popping up in his challenger's Mentos-ad-esque commercials, no damning the incumbent for intolerable "rudeness" because he interrupted his opponent."

LANDSCAPE'08: As Long As You're Passing Around Cash ...

Progressive Chris Bowers at MyDD picks up on this On Call (go team!) footnote tabulating WH'08 hopeful leadership PAC gifts to '06 Dem camps and sees an opportunity to pass the plate around: "Speaking of fundraising and currying favor, any and all Leadership PACs are welcome to donate to BlogPac. Email me at chris@mydd.com for details. You won't actually get any beneficial posts or positive coverage from doing this. Also, I have known my favorite potential candidate for well over a year, and that ain't changing. However, your money will be used to defend the netroots and increase our political efficacy. If you think helping the netroots will help your future campaign, your money will be well spent."

GORE: Death Of A Salesman

The left's Whiskey Bar skipped Pirates of the Caribbean II and finally saw Al Gore's (D) An Inconvenient Truth so he could bring us this review: "The film taught me a few things I didn't know about global climate change, but I was actually much more interested in what it had to say about Al Gore or rather, what Al had to say about himself and his 20-year crusade to convince America to accept climate change for what it is: a potentially civilization-ending crisis. ... But there is something tragic, even a little pathetic, about Gore's stubborn faith in the ability of facts and reasoned argument to save the world. The scenes of him schlepping through airports alone, laptop in hand, on his way to yet another city to show his slides to another room full of college students or environmental activists hit the edge of bathos. They make Al look too much like Willy Loman.

CLINTON: The UnCOLA

Lefty huh-zah's all around for Sen. Hillary Clinton's (D-NY) introduction of a bill linking congressional cost-of-living increases with a minimum-wage hike. TNR's Mike Crowley: "Politically, this is a great fight for Democrats: a Gingrichian, populist issue that can stoke anti-ruling party anger. On the other hand, the Abramoff-DeLay-Cunningham (and William Jefferson) scandals suggest to me that members of Congress and their aides should earn substantially more money so they're less susceptible to wining and dining and outright bribery. Pay-raise demagoguery hardly advances that cause. In this case, however, if it might help minimum-wage workers, I say it's worth it. P.S. Does Hillary's co-opting of a signature Feingold issue suggest she's taking him seriously as a 2008 primary opponent? I'm guessing so!"

TAPPED's Ezra Klein finds the policy behind the bill "nonsensical" but "as a political gambit, it's brilliant. It pits the sympathetic worker against the loathed congresscritter, underscores the Republican majority's reprehensible unwillingness to raise the wage above its current 50-year low, and will, by virtue of being a potent political club, make it easier to extract increases and maybe an eventual automatic mechanism in the minimum wage. It's good politics that could lead to good policy, and it's the sort of political savvy that Democrats need to display more often."

Not all is well for HRC in lefty blogland. Robert Weissman at The Huffington Post was not pleased with a Financial Times report on HRC's ties to Wall Street: "OK, let's concede that it's true that politicians in New York can't easily ignore Wall Street. This, however, is not that. ... this "cozying up" is about more than fundraising, too: It is to make sure that Wall Street understands that a Hillary Clinton administration would be their friend. In other words: A focus on deficit reduction over public investment in needed infrastructure and services. More corporate-friendly trade deals. No meaningful support for labor on issues that might affect labor-management power relations. An obsession with inflation at the expense of raising workers' wages. Tax policy that's gentle on the corporate bottom line."

WARNER: Let's Call It A Tie And Go Home

DailyKos' founder Markos Moulitsas highlights the neck and neck race between Atty. Bill Winter (D-CO 06) and John Courage (D-TX 21) for a $5,000 contribution from ex-VA Gov. Mark Warner's Forward Together PAC and urges his readers to vote and contribute.

Courage and Winter then teamed up for an open letter to Warner (posted at Burnt Orange Report and Square State) "formally requesting a visit from you--please come join us for a fundraiser in Texas for John Courage as well as one for Bill Winter in Colorado."

MCCAIN: On The Cover Of Teen Beat

On Call (go team!) excerpts Sen. John McCain's (R-AZ) upcoming Esquire profile sent conservative bloggers into a tizzy. RedState commenters used the opportunity to push their favorite alternative. Adjoran: "What this shows is that, more than anything else, McCain is concerned about Guiliani. He feels he can hold his own on the right against Rudy, and is anxious to fight for those voters he perceives as the Mayor's base. If he were more worried about Allen, say, he would be playing different cards." Oz: "This is the kind of thing that has me saving my pennies so that when 2008 rolls around I have $2000 to give IN THE PRIMARIES to Romney or some other conservative."

Evangelicals for Mitt didn't want to be left out: "That is apparently how our "friend" John McCain described folks like us to Esquire, whose forthcoming issue includes what promises to be a breathless, teenage girl-esque cover story on him. He also seems to think the the GOP of, well, Ronald Reagan, Chuck Colson, and George W. Bush is betraying the legacy of Lincoln and not being a "big tent."

CA GOV: One Out Of Two Dems Can't Be Wrong

DailyKos' founder Markos Moulitsas sees everything that is wrong with Dems at work in CA Gov: "This is what the slash and burn Democratic gubernatorial primary in California wrought. The California GOP is now running an ad that resurrects the entire quotes from Steve Westley's attack ads. The tagline? "Quotes from Democrat Steve Westley about Phil Angelides." The announcer signs off the ad, "What if Steve Westley was right?" It was so f****** obvious, and the reason I was turned off by the primary. They did the California GOP's dirty work for them. And did it better, and more effectively, than anything the Republicans could've ever put together on their own."

Meanwhile righties are in love with the Terminator's message discipline. NRO's John J. Pitney Jr. "On Thursday, Governor Schwarzenegger told the Sacramento Bee that new taxes are off the table: "I totally rule it out. I will not raise taxes." Now his campaign has a snappy new Internet ad making the point that Democratic opponent Phil Angelides will do the opposite."

KY GOV: Block This!

Gov. Ernie Fletcher critic BluegrassReport filed a federal lawsuit was filed in the Eastern District of Kentucky 7/10 over the recent targeting and censorship of BluegrassReport.org in the state capitol. The complaint does not seek monetary damages but does allege that the administration's actions are an infringement of rights under the 1st Amendment and Equal Protection Clause and asks that the government's ban of BluegrassReport.org be declared unconstitutional and access be restored. Bluegrass believes the issue "has significant national implications as it involves the unconstitutional efforts by government to discriminate against non-traditional media, like the blogs. In this case, the mainstream newspapers' websites were not blocked, but non-traditional media like mine were. They did so with no standards or policy guidelines in place and implemented in a non-sensical and arbitrary manner. This is fertile constitutional ground since the blogosphere is such a recent phenomenon, but the courts have already begun according blogs with media protections (as has the FEC) and historically are quite sensitive to targeting of non-traditional media, often comparing them to the early American pamphleteers."

GA LG: Clean, Old-Fashioned Hate

Conservative Tom Bevan at RCP Blog has a fantastic round-up of Ralph Reed (R)/Casey Cagle (R) GA AG developments including "a brass knuckle tough" Cagle new ad, equally tough Reed ads, links to a Zell Milleraudio of phone calls in support of Reed, and finally an Insider Advantage poll showing the race a dead heat.

SEN LANDSCAPE: Looking To '08 Already

DailyKos' founder Markos Moulitsas tells Kossacks they need six Senate seats to take over the Senate and breaks the possible pickups into three tiers:

Tier one
1. Pennsylvania
2. Montana
3. Missouri
4. Ohio
5. Rhode Island
Tier two
6. Virginia
7. Tennessee
Tier three
8. Arizona
9. Nevada

Kos goes on to handicap '08 Senate races including "Minnesota: Coleman (R) will get challenged by local-boy-done-good Al Franken."

PA-12: Swift Recap

The left's Taylor Marsh has a thorough study of GOP attacks on Rep. John Murtha (D) up at Patriot Project titled "The Swiftboating of John Murtha." Over at Marsh's regular home Dem activist Bob Geiger comments: "If you only have time to read one thing this week, Taylor's article has got to be it."

DEMS: It's The Ideas, Stupid

Kenneth Baer and Andrei Cherny write in the Los Angeles Times: "Americans are ready to listen to an alternative. Now is the moment for Democrats to offer a set of breakthrough ideas that will create a governing majority for a generation. But this will happen only if they are willing to be more than the railroad conductor making sure the trains run on time, and instead put America on a new and different track." Cherny follows up at Huffington Post. "The fact of the matter is that the biggest divide among Democrats today isn't between centrists or liberals, its between Democrats who want to put forward a big agenda to America and those who want to just slide by on the other guys mistakes. ... These Democrats are like the 98-pound weakling who lives in fear of the school bully. They will say anything to avoid being stuffed into a gym locker."

Matthew Yglesias: "When it first started, I thought the meta-debate over the need for big ideas was pretty fun. At this point, though, I'm prepared to surrender to the power of Baer and Cherney if they'll just tell me about an idea rather than an idea about the need for ideas." == Ezra Klein says the piece "makes me want to bang my head against a wall -- which isn't a new idea, but an old one that should probably be implemented more often. ... I'd prefer if Democrats hewed to economic theories that stuck reality rather than tried to conjure up some fresh paradigm just for the sake of it." == Ron Chusid at The Democratic Daily says Baer and Cherny "overemphasize the role of big ideas in the success of the Republicans. Rather than bringing them success, it is these big ideas which may cost the Republicans their majority."

Corrente: "This little exchange illustrates the division of the Left in 'merka (and in the blogosphere): liberals vs. progressives. On the Ezra Klein side, we have people content to say 'Vote democratic! We're not corrupt and incompetent like the Rethuglicans!'. ... But is running on competence and efficiency enough to win elections? The last two elections have proven otherwise."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: You're A Liberal If I Say You Are

Scott Winship at the new Democratic Strategist believes that "a lot of people really are liberal, but the term has been made into a dirty word by conservatives. If you ask people about their policy preferences and values, liberals would be in the majority." To back this claim up Winship looks at NES data from 2004 and weights "questions from the survey related to values and values-laden issues; foreign policy and national security; economic and social policy; and fiscal policy" so that he could determine how many voters were fake conservatives and really "operational liberals." Winship found:

"Based on my weighting scheme, the country is evenly split between operational liberals and conservatives. Adults are conservative on foreign policy and national security (52 to 48) and values (62 to 38), but liberal on economic/social policy (57 to 43) and fiscal policy (60 to 40). Consistent with the idea that liberal is a stigmatized word, just 56 percent of operational liberals self-identified as liberal, while 30 percent self-identified as conservative. In contrast, 79 percent of operational conservatives said they were conservative."

LEST WE FORGET: Pennsylvania Has A Bikini Team?

Admit it, if you were in Pittsburgh last night to celebrate the All-Star game you stopped by The All-Star Ball With The Cansecos! In case you weren't Deadspin reports that you missed a night with: "Jessica Canseco, Jose Canseco, two Playboy Playmates and the Pennsylvania bikini team. (That team is rife with roiders, by the way.)"