7/5: Daou's Early Returns?

The Blogometer can't remember the last time we read anything positive about Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) on DailyKos but barely two weeks into blog outreach director Peter Daou's tenure and already HRC is being praised as a model Dem. Some have pointed to pre-MSM reports of HRC's position from progressive firedoglake as proof of Daou's early influence on HRC. Now as talented as Daou is, nobody is suggesting he masterminded Sen. Joe Lieberman's blogger troubles just to benefit HRC, but if HRC's announcement was orchestrated by Daou, the episode does demonstrate what a value respected bloggers can be to a WH'08 candidate.

'Bastard', 'coward', and 'traitor' are just the reprintable names progressive bloggers hurled at Sen. Joe Lieberman (D) following his 7/3 announcement that he would be collecting signatures for an independent run should he lose the 8/8 Dem primary to cable co. exec. Ned Lamont (D).

The Left Coaster speculates that the 'Leaverman campaign has internal polling showing Lamont winning the Dem nod but not the general and concludes: "Joe had better hope that the Democrats don't retake the Senate anyway in 2006 or 2008, because if he jumps ship, wins his race, and sees the Dems win back the Senate anyway, he'll be on his own Joe-island." Meanwhile, My Left Nutmeg looks at CT election law and doubts Lieberman can get his 'independent Democrat' party designation on to the Nov. ballot: "Sec. 9-453u. (Formerly Sec. 9-378m). Reservation of party designation. ... (c) The statement shall include the party designation to be reserved which (1) shall consist of not more than three words and not more than twenty-five letters; (2) shall not incorporate the name of any major party"

From a parade in Willimantic, CT summer sojourner Jane Hamsher at firedoglake reports "people responded really enthusiastically to Ned, and Joe is increasingly becoming a state joke." Hamsher includes video of a popular Bush/Lieberman-kissing float. Crooks and Liars posts video and a transcript from Lieberman's 7/3 interview with John King on CNN. Matt Stoller at MyDD looks at pro-Lieberman op-eds in CT papers and notices "the messaging is subtly changing. Lieberman is having his surrogates talk about him as a JFK Democrat unafraid to use force, and the voice of the abandoned Democrats who left the party years ago because of liberal intolerance towards the 'middle' of the country. ...I think Lieberman's making a last ditch effort to threaten the party base with electoral disaster if they don't pick him. This Thursday is the first debate, and we'll see what happens then. These Op-Eds though read to me like they are targeted at independent voters, not Democrats. I mean, if you were going to pander to independent voters in Connecticut, you'd probably talk about excessive partisanship and how the Democratic Party abandoned independent voters."

The unofficial Lamont Blog wondered how other Dems would react to the news: "In addition, Joe has just created a world of [stuff] for his supposed friends Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer, Chris Dodd, Diane Farrell, Joe Courtney, and Chris Murphy. I wonder what they all think of this. This is how he treats his friends. This is how he treats his party." Fellow progressive The Agonist described the events as "Schumer's nightmare scenario," and threatens: " The DSCC will take a big fundraising hit and one day soon he may find himself facing a primary challenge. He's in a safe Democratic seat - it doesn't need to be held by someone like him - and he made a big mistake when he messed around with Spitzer."

Dem activist Chris Bowers at MyDD echoes possible trouble for the DSCC: "If the DSCC backs anyone except the Democratic nominee, they better be prepared for real consequences. Do not abandon your own party and break your own rules and then expect the plebs who have been playing by those rules to sit quietly and accept it." Populist David Sirota urges readers to stop the DSCC before they make a mistake: "It's time to take action. Call the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee at 202-224-2447 or email them here. Tell the party's insiders in Washington that they should issue an official statement immediately promising to uphold their own mission statement, back Connecticut's Democratic Senate nominee and not back someone who, after losing a Democratic Party primary, would leave the Democratic Party in order to cling to power."

DailyKos' founder Markos Moulitsas highlights reports from a My Left Nutmeg commenter reporting Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) still supports Lieberman and concludes: "Message to Dodd -- Democratic primary voters like to support loyal Democrats. Looks like you just failed that very, very simply litmus test."

Not everyone on the left had unkind words for Lieberman. At TPM CafeReed Hundt writes: "Senator Lieberman has every right to become an independent. When Senator Jeffords did so in 2001 he was hailed by the left for his principles. When Senator Shelby left the Democrats in 1993, it only made sense for his constituents and himself." No stranger to progressive blogger scorn, the DLC's Bull Moose 'salutes' Lieberman and worries what the primary fight means for Dems everywhere: "By collecting signatures to run as an independent and a Democrat, Joe is sending the message that a narrow slice of the electorate and a left wing ideological cabal are not going to decide who is going to be representing the state in the U.S. Senate. But, the national Democratic Party should be deeply concerned. An organized national campaign is now underway to purge the party of centrist hawks. Howard Dean did not win the party's nomination, but the Deaniacs, kossacks and the MoveOn crowd are in the ascendancy - for the moment. And that fact should make the Republicans gleeful."

Lieberman's announcement and the subsequent lefty blogger reaction did not go unnoticed by the opposition. Right of center Ann Althouse notes lefty use of the 'Sore Loserman' tag and asks: "Isn't it strange to see Democrats cursing him with the very wordplay that drove them up the wall in 2000?" The conservative Captain's Quarters looks at current and past Poole analyses showing Lieberman "at almost the dead center" of the Dem caucasus and concludes: "If the netroots think that Lieberman has moved outside of the base, perhaps that reflects more on their perspective than on the reality of Lieberman's performance."

A full day before the APreported that Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) would not support Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT) Jane Hamsher at firedoglake blogged: "sources say that Hillary Clinton believes that it's important to respect the will of Connecticut voters and that she will commit to support the Democratic candidate - whoever that is - in November." This led mcjoan at DailyKos to speculate: "Hmmmm, I wonder if Peter Daou had anything to do with this? Now this is how a Democratic Senator should respond to this race."

For the first time in recent memory HRC praise emerged other progressive blogger sources:

• Matt Stoller at MyDD: "Senator Clinton has a good heart ... She is a good Democrat who wants to see Democrats take control, and doesn't understand why going to war in Iraq based on lies is problematic and triangulating on contraception is bad."
• Atrios: "Good for Clinton. Ideally leading Democrats would be rather repulsed by Lieberman's "have it both ways" strategy, but I recognize that right or wrong supporting incumbents is so ingrained in Washington culture that it's almost impossible to dislodge. Given that, this rather unequivocal statement by Clinton is quite refreshing."
• David Sirota: "She should get a lot of credit for coming out and making this announcement. Yes, I know - it is a pretty low bar to give Democratic Senators credit for saying they will support the Democratic Party Senate nominees. But the dynamic of this race is shaping up to be the Washington Establishment vs. The Rest of Us and Clinton is firmly taking the side of The Rest of Us."
• Upper Left: "Probably the most significant non-monetary contribution a Clinton has ever made to building the Democratic Party. Small penance for the substantial damage of Clintonism, perhaps, but an important, and, frankly, bold move by Hillary."

While pleased with HRC's Lieberman announcement, Atrios was not happy with a 7/2 James Carville and Mark Penn WaPo pro-HRC op-ed that failed to disclose Penn's current status as HRC's "chief strategist." Atrios writes: "The worst thing that could ever happen in the world, according to many Beltway types, is that a blogger could be paid by a campaign and not disclose it. Of course, paid consultants/strategists appearing in the media without fully disclosing their client lists is something which happens all the time. For the record I'm for disclosing such arrangements, I'm just tired of bloggers being held to a standard which doesn't apply anywhere else in the universe."

Ryan Sager at conservative hang-out RCP Blog points to a RedState online poll asking "whom people would support if the primary came down to Rudy v. McCain." Sager explains how unscientific these polls are but admits "informal polls do represent the self-selected, politically active types." When Sager last looked Giuliani was up 815 to 18%. The unofficial Giuliani Blog looks at the same poll and argues: "It might sound counterintuitive as all hades, but conservatives are much more likely to support Rudy if it comes down to these two men. It all comes down to the fact that, no matter what the issues are, conservatives simply cannot bring themselves to trust John McCain. No amount of insidery game playing by McCain's staff will be able to fix this."

Alex Massie at left-leaning The Plank believes an '06 GOP debacle would provide the best set up for an '08 Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) run: "Despite his trenchant support for the war and his general foreign policy hawkishness few of the other leading Republican candidates save Giuliani and, to a lesser extent, Romney can offer a break with Bushism and a new direction for the GOP. Which in turn means that the bleaker things are for Republicans and the more dissatisfied the electorate seems with Bush's GOP then the easier it will be for McCain to present himself as an important type of Republican--the kind that can still win."

Tom Bevan at the conservative RCP Blog questions MA GOV Mitt Romney's (R) strategy for wooing southern evangelicals: "By positioning himself as a social conservative and wooing evangelicals this way, Romney forecloses the option of defusing the faith issue with a JFK-style pronouncement that it won't affect his politics. ... Romney is trying to win over voters who explicitly want a candidate's faith to be part of what drives their policy decision-making, so he is inevitably going to have to deal with some hard questions about his religion. ... Romney's plan is to try and minimize any detailed discussion about the peculiarities of his faith and also try to minimize the extent to which the issue will hurt him in the South by winning early contests. Part of this strategy relies on Michigan moving up the date of its primary to coincide with South Carolina and also possibly closing it to independents, giving Romney a potentially decisive boost against McCain. ... Though I remain skeptical of Romney's chances I will say this: he's very impressive in person and can be very persuasive. If anyone has a chance of clearing the Mormon hurdle, Romney is as good a bet as you're likely to find.

Greg Pollowitz at the conservative NRO wonders if ex-Navy Sec. James Webb thought his 6/30 Dem weekly radio address through: "He brings up Truman and how it took Republican Dwight Eisenhower to "bring the Korean War to an early and honorable end." ... Webb is comparing himself, and the Democratic Party, to Dwight Eisenhower and at the same time, calling Harry Truman a failure. ... Now, back in 1952, Truman decided not to run again, although he was able to, because of extremely low poll numbers. Eisenhower went on to crush Adlai Stevenson in anything but a normal election for the Democrats. What's funny is that since 1952, Truman has enjoyed somewhat of a bounce in his popularity. ... o what is Webb actually saying here? Bush is as incompetent as Truman in '52? I hope that's what he means. Following Webb's analogy, Bush will be remembered as one of the greatest Presidents of all time."

Right of center Kausfiles looks at seemingly contradictory results and spin from CA-50 and UT-03 and sees similarities to the '96 welfare debate: "Brian Bilbray ran on a platform of opposition to illegal immigration. Meanwhile, Chris Cannon ... also ran on a platform of opposition to illegal immigration. ... It's all eerily reminiscent of the welfare debate, in which anti-welfare candidates sincerely bashed welfare and pro-welfare candidates insincerely bashed welfare. We know how that turned out. This could be why House Republicans don't seem to be interpreting Cannon's win as a reason to abandon their enforcement-only position. It's also why, when you encounter the quotes from Democratic leaders in WaPo (Sample: "Republicans want to use this like Willie Horton in 1988 and gay marriage in 2004" -- Sen. Schumer) you can smell their fear."

Right Wing News published the results of their email poll of 225 righty bloggers. Highlights include:

• Do you believe that if the Federal Government cracks down on businesses hiring illegal immigrants and makes it very difficult for "undocumented workers" to get a job, that the vast majority of illegals currently in the United States will self-deport? A) No (31% -- 15) B) Yes (69% -- 34)
• Would you support a proposal to ban immigrants caught in the United States illegally or trying to enter the United States illegally from ever becoming citizens of the US or being part of a guest worker program? A) No (34% -- 17) B) Yes (66% -- 33)
• Currently, babies born to illegal immigrants in the United States automatically become US citizens. Would you prefer to see that practice stopped or continued? A) I'd prefer to see babies born to illegal immigrants in the US automatically become American citizens. (12% -- 6) B) I'd prefer that babies born to illegal immigrants in the US not be given automatic citizenship. (88% -- 43)

TPM Muckraker follows up on a 7/3 Roll Call story detailing the timing of Jack Abramoff charity Capital Athletic Foundation payments to Rep. John Doolittle's (R-CA-04) wife Julie. TPMM explains: "One of our favorite aspects of the Jack Abramoff investigation is "the Wives Club," as investigators call them -- the klatsch of wives who picked up checks for their powerful lobbyist and lawmaker husbands so they never appeared to be holding the bag. ... The timing of those payments just happen to coincide with John Doolittle (avowedly anti-gambling) providing a couple favors for Abramoff's tribal clients. It's the starkest evidence yet of a quid pro quo between Abramoff and Doolittle."

YouTube fan James Kelm wonders what effect the site will have on WH'08: "While on one hand internet video could be employed as an effective communications tool, on the other hand it could be a threat to those who ignore it. Few would argue that John Kerry's "I voted for the amendment before I voted against it" quote did not play an important role in the past presidential election. Traditionally candidates have faced opposition campaigns which, at best, deployed a small number of operatives to monitor their opponents' media appearances. In the near future, candidates will have to learn to perform in an environment where the opposition could have a million eyes and ears. A misstep could easily be recorded on camera or phone, uploaded by Joe User, amplified by bloggers, then repeated by the mainstream media in a matter of hours. Think of it as 'The War Room' meets Web 2.0."

Kelm also has questions for the FCC: "How (or if) does McCain-Feingold campaign reform legislation apply to internet video? Will the advent of free speech in the form of internet video postings be restricted? How would the courts view videos spread virally to thousands (or millions) of viewers shortly before an election? To the extent that internet video lowers the cost for a group to release messages and content, is the "Swiftboat Veterans for Truth" an indicator of where campaigns are headed?"

Yourish.com pokes fun at Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) with a PowerPoint presentation featuring quotes from Stevens' now infamous "the internet is a series of tubes" speech.