Lieberdammerung
During the 2004 and 2006 campaigns, blogger Tim Tagaris built up a reputation on Daily Kos for dishing all the latest news from the campaigns he was working on. From a long-shot House candidate to Bob Casey's liberal challenger to the DNC, Tagaris was snapped up by the Ned Lamont team. Today, as Lieberman continues his 10-mile victory lap around DC, Lamont's blogger-in-chief tells all.
In the days following Joe Lieberman's declaration that he would run as an "independent Democrat" if necessary, activity within the CT Republican Party began to increase as well. Alan Schlesinger himself told Matt Stoller and I he believed a deal was cut between Lieberman and the state Republican Party. Accounts by GOP-insider and outright hack Kevin Rennie seem to validate that claim:
Advisors close to Republican governor Jodi Rell, who tried to get Schlesinger off the ticket last week, are scheming to give Lieberman a safe harbor on the GOP line in exchange for adding his drawing power to what they hope will be Rell's. The potent combination would help three Republican congressmen, constitutional office candidates and some legislative hopefuls.Indeed, in eighteen days between Joe's announcement and the 21st of the same month, all kinds of opposition research was dumped into the hands of press across the state about Alan Schlesinger. Sources close to Republican Kevin Rennie often signaled the release of "new information" that was supposed to doom Alan's campaign. Next thing you know, the Republican Governor and State Party Chair essentially calling for Schlesinger to drop his bid. There were many wild cards in this election, but the one spoke about most often was Alan's ability to drain votes from Joe …
So what was the deal? Schlesinger himself believed it had to do with messaging and GOTV. Indeed, the Governor Rell, Rob Simmons, Chris Shays, Rob Simmons and Nancy Johnson all started running on similar themes of "reaching across the aisle." A few of them shared phrases like "Team Connecticut." They also shared pollsters who tested messaging … Joe also campaigned with both Simmons and Johnson, then wouldn't say who he was voting for in the governor's race a few days after declaring he "hadn't thought" much about what party was better off controlling the House of Representatives. Finally, as everyone knew would happen, Joe received around 70% of the Republican vote, and his field effort focused on bringing his base out to the polls, helping the Republican governor and all three incumbents in hot races.
There's much more, including exposes of the opportunism of Barack Obama and the hackishness of the Associated Press.