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.

Comments

[Tim Cavanaugh]

Alan Schlesinger himself told Matt Stoller and I he believed...

Kids, grammar is best left to trained professionals. This is the kind of thing that can result if you try it at home.

[jkp]

Honestly, other than for historical interest, who cares? This reads like the whining that it is. Other than DP partisans, who cares if the GOP cut a deal with Joe? And Barack's failure to go down with the sinking Lamont seems to me more like basic common sense.

Finally, I don't know which is more pathetic -- that the Democratic Party leadership still treats Ted Kennedy as someone with any moral weight...or that Massachusetts keeps re-electing the buffoon.

[ttagaris]

I'm certain there are many more spelling/grammar errors. Let's see if you can catch them all! Sounds like fun.

Tim (the author)

[Bill]

"Kids, grammar is best left to trained professionals. This is the kind of thing that can result if you try it at home."

yawn

[Tom]

Nothing wrong with calling out bad grammar. A penchant for sloppy writing reveals a penchant for sloppy thinking.

[Madog]

I've always felt that too good grammer was a sign that the author cared more about form than content. Like English teachers...

[Geoff]

Funny how people keep repeating this as if it were so obviously true as to require no evidence at all. Try this out for size:
A penchant for sloppy dress reveals a penchant for sloppy thinking.
Much of what distinguishes good from bad grammar is of equal moral and intellectual weight to what distinguishes appropriate vs. inappropriate dress. It's no more morally reprehensible to wear a t-shirt to the Opera than it is to wear a tux to a barbeque. And the same is true for verb agreement, preposition government and all the rest of it. It may make a social statement, but does not necessarily constitute a proxy for an IQ test.
Reference: any introductory Linguistics text.

[Eric Dondero]

What's the big deal about this article? I fail to see how this is newsy. Backroom dealing in politics? What else is new?

And let's not forget Lamont slammed Lieberman for supporting Tax cuts, school choice, privatization of Social Security and ending Affirmative action.

And some libertarians want to work with leftist Democrats? Go figure??

[B.P.]

Why, this is so outrageous that...hmmm...bad grammar.

[TeenWolf]

"It may make a social statement, but does not necessarily constitute a proxy for an IQ test."

I IQ testes in the 99th pecentile but even so, I writes most sloppily most of the times I write things and stuff, usually.

[Ironchef]

DailyKos peaked when Lamont won the primary.

Like Malkin's blog (whom I've never heard of until they became fodder here - just like Kos) & The Corner, these hyper-partisan, hate-spewing echo-chambers will fade into irrelevance soon enough.

[too many steves]

Personally, I hold that fixation on issues of grammar and spelling betrays a certain obsequiousness on the part of the complaining party.

Now, as to the content of the complaint: are they really surprised that politicians and political parties behaved politically?

[Steven Andrew Miller]

David Weigel reads DailyKos so I don't have to.

[James Kabala]

Using "I" as an object ususally shows the writer is making a futile attempt to sound high-toned. The writer is vaguely aware that "It is I" is technically correct rather than "It is me," and so he concludes that "I" is always more fancy and correct than "me" regardless of the context. Therefore, while I would never call someone out for most grammar mistakes, people who do this can never be made fun of enough.

[Andrew Ian Dodge]

It does read like whingeing...and political parties co-operating for mutual gain wow what a novel concept. Is this guy that politically naive?

[Robert Goodman]

Here in NY a fusion ticket of candidates in different parties is often put together and advertised before the primaries.