Friday, August 04, 2006

It's all over in Connecticut...   [Rich Lowry]

...for Lieberman, at least according to his own supporters. The wipe-out could be so over-whelming that it calls into doubt his ability to win as an independent in the general election, as Dan Balz mentioned today. One Lieberman supporter was just telling me, "He needs to hire some adults who focus the campaign on telling people who Joe Lieberman is; freeing Lieberman to make criticisms of Bush's handling of the war; and knowing how to go on the attack against the opposition." This supporter was scathing about the Lieberman team's primary campaign: "It was not a campaign until the last month or so." But even a better campaign probably wouldn't have made a difference: "The serious question is, Would it have mattered, and the answer is 'no.' No matter who he brought in, he wasn't going to overcome the outrage over the war, and Lebanon made it worse....Unless you're in direct contact with people angry at the war, you don't understand how everything is blamed on Bush....The reason Lieberman is going to lose, even though Clinton came in for him, is the explosion of Lebanon reminded people of this mess in the Middle East, and Joe says we're making progress. It focused people even more on George Bush and the mess he made." This supporter doesn't doubt that Lieberman will run as an independent, but his chances will be heavily influenced by his posture Tuesday night—he has to seem a happy warrior, and still handle himself as Connecticut's senator....

08/04 06:01 PMShare