LIEBERMAN-LAMONT LOCKDOWN: NED NETS NUMBERS ON NET, JILTLED JOE JUST JIBBER JABBERS

So: Ned Lamont pulled ahead of Joe Lieberman in the Connecticut Democratic Senatorial Primary polls this week, making his run for office the first in what I hope will be a number of long-shot Democrat Cinderella stories of the coming election cycle. The switchboards are all abuzz and the bloggers are all aflutter with talk of the surging viability of netroots and how the digital realm carries some serious analog force. And the misty-eyed sky gazers among us can say that it looks, for now, like the Democrats may actually have gotten their groove back.

I like Ned Lamont for what little I know about him, that being that he is against the War in Iraq. More to the point, I like the spirit of his campaign. The changing dynamics of fundraising, advertising, and media coverage brought on by the internet have begun to crumble the wall surrounding politics and Lamont’s campaign is a solid example.

Lamont is not exactly a poster child for web populism – he wasn’t cobbling shoes before entering politics, and he didn’t step up because old ladies were getting rolled on his block. He is, like so many office seekers, in media ownership (arguably another dynamic altered by the internet), and is worth millions from both his financial ventures and his family. This guy is J.P. Morgan stock; his teenage kids are worth something like $11 million. Despite that, the Lamont campaign demonstrates that web action is no longer a fringe activity, and that its proprietors are no longer destined for the legitimacy burnout of Dean 04.

What makes these changes in the landscape most interesting is their effect on other aspects of more traditional campaigning. With the media pie being sliced into smaller portions, unbeatable outlets like television are slowly losing prominence. TV advertising is not antiquated, but the shift has left it as less of a factor. Additionally, there is plenty of free coverage coming in the form of news stories about the use of new technologies.

We can see proof positive today in the Massachusetts Democratic gubernatorial primary race. An early July poll showed long-shot candidate Deval Patrick taking a substantial lead over his better-known opponents – both of whom rolled out strong TV ad buys for the last weeks of July and early August. Millions of dollars of television ads later, the second and third runners are still second and third, and the only changes occurred within the statistical margin of error, meaning that there is a possibility that numbers 2 and 3 just traded their cows for some magic beans.

Which brings me to another heartening point: Grassroots campaigning has been granted a renewed importance. Because the game is no longer simply one of name recognition, traveling a state can accrue the right candidate enormous dividends. However, this only happens when the candidate is willing to be inspiring and persuasive. Not the kind of thing you get from guys like Lieberman.

Back in Connecticut, Mumbly Joe pulled his own Stupid Campaign Trick this week, playing the old My Opponent Is Too Rich To Understand The Public card. This, to me, is one of the sillier moves to make. Conventional wisdom says that very few people really care how much money a candidate has, and unless Lamont starts outfitting himself in bling, it is unlikely that anyone will even notice. Our two-term president is testament to the fact that acting like po’ folks is perfectly easy, even if you are lousy with wealth from guns, grease and Nazi gold.

Lieberman should be out. He is the typical milquetoast Democrat who claims backbone by pandering to conservative views and calling it independent thinking. It is the failing strategy of the last two decades, the attempt to court swing voters without understanding that swing voters aren’t asking to be appeased, they are asking to be swung.

This methodology has also resulted in my least favorite political trope since the good old Communist witch hunt: the “flip-flopper” charge. This is a bullshit appellation applied when Dems constantly equivocate about issues. So now we have to put up with that.

I am happy to see a shift in the discourse, despite my concern over the glee in taking down of a fellow Democrat. Joe Lieberman is a decent person, and, I guess, a fine politician for a different age, but his time is gone. I wish him plenty of [Joe Lieberman looks like Falcor the] luck [dragon] in the future.