<p>And that would be a safety. Two points!</p>
<p>“Has anybody here seen my good friend, Joe Lieberman?
Can you tell me where he’s gone…”</p>
<p>He’s decided to serve the people, not the party</p>
<p>And when Lamont looses, his biggest problem will be deciding which one of his dozens of cars to drive off the cliff, as his driver won’t be willing to do it for him.</p>
<p>"you sound like some guy who has been couped [sic] up into [sic] a faculty position for far too long.</p>
<p>Like the guy said in Ghostbusters: I’ve been in the private sector. They expect results."</p>
<p>Ugh, this tripe again? Try getting tenure without results. Then, try to get the best promotions and raises–determined by deans and department chairs according to merit–without being an effective teacher and researcher.</p>
<p>take a joke spoonyj, considering Lamont’s canidacy is a joke. The Ghostbuster’s reerence should have been a clue</p>
<p>Sorry. Didn’t realize your comment was a benevolent aside intended only to make you and TD smile and feel warm inside. I’ll have to bone up on magnanimous gestures.</p>
<p>since when was i with TD?</p>
<p>
Someone really got up on the wrong side of the bed today.</p>
<p>Sometimes when people get up out of bed (right side or wrong side) and they sit down at their computer, they’re still a little groggy. They think that they clicked on Democratic Underground or daily kos or huffington post when they’ve actually clicked on college confidential. So the Bush Derangement Syndrome that can be witnessed on every post at those websites accidentally gets posted at college confidential. When they realize their mistake, they go to the comforts of DU or kos where they can communicate with others who express themselves exactly as they do. There are usually lots of references to chimps and national socialists…all good natured, of course.</p>
<p>You know, if you try to sit in the asile, as Liberman is now trying to do, the blue-blooded big wigs of both party wil only complain that you’re in their way</p>
<p>When partisans start lecturing the other side about the virtues of moderation, I know I’ve come to the right place.</p>
<p>Lamont won because the climate was right and all the elements were there - He ran against a candidate who had aligned himself with the Bush administration in more ways than the war. Lamont is a good candidate - honest, hard working, passionate and yes, blessed with money. I also like to think his ad campaign helped but I’m biased. It got a lot of notice in the national media as well as on Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.</p>
<p>For the record, Lieberman outspent Lamont and the trouble with Lieberman’s website was of his own doing - not large enough to support a campaign that was getting national media attention.</p>
<p>My own very humble but quite intuitive feeling is that their will be a change in November - maybe larger than Republicans expect. In my own borderline blue state in the Midwest, I’ve seen a dramatic change of opinion in the last 9 months and it is not just about Iraq. My H rode across Iowa this summer on RAGBRAI and was surprised at the change in attitudes from a year ago - this is a ride that goes through small towns of Iowa but attracts cyclists from across the country so there is a mix of people. My H was struck by Bush voters who are angry with this administration and plan on making themselves heard through their vote in November.</p>
<p>The bicyclist poll? Please. They’re all pumped up on artificial testosterone, their tight little pants cut off the blood flow to their brains, they marry female rock singers, and so on. C’mon. Not a real harbinger.</p>
<p>But do you think Lamont will beat Liberman in november? After all, only 1/6th of conneticut voters voted in the primary</p>
<p>Oh, there was going to be great change in 2004, too. They were going to “re-defeat” Bush, remember? Oh yes, the bloggers were absolutely positive. Two words to remember: Flyover Country. What makes our nation great.</p>
<p>Liberman should have switched spots with Gore in 2000. Then we wouldn’t even be taling about this, as he would be in the white house</p>
<p>One-party state, here we come!</p>
<p>Driver, for what it’s worth, I thought the election was going to be close in 2004 and once I saw the swiftboat ads, I had a good feeling Kerry wouldn’t win. I also don’t recall any bloggers being sure of a victory in 2004. </p>
<p>You missed the point about the bike ride but never mind. Republicans are out of touch and I’d like to see it remain that way.</p>
<p>Actually, the people who saw the exit polls (the campains, news agencies, and some people who put them on the internet), were very sure kerry would win, as the exit polls impiled that. So much for exit polls. At least Gore came close.</p>
<p>Rassmussen, a Republican polling firm, has the polling numbers for Connecticut: Lieberman 46, Lamont 41, Schlesinger 6(!). Most Republicans are going to Lieberman as their only hope. However, this snapshot in time is before the Connecticut Democratic party machinery, which had supported Lieberman and now campaign for Lamont, and the figures of the national Democratic Establishment, the overwhelming numbers of which supported Lieberman and now have come on board for Lamont, start to have their effect. I’ll stick with my prediction: Lieberman is toast.</p>
<p>Brownie, if you think I’m in the Progressive end zone, you’re woefully ignorant. I nod more to Hamilton than Jefferson and I’m a pro-military internationalist, fiscal moderate-to-conservative (to the Right of this Republican Congress). I accept that 1/5 of the country is still enthusiastic about Bush. But more than twice that number Strongly Disapprove. (43-19 in is the number I remember from my last look at Rassmussen.) Strongly Disapprove: loathe, despise, view with contempt. Attitudes like mine aren’t fringe; some of us are just a little more vocal than others.</p>
<p>Liz, Kerry not responding to the Swift Boat ads for three weeks was a kiss of death. (And Bob Shrum should never be hired by any Democratic pol again.) As was his convention focusing only on Vietnam…if that was undermined, there were no other supports for his candidacy that had been put in place at the time they should have been. As was not making a clear response to the “I voted for it before I voted against it” attack. [It was perfectly clear that he had voted in favor before the Republicans loaded the bill up with unacceptable poison bills that he couldn’t vote for. A dirty legislative practiced by both sides but opaque to the average voter, thus making Kerry look spineless instead of principled and caught in a GOP manipulation.] As was Kerry’s decision not to attack Bush during the Democratic convention. [Another Shrum-based decision…Rove & Co. certainly had no reciprocal compunctions. A tactical decision based on focus group. Feh.]</p>
<p>B2Man, actually the exit polls were pretty accurate. What people were responding to early was raw data, unweighted and unanalyzed. </p>
<p>Driver, of the last 14 polls taken in the final days of the campaign, Kerry led in 2 (by 1-2 points), 2 were tied, and 10 showed Bush leading by 1-6 points.<br>
<a href=“http://www.realclearpolitics.com/bush_vs_kerry.html[/url]”>http://www.realclearpolitics.com/bush_vs_kerry.html</a></p>
<p>With respect to the Electoral College, it always going to come down to Ohio or Florida. I thought we were going to get Ohio. We didn’t. But while I don’t go quite as far as some of brethren and cistern in accusing fraud, there was certainly a lot to be concerned about. Starting with the fact that many Democratic-leaning minority-majority precincts had an inadequate number of, or broken, voting machines that caused hours-long lines, which in turn suppressed turnout by discouraging voters. Nasty little voter suppression tactics, as practiced in Florida, in purging thousands of voters from the rolls because their names matched those of felons…without taking the slightest step to confirm that the individuals were the same individual. [Voting fraud…a problem that seems to be on the order of single or double digits per state…is something that Republicans would rather disenfranchise a thousand eligible voters than allow one case of potential fraud to happen.] And then there are the voting machines themselves. I don’t see how anyone can object to voting machines being required to produce and auditable paper trail…but Republicans balk and obstruct at almost every attempt, making even the non-paranoid wonder “Why?”</p>
<p>ZM: if you think Bush has been compromising, then don’t whine when an equal amount of compromise is extended in your direction when the tables eventually turn. Bush’s words on virtually every issue are “Al Qaeda” and “war on terrorism,” whether it’s Iraq, the Patriot Act, drilling in ANWR, the budget, etc. etc. etc. and then demonizing opponents by calling them unpatriotic. He wins a narrow election and then claims a mandate, governing as if he had won by 20 points. What goes around comes around and most of us are in no mood to play “nice” when the tables do turn; Bush has forfeited any right you have to expect so.</p>
<p>Driver, please continue to be serene about this November. I assure you that the Republican mugwumps in Washington are not. Bush’s popularity has been very steady for months, not being able to crack 40 percent. I think the permanent damage was done when his “trustworthy” numbers caved early last year. Litmus indicators such as right track/wrong track and which party do you prefer to control Congress have all consistently been bad for the GOP and some declining even more. For individual Republican House/Senate/Governors races, the trends are even worse. In Congressional Quarterly’s most recent batch of updates, 13 of the 15 changes were in the Democrats favor. The House seats in play are heavily on Republican territory, by a margin of about 4-1. But take comfort in your bubble. Maybe rent “Tora! Tora! Tora!” for relaxation.</p>