Pretty Lame Ad

I first read about Lieberman's ad on Talking Points Memo. I've also got to wonder what's on his campaign manager's mind. Lieberman beat Lowell Weicker for the Senate 18 years ago. Younger Democratic primary voters are probably too young to remember much about Weicker, or the issues that animated that particular race; and for older ones the memories of the Lieberman/Weicker race are less present in their minds than is the war in Iraq or the Liberman/Bush televised kiss.

Now it's possible that Lieberman knows his territory better than I do, and that Lowell Weicker remains some sort of bogeyman in the minds of Connecticut Democrats; but I don't see that. Indeed, though I'm sometimes wary of Wikipedia's information, their article on Weicker does fit with what I remember reading about the man in the old days. If anyone would see him as an ogre whose influence in Connectitcut politics should be eliminated, it would be hardcore anti-tax conservatives. Unfortunately for Lieberman, few of them vote in the Democratic primary.

Besides, just how firm is the connection between Weicker and Lamont? Yes, Weicker endorsed Lamont against Lieberman, but Weicker also endorsed Howard Dean against Lieberman. Does that mean that Howard Dean is also one of Weicker's bear cubs? Weicker also endorsed Bill Bradley over Al Gore in 2000. What does that suggest about Bill Bradley's connection to Lowell Weicker? Certainly Ned Lamont and Lowell Weicker share a distate for Joe Lieberman, but that doesn't imply mentorship.

In the end, what's more likely, that two left-leaning politicians of different generations happen to share a dislike for a more conservative incumbent; or that Lowell Weicker has been secretly grooming Ned Lamont for years, all the while nursing his hatred and plotting his revenge against the White Whale Lieberman, until finally Weicker decided the time was ripe and struck?

Lieberman probably believes the latter. Then again, Lieberman believes a lot of weird things politically, which is why he's in trouble now.

I can use the same sort of rhetorical tactic Lieberman uses in his commercial against Lieberman, by the by. Once upon a time, the National Review endorsed Joe Lieberman, and this year so did Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly. Does that mean that Lieberman belongs to William F. Buckley and the No Spin Zone? Well...possibly yes. Certainly, Lieberman's behavior gives us Democrats reason to wonder. But instead let's give him the benefit of the doubt: though Lieberman and Sean Hannity share a disdain for Ned Lamont in particular and liberals in general, one is not necessarily the mentor of the other. In that sense, Lieberman and Lamont are in the same boat.

Well, not quite. I don't think Democratic primary voters hate Lowell Weicker nearly as much as they hate Sean Hannity (though again, maybe Joe Lieberman knows them better than I do). And in this race, it's Democratic primary voters who count. It seems to me that this ad, far from hurting Ned Lamont, actually raises a lot of questions about Joe Lieberman that he'd rather not have out there. Does Lieberman really think (or expect voters to believe) this is all a Lowell Weicker plot? Does Lieberman actually want to get into a conversation about who endorsed whom? Does Lieberman really think that condescending to, and insulting the intelligence of, Democratic primary voters is a good strategy in a Democratic primary?