Remember this, from two years ago today?

We beat Joe Lieberman two years ago today and in the process changed how we talked about the Iraq War and the entire narrative for the 2006 elections. More than anything, Ned Lamont's win over Joe Lieberman on August 8, 2006 proved the value of primaries.

It isolated and marginalized Joe Lieberman. Sure, he snowed the people of Connecticut into voting for him one last time by telling them he'd seen the light, that he was ready to get us out of Iraq. And you can bet that the people of Connecticut won't be making the same mistake again. But we succeeded in driving him from the party, and in the process, showed what a committed progressive grassroots and netroots community could do to shape an election.

It's also the promise of what we will do in 2010. But in the meantime, here's a little reminder of what was.

Research 2000 for Daily Kos. 6/30-7/2. Likely voters. MoE 4% (3/31-4/2 results)

Independents disapprove of George Bush 14/86, so that has a clear effect on Lieberman's approval ratings. He is even less popular with Democrats while more Independents now disapprove of his performance than approve. While Lieberman's approval ratings continue to fall, the matchups with Lamont were largely unaffected compared to a couple of months ago.

Other findings from the poll -- Obama crushes McCain 57-35 in Connecticut, and Lieberman would actually hurt McCain on the ticket in the state. Let's hope McCain picks him.

My biggest fear is that Lieberman retires in 2012. I want him defeated at the ballot box. And until then, this poll, along with yesterday's Q-poll, should go a long way toward dispelling the notion that Lieberman is popular. His loving embrace of Bush and McCain, along with his rabid warmongering, have definitely killed his support at home.

Full crosstabs can be found below the fold.

In November 2006, Tim Tagaris wrote a post mortem about what went wrong with the Ned Lamont campaign. From that post:

Barack Obama

Quite possibly the biggest disappointment ... period.

While on his book tour, he was in NYC one day, had a scheduled day off, and appeared in Massachusetts the following day.  Yet he couldn't make time to stop in the state between the two on his day off.  We made it explicitly clear he was the single senator we wanted in the state above all others.

He declined.

Eventually, we asked Senator Obama to send out an email for the campaign to his Connecticut list.  We created a culture in which emails became news (much like we did with the blogs in the primary).  They made it entirely clear that he would basically not even mention Joe Lieberman's name in the email, let alone take him to task for his unfortunate position on the war in Iraq.  This was disappointing, but I wasn't going to be spiteful.  They sent the email, and as I hoped, the press came calling.  Our Press Secretary, Eddie Vale, was asked how many people the email went to.  He looked on the back-end of the website and saw the number of click-throughs to the landing page I created.  He answered "about 5,000."  Within minutes of the Associated Press piece going on the wire, I received several phone calls from Obama staff.  They were none to pleased about the 5,000 number.  Essentially, Obama could be seen as helping, but not helping THAT much.  His staff apparently made it clear that the email only went out to 225 people in Connecticut.  That's it.  The next day we were subject to a correction in the papers and ridicule from Lieberman's campaign and corners of the right-wing blogosphere.

It's also important to note that Obama's email came only after a tremendous amount of pressure built up from portions of various online communities who "threatened" in behind-the-scenes conversations and open discussions online that support for Lamont would be viewed as a part of a "presidential checklist."

Everyone should also know that Robert Gibbs, part of the group that ran the infamous Dean/Osama ad during Iowa 2004, is now Barack Obama's Communications Director.

So why were there 5,000 clickthroughs? Because Atrios got a copy of the email and linked to the landing page, inflating the number of people who saw that page. Obama was pressured into "helping" Ned Lamont, but that help took the form of an email sent to a piddling 225 people. Such help...

Keep that in mind as you read this:

It's well known that Obama's 2006 endorsement was important. But it's not widely understood just how urgently the Lieberman people begged for Obama's help at a critical moment in Lieberman's career -- and in that light, just how much of a back-stabbing Lieberman's attacks on Obama now represent.
In response to the Lieberman camp's pleas for help, Obama subsequently endorsed him at a dinner of Connecticut Democrats later that month.

"I am absolutely certain Connecticut is going to have the good sense to send Joe Lieberman back to the U.S. Senate so he can continue to serve on our behalf," Obama said at the time.

"It was a favor as huge as we could have gotten -- it was like a drowning man getting thrown a life preserver," the Lieberman official continued. "Just when Ned was trying to establish himself as a credible alternative on the war, Barack Obama came in and said, `Hey, I disagree with him on the war, but you should send him back to the Senate.'"

So Obama gave Lieberman his priceless endorsement, undercutting Ned Lamont. Then, in the general election, rather than get behind Lamont as the Democratic nominee, he undercut him by refusing anything more than a pitiful email to a pitiful 200+ recipients. In other words, Obama ran interference for Lieberman.

Now, Obama reaps what he sowed, with Joe Lieberman transformed into one of John McCain's top attack dogs.

Supporting Joe Lieberman and undermining Ned Lamont was likely Obama's worst decision the past two years. And while a heaping spoonfull of "I told you so" is in order, I'd be satisfied with a full-fledged ouster of Lieberman from the Democratic caucus. Senate Democrats (and Barack Obama) cannot allow a betrayal of this magnitude remain unpunished.

Update: The past two years, Lieberman has used his chairmanship at Homeland Security to cover Bush's myriad f'ups from port security to Katrina. How much does anyone want to bet that if Senate Dems inexplicably let him keep his committee in 2009, he doesn't use it to conspire with Republicans and undermine Obama's presidency? Bet on it.

Given we were right about Lieberman before, do Senate Democrats really want to bet that we won't be right about this?

As you'll recall, the Lieberman campaign hosted their website on a cheapy hosting account, probably paying in the tens of dollars per month for the service. When their website crashed due to heavy usage on Primary Day, they accused the Lamont campaign or his supporters of "hacking" his website.

We knew immediately why his site had gone down -- his shitty hosting account -- but Joe Lieberman, in full sanctimony, demanded an investigation into the website failure, forcing tax payers to fund civil and criminal investigations into the mater.

We already know that the US Attorney knew before the November elections that the charges were bogus, yet refused to reveal the information. We also know that Connecticut Attorney General Dick Blumenthal claims the Feds didn't update him on their investigation, hence he was unable to let the public know about Lieberman's bogus politically-charged accusations.

However, the reality is that the Feds DID tell Lieberman and Blumenthal about the results.

Thomas Carson, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney, said in a statement that the office updated the Lieberman campaign and Blumenthal on the investigation in late October 2006.

"In accordance with our usual practice . . . the Lieberman campaign, as the alleged victim, and the office of attorney general, which had been conducting a contemporaneous investigation . . . were provided with limited information," Carson said. "The investigation was administratively closed several weeks later."

Tom Swan, Lamont's former campaign manager, said Carson's response is alarming.

"They acknowledge letting the Lieberman campaign know and never letting anybody from the Lamont (campaign) know," Swan said.

The US Attorney's office knew that Lieberman's charges were bull before the November election, as did Dick Blumenthal, as did Joe Lieberman. Yet none decided to update the public on charges that had a clear political import in the then-current debate.

The US Attorneys were (are?) puppets of the Rove political machine. Their silence is obvious, and Lieberman has repaid that favor to George Bush many times over since his reelection. Dick Blumenthal was obviously carrying water for Lieberman.

And Lieberman? For someone who claims to be so religious, he sure is a dishonest, lying hack.

Update: For their part, Blumenthal's office still denies they had concluded there was no wrongdoing before the election. But they did receive information from the US Attorney's office before the election. What exactly was that information?

Update II: Blumenthal emails me:

As you know from your legal background, a prosecutor is limited as to what he can say about a case that produces no criminal charges, especially when it's a state official talking about a federal investigation.

I can say that my office's discussions with the U.S. Attorney's Office prior to the election did not include any conclusions. The U.S. Attorney's Office did not inform my office of its conclusions until after the election.  

As I said in my statement, we were not informed of the FBI email or its contents or even its existence. Nor was any member of my staff given such information. This statement is not contradicted by anything said by the U.S. Attorney's Office. To have made any premature public predictions before our investigation ended in December 2006 would have been irresponsible and improper.

Interesting that the case magically gets closed just after the election when we had figured out the problem with Lieberman's website in about 45 minutes. It's still patently clear to me that Blumenthal's office and the US Attorney's office both dragged their feet until after the election. Why would they do that?

March 31, 2006:

Obama rallies state Democrats, throws support behind Lieberman

HARTFORD, Conn. --U.S. Sen. Barack Obama rallied Connecticut Democrats at their annual dinner Thursday night, throwing his support behind mentor and Senate colleague Joe Lieberman.

Obama, an Illinois Democrat who is considered a rising star in the party, was the keynote speaker at the annual Jefferson Jackson Bailey Dinner.

Lieberman, Connecticut's junior senator, is under fire from some liberal Democrats for his support of the Iraq War. He was key in booking Obama, who routinely receives more than 200 speaking invitations each week.

Some at Thursday's dinner said that while they were pleased with Lieberman's success in bringing Obama to Connecticut, they still consider Lieberman uncomfortably tolerant of the Bush administration.

Obama wasted little time getting to that point, calling it the "elephant in the room" but praising Lieberman's intellect, character and qualifications.

"The fact of the matter is, I know some in the party have differences with Joe. I'm going to go ahead and say it," Obama told the 1,700-plus party members who gathered in a ballroom at the Connecticut Convention Center for the $175-per-head fundraiser.

"I am absolutely certain Connecticut is going to have the good sense to send Joe Lieberman back to the U.S. Senate so he can continue to serve on our behalf," he said.

For someone who likes to tout his "judgement", this is proof that no one, not even Obama, is infallible.

But then again, can there possibly be a better example of Lieberman's ungratefulness? Yet another reason, in a long line of them, why his constituents are experiencing buyer's remorse.

We know why the US Attorney in Connecticut would want to protect Joe Lieberman by refusing to release the details of their investigation into the alleged "hacking" of Lieberman's site the day of the Democratic primary. The last thing Karl Rove and Monica Goodling wanted was Lieberman embarrassed days before the general election by pointing out the rank incompetence of his campaign and lack of integrity in owning up to his b.s. accusations.

But what about Connecticut's Democratic Attorney General? Why would he carry water for Lieberman and protect the senator? Who knows. But what we do know now is that Blumenthal lied to blogger CT Bob about the case at the time.

[T]he [FBI] email was sent out on October 25th, 2006, about a week before the general election. The only reason it finally saw the light of day was because of an FOI request, otherwise it may have never been revealed.

The reason I felt queasy was because I remembered an interview I did with Blumenthal four days later (October 29th) but still before the election, at a fund raiser for Dave Mooney in Stratford. This is when news of the FBI's findings may have still made a difference.

In the interview, Blumenthal said there were no definite conclusions to the investigation and that it was ongoing.

Here's that interview:

Lieberman's spokesman Dan Gerstein, on his campaign being busted for lying about their website crash in the 2006 primary:

A spokesman for Mr. Lieberman, Dan Gerstein, said in a statement that the campaign had acted on the assessment of its Web site administrator, who believed the site had been attacked. And while he accepted the F.B.I.’s findings, he did not offer any regrets.

"We consider the matter closed," Mr. Gerstein said.

Legally, the matter was closed BEFORE the 2006 general election, in October of that year, and they didn't see fit to admit to the public that they had smeared the Ned Lamont campaign and bloggers like us. That would require integrity the likes not seen around Joe Lieberman since ... well, perhaps ever.

This wasn't rocket science. The Lieberman campaign was incompetent in its web dealings, as was painfully obvious the very day his site went down. Yet that didn't stop Gerstein and Lieberman from blaming their incompetence on others:

Visitors who tried to access Lieberman's site at the time received a message calling on Lamont to "make an unqualified statement denouncing this kind of dirty campaign trick and to demand whoever is responsible to cease and desist immediately."

And it didn't stop the traditional media from trumpeting those lies and smears, none of which bothered to ask their tech teams (or outside tech sources) to take a look and see if the Lieberman charges held any water.

It also didn't stop Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal and US Attorney Kevin O'Connor from refusing to release details of Lieberman's bogus charges and his campaign's rank incompetence a week before the election, lest it hurt their friend's re-election chances. I'm sure Karl Rove and Monica Goodling were mighty pleased with O'Connor's work.

In short, a U.S. Senator demanded public funds be spent investigating a patently bogus and politically motivated charge, yet the public was refused access to the results of that investigation until well past the time where the voters could've properly assessed the situation in that election.

No one said Bush's and Rove's politicization of the Justice Department didn't pay dividends.

But still, Gerstein thinks "the matter is closed".

Legally, it is, but politically, it's not. It's just one more data point for a state that is increasingly disenchanted with Lieberman and suffering from buyer's remorse.

Research 2000 for Daily Kos. 3/31-4/2. Regular voters. MoE 4% (9/10-12/2007 results)

If you could vote again for U.S. Senate, would you vote for Ned Lamont, the Democrat, Alan Schlesinger, the Republican, or Joe Lieberman, an Independent?

All

Lamont (D)      51 (48)  
Lieberman (I)   37 (40)
Schlesinger (R)  7  (9)

Democrats

Lamont (D)      74 (72)  
Lieberman (I)   19 (25)
Schlesinger (R)  2  (3)

Republicans

Lamont (D)       4  (7)  
Lieberman (I)   74 (69)
Schlesinger (R) 19 (24)

Independents

Lamont (D)      53 (49)  
Lieberman (I)   36 (38)
Schlesinger (R)  6  (9)

For someone who pretends to be so pious, Lieberman and his lackeys exhibit a shocking lack of integrity. Sure, Connecticut Republicans love it since they are allergic to good government, but he's unsurprisingly lost his state's Democrats and independents.

It's just a matter of waiting out the clock until 2012.

Remember THIS?

As Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman fights for his political life, his campaign on Tuesday accused his opponent's backers of hacking into the senator's campaign Web site and shutting it down just in time for Connecticut's primary Election Day.

...and THIS?

I have the definitive answer as to why Lieberman's site went down.

They are paying $15/month for hosting at a place called MyHostCamp, with a bandwidth limit of 10GB. MyHostCamp is currently down, along with all their clients.

...and THIS?

Straretz noted that if Lieberman "hacking" charges prove false, the FBI and federal prosecutors could pursue charges against those who reported them. "If it was fabricated and you could prove intent, there's Title 18, Section 1001, which is providing false statements to an FBI agent. That can be prosecuted at the discretion of the U.S. Attorney's Office."

Given Lieberman's high-profile efforts on behalf of John McCain, I wondered how his constituents were taking it. So I had independent pollster Research 2000 reprise a poll I commissioned last year testing a rematch between Ned Lamont and Joe Lieberman. I found last year that buyer's remorse had set in. It's even worse this year.

Research 2000 for Daily Kos. 3/31-4/2. Regular voters. MoE 4% (9/10-12/2007 results)

Lieberman has shored up his support with Republicans, who clearly see him as one of their own. He has predictably lost ground among Democrats. But interestingly, he also lost the same amount of ground (six points) with independents.

Clearly, his whole "independent" schtick isn't playing well with real independent voters. I'll have more on this poll later today. The crosstabs are below the fold. Crosstabs for last year's poll can be found here. Unfortunately, there's no approve/disapprove numbers from last time since I forgot to ask for that data (I think it was my first poll ever commissioned).

I don't have the same view of this as some people do. My view is Connecticut is an unmitigated blessing for the Democrats because Lieberman has said if he wins he's going to vote with us to organize the Senate. I'm interested in getting one of these houses back, because that's the only way, I think, we can move away from the philosophical and political and economic direction the country has taken in the last five years. So I'm doing what I can to help the Democrats win the House and the Senate or both.

Bill Clinton, September 20, 2006.

Our next installment of the Virtually Speaking interview series takes place tonight at 6pm Pacific.  

Ned Lamont will join us tonight where we will talk about his run for the Senate, the impact it had on the netroots and the prospects for Democrats picking up seats in the 2008 cycle.

The Virtually Speaking studio has a Second Life URL (SLURL). You must be a registered user of Second Life to attend the interview. Registration is free. An archive of podcasts and videos from previous interview can be found at Inworld Studios.  The most recent podcast is from last week with George Lakoff, Glenn Smith and Eric Haas of the Rockridge Institute

Before the interview, we'll enjoy a live piano performance featuring TomoFumi Mayako.

'The Hartford Courant wouldn't publish a positive, smiling picture of Ned Lamont on its cover if God Himself commanded it.' "Ned Wins, Joe's In!" By Lori Price 27 Dec 2007

Mr. John Dunster
Publisher- Greenwich Time and Stamford Advocate

Dear Mr. Dunster,
When Greenwich Time cleaned house a few weeks ago, we Democrats in this town hoped that the long era during which the newspaper actively denigrated and insulted Democrats might just come to an end.  Sadly, we were wrong.  One had only to glance at the December 3 edition of Greenwich Time to understand that dissing Democrats remains an honored tradition at the paper.  That edition, under the front page headline "Inauguration day 2007", highlighted large color photos of the new Republican first selectman Peter Tesei and his family and, just below that, Republican selectman Peter Crumbine and his family.  Where was Democratic selectman Lin Lavery's photo?  Predictably, Greenwich Time buried her black-and-white photo showing her being sworn in by Connecticut's attorney general and Greenwich resident Richard Blumenthal on page four.  Never mind the fact that Lavery soundly defeated Crumbine in their head-to-head race, winning in the process nine of the town's twelve electoral districts, and almost winning a tenth.  In typical Greenwich Time style, she was predictably dissed by having her photo shunted into the paper's inner recesses.  

I recently commissioned polling that showed that Lieberman's 10-point 2006 victory would become an eight-point loss today, as Connecticut voters realize Lieberman lied to them about Iraq.

Quinnipiac has just released a poll showing that Lieberman loses 22 percent of his supporters if the election were to be replayed again today:

[If voting for Lieberman in 2006] -- If you had a chance to vote again today, would you still vote for Joe Lieberman for Senator, or would you vote for someone else?

Yes/Lieberman           78%     86%     69%     78%     82%     75%
No/Someone else         15      10      20      16      14      16
DK/NA                    7       4      11       6       5       9

Not that Joe cares, so long as he keeps his Republican buddies happy.

On Saturday night I was invited to attend a screening of the new movie, Honk for Peace, in Greenwich CT as part of the Connecticut Film Festival. Ned Lamont, Alan Schlesinger, the filmaker Corey Boutilier, the whole Lamont crew and of course, Hollywood Bob, all come out to see the film and enjoy some Q & A with Ned after the screening.

So imagine my surprise when Alan Schlesinger, the Republican nominee for the CT Senate race in 2006 completely repudiated the Bush administration on Iraq seen through the light of Iran.

Follow me below the fold for another shocking repudiation of Bush foreign policy by a self-admitted former acolyte.

As we saw yesterday, a poll Daily Kos-commissioned poll by independent pollster Research 2000 shows that thanks to the Iraq War and Lieberman's incessant cheerleading for it, he'd lose a rematch to Lamont.

Research 2000 for Daily Kos. 9/10-12. Likely voters. MoE 4% (No trend lines)

Today, Lieberman's office refused to respond to the obvious discontent he faces.

Dan Gerstein, a key figure in Lieberman's re-election campaign who remains a paid adviser to the senator, said today that after checking with Liberman's office he had decided to decline comment on the poll.

Schlesinger, meanwhile, said today that he wasn't surprised by the results of the new poll. The apparent preference for Lamont over Lieberman, he said, was simply because of Iraq, which he said has left people "disgusted."

Before the election, Lieberman wasn't afraid to lie to his constituents about his war stance. As Sirota noted:

Sirota, recalling that Lieberman had insisted during a debate with Lamont that "no one wants to end the war the Iraq more than I do," said the senator's entire election strategy was about "pretending that, if re-elected, he would lead the fight to end the Iraq war."

He added that a "key slice" of "confused" Democratic and independent voters went for Lieberman "because they believed that he perhaps had been pro-war before, but had changed, when in fact the only thing that had changed temporarily was his language, not his actions."

They are no longer confused, he said, since Lieberman after the election has become "even more supportive" of the war and "is actually publicly pushing a war with Iran."

(Those quotes are from this piece.)

Now, that they know his true colors, Lieberman is hiding from them -- the same kind of disdain and disrespect that nearly cost him his seat last year.

The story also reinforces a point I think is important, and should be stressed at every opportunity with recalcitrant beltway Democrats:

Zuniga [should be "Moulitsas" -- kos] added that while the poll suggests Lieberman as expected has picked up Republican support and lost backing among Democrats, he suffered a "dramatic reversal" among independent voters, who would now go for Lamont by a 49-38 percent margin, a 23-point swing.

"Democrats seem more than happy to forsake the base," he concluded. "But their precious independents don't want this war any more than we do."

As most at DailyKos know by now, according to a new poll released today by the nonpartisan firm Research 2000, if Connecticut's 2006 Senate general election was re-run and happened today, Ned Lamont would defeat Sen. Joe Lieberman handily (a hearty thank you to Markos for commissioning the poll). What is of particular significance in the numbers is that the shift is due precisely to the deception that Lamont supporters had been exposing during the campaign - but which reporters refused to cover both during the race and in the post-election analysis. This deception on the issue of Iraq goes straight to how the media and political Establishment will do anything to keep this war going. And the two lessons that come out of this poll after looking at its details are worth remembering.

The post below this one contains the results of a Connecticut poll commission by me. The question on my mind was, "how much of an effect would the war have on a popular pro-war politician"? Well, the answer is "a lot".

Lieberman won his race 50-40-10, with the Republican bringing up the rear with 10 percent. Lamont made the race about the war, but Lieberman successfully muddied the waters by claiming that he, too, wanted to "bring the troops home".

But now that voters have had a chance to see Lieberman's true colors on Iraq, the numbers have shifted dramatically. Sure, Lieberman has picked up support from Republicans, as would be expected. And sure, he's lost support among Democrats as we'd surmised (34 to 25 percent).

But look at the independents: Their support for Lieberman, 53-41, has suffered a dramatic reversal, and Lamont would now pick them up by 49-38 -- a 23-point swing.

Democrats seem more than happy to forsake the base. But their precious Independents don't want this war any more than we do. You capitulate to Bush and his Republican allies, and there won't be anyone around to reward you.