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Jake Tapper is ABC News' Senior White House Correspondent based in the network's Washington bureau. He writes about politics and popular culture and covers a range of national stories.
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Joe - Joe
August 07, 2006 9:17 AM
Call it Joe-mentum, call it a natural solidifying of voters' attitudes in the final hours, call it what you will... Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-CT, has a slight bounce in the polls -- but the 18-year incumbent is still trailing his antiwar millionaire opponent Ned Lamont.
A fresh Quinnipiac poll has Lamont with 51 percent, Lieberman 45 percent. The poll showed a Lamont-Lieberman dynamic of 54-41 in its poll last week.
Our poll guru, Gary Langer, points out that liberal Democrats (who predominate in this primary) divide 65-32 for Lamont. Moderate and conservative Democrats go 53-43 for Lieberman.
Last night we did a spot for World News about a speech Lieberman's campaign was hailing as a major event...a "closing argument" to voters that would be carried live on local Connecticut television stations and, it hoped, would have a major impact.
We were told to dial in to a conference call at 11 am EST to hear details of the speech and the final days of the campaign. Lieberman's campaign didn't get on the call until 11:25 am. This didn't bother me, but it did seem to signify a larger problem of disarray I've seen in the Lieberman campaign for the past few months.
This reared its head in perhaps a more important way for the senator that evening....The speech, we were told, would begin at 6 pm EST in East Haven, CT. But Lieberman didn't show up and start speaking until 6:50 pm. By then, at least one local affiliate had left and at that late hour I don't believe any local channel was planning on carrying it live.
For local affiliates, interrupting local news programming is one thing; pre-empting "60 Minutes" and other prime time programming is quite another.
I don't know why the senator was late; it made me no nevermind on a personal level...But it did seem symbolic of a larger issue of LATENESS. Lieberman was late to realize the challenge posed by Lamont, he was late to realize the anger of antiwar liberals, and he was late to aggressively combat the charges Lamont made that seemed to take hold.
Someday someone will write a book about the importance of good staffing for a senator. Why was he late to his own big speech? Does his campaign know that they blew free TV coverage as a result? Do they regret it?
One great question on some of Lieberman's staffing issues came in an excellent story on the campaign by The New Republic's Jason Zengerle in this graph:
"He's got a staff now that's very knowledgeable in their substantive areas," says one Lieberman friend. "But there's not a lot of political smarts there." A number of Lieberman's friends and supporters cite his November 2005 Wall Street Journal op-ed backing Bush's strategy in Iraq and urging Democrats to do the same--which Lamont said triggered his decision to enter the race--as a perfect example of something Lieberman's staff should have prevented from happening. "He needed someone to say to him, 'Senator, I hear you're going to write an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal about Iraq,'" argues one former adviser. "'I know you have your opinions, but the filing deadline for a challenger is six weeks away. Shut the hell up for six weeks.'"
This is not to impugn all the fine and smart folk working for the senator...but there does seem to be something lacking in some key areas there....Though I suppose if the polls are swinging back, the former VP nominee could pull this out....maybe...perhaps....
More later
JT
August 7, 2006 | Permalink | User Comments (5)
Sam I agree with you they seemed to have a private bus tour going places and nobody knew where they would be .
I did meet Joe only because on the way to work a few people and the Kiss Float were parked in a local breakfast place in my town.
Check his website its really disorganized www.joe2004.com.
I hope you will give Ned Lamont Sam your vote we can use a person with progressive values in our party who will stand up on Universal Healtcare which Senator Lieberman never introduced in 18 years a bill.
One of a number of issues I have with the Senator.
Anyway I hope Ned wins and retires Joe from 18 years in the Senate.
The sad thing about Joe it took 18 years for him to come back to connecticut only because he had someone like Ned Lamont to deal with.
If you live in Connecticut remember to give Ned Lamont your vote I am.
Posted by: Ken | Aug 8, 2006 12:27:12 AM
Tomorrow is the day of decision for Con. Dem. voters. No matter the result, and I strongly hope Joe goes down in flames, Lamont has shown that the Iraq war disaster, among other issues but with this as the first among many, is a powerful way to energize the electorate. We'll see whether it works.
Posted by: sophillyfatz | Aug 7, 2006 9:28:15 PM
my feeling is that Lamont will win and the polls will not be showing the total picture.
Understand that in my state of Connecticut many of us Democrats are fed up with Joe Lieberman.
The polls can dift back and fourth but the voters who vote on Tuesday will decide who wins.
If you were to interview Connecticut voters on the street Lamont is the one they are voting for.
Leiberman has run a bad campaign and has not attracted the people that ned Lamont has at events.
That says more then any poll .
The important thing is that all those Democrats take time and vote on Tuesday.
Posted by: Ken | Aug 7, 2006 11:42:04 AM
The problems in Lieberman's campaign, other than Joltin' Joe himself, that is, seem to be reflected in his organization. I'm sure Lieberman has "book-smart" people working for him, but they don't appear to be "street-smart" in knowing how to take advantage of timing of announcements and speeches to get maximum publicity. Lieberman's "bounce" in the polls may offer him some solace, but it still looks like he's going to lose, and lose big.
Posted by: chuck | Aug 7, 2006 11:00:07 AM
I have to agree with the "lack of organization" thing... At one point, I heard that Lieberman was coming to visit my town in CT and (as a supporter, mind you) I was thinking it would be interesting to go see him. I looked all over the web, including the official campaign website, and could find no schedule of events. Either that's a major oversight or they were scared of having the opposition show up. Either way, it didn't bode well.
Posted by: Sam | Aug 7, 2006 10:58:28 AM
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