"Mr. Lamont Shakes Up Washington"
Greenwich’s Ned Lamont calls the $15 million in personal funds he spent on his U.S. Senate campaign “one of the greatest investments I’ve ever made.” But money doesn’t begin to measure Mr. Lamont’s contribution to participatory democracy. He lost Tuesday’s election, but his campaign resonated with the public and influenced American foreign policy in Iraq. [...] Mr. Lamont’s success gave anti-war activists legitimacy and heft and moved the Iraq debate to the center of American discourse, where it became the top campaign issue for congressional and Senate candidates throughout the country. It also forced Mr. Lieberman, a longtime Democrat, to seek re-election as an independent candidate. He succeeded last Tuesday, but the process was awkward for him.Mr. Lamont’s campaign was not self-made. About 35,000 individuals donated to it and millions of people throughout the country were galvanized by it, cheering Mr. Lamont’s efforts and encouraging local candidates for office to embrace them. History will remember those weeks of grassroots activism in the summer and early fall as some of the most dramatic and exciting in modern political history.
I excerpted most of it, but the whole thing is worth a read.
- by Tim Tagaris | 11/14/06 21:22:21