Ned's With Us

For a guy who has screwed up so many huge things (say, for instance the Iraq War), I must say: Joe Lieberman is damn good at minute pettiness. I guess it’s easy to be good at that if you have no principles or basic sense of manners, and are willing to deploy your surrogates to disrupt a major veterans event by trying to physically throw Ned Lamont out of the parade today in Hartford. It was the Return of the Lieberthugz, Part II.

Yup, you read that right: at the beginning of today’s Veterans Day parade in downtown Hartford, Joe smiled and shook Ned’s hand, and then quickly sent his folks out to try physically bar Ned from marching with Congressman John Larson and other Democrats who invited him to march. It was one of those moments where all you could think of saying was wow, stay classy Joe Lieberman.

Ned decided not to listen, and jogged around the Lieberman folks while we distracted them, and caught back up to the Democrats. When the Lieberman people again tried to physically remove Ned from the parade, Larson backed them off once and for all telling them simply: “Ned’s with us.” That could be the bumper sticker slogan of this campaign, as it perfectly sums up how in more and more people’s minds, Ned represents standing up for regular people, and Joe represents standing up for the status quo.

I’ll be frank: I was a bit nervous about the parade from the get-go because Joe has joined with Vice President Cheney to try to liken Ned and the majority of Connecticut who want change in Iraq to Osama bin Laden fans. But my concerns were allayed as we walked through Hartford – veterans kept coming up to Ned thanking him for having the guts to run in this race, and the guts to stand up and say what needs to be said about the war in Iraq.

Joe was, per the norm, as polished as a patent leather shoe, but as dirty as the sole of that same shoe had it been trudged through a manure pile. He marched waving and smiling – but not to the crowd, because there were very few people cheering for him. But he knows how to create a picture for the cameras, so he went ahead and waved and thumbs-upped the group of his own staffers and security guards walking through the crowd along the sidewalks.

But while Joe is smart about the tight shot, it was the wide angle picture that I snapped here that told his story. As you can see, while Ned marched with Democrats like Larson and Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, Joe marched with embattled Republican Congresswoman Nancy Johnson and conservative radio host Brad Davis. Remember when Joe said he wasn’t going to say whether he thought it would be good for Democrats to take back the House? This picture tells you why he said this – because he’s actively campaigning for Johnson to defeat Chris Murphy in what is shaping up to be one of the most important House races in the country.

What’s most interesting to me about this campaign in terms of the race’s mechanics is how unflappable Ned is. I’ve worked with a lot of different candidates, and all of them have their good traits and bad ones. But most often, non-career politicians aren’t very even-keeled at this point in the race.

Not so for Ned. The guy is really passionate about what we’re doing and how important this race is in trying to end the war in Iraq – but he never gets shaken by Lieberman’s pettiness. My bet is that’s really a commentary on Ned’s focus – a focus that likely comes from his business experience where he’s competed and won against the major cable conglomerates in one of the toughest industries out there. It must also be a commentary on Ned’s smarts – though I’ve never asked him, I bet that Ned knows that everytime the career politician he’s running against pulls one of these stunts, that career politician is once again sending a strong signal of desperation.

Today was a great example of this. When they tried to bully Ned, he didn’t get upset – he just figured out a way to get around them so that he could meet with as many veterans as possible to talk with them about the issues. It was a successful event because it’s obvious, to echo Larson, more and more voters know “Ned’s with us” and Joe is not.

- David Sirota

New Haven Rally Video

Pics from the New Haven Rally

Joe’s Bridge to Nowhere vs. Connecticut’s Bridge to Bridgeport

It is aptly named the Congress Street Bridge – a hulking illustration of exactly how Joe Lieberman’s “bipartisanship” manifests itself in the real world. Once a working drawbridge over Connecticut’s Pequonnock River, Bridgeport’s Congress Street Bridge is now defunct, sitting idly in an upright position – a draw bridge that was drawn, and never lowered again. It sort of looks like a giant concrete middle finger extended at the economically struggling city below – a flip off from the Congress that has refused to fix the bridge, even as it funds new bridges to nowhere in places like Alaska.

Standing at the fence that now blocks traffic from the bridge, Ned, gubernatorial candidate John DeStefano and elected leaders from Bridgeport held a rally to demand a change on November 7th. They cited the monstrosity behind them as concrete (no pun intended) proof that people like Lieberman have forgotten Connecticut.

While we’ve heard a lot from Joe about his “experience” and “seniority,” Connecticut has seen its share of federal transportation funding cut in half since he was elected. That includes a recent transportation funding bill that Joe voted for and touted, even though it gave Connecticut one of the lowest infrastructure investment rates in the entire country. All of this has happened as Joe has voted to continue wasteful earmarks for out-of-state projects like Alaska’s infamous “bridge to nowhere.”

The effects of Joe’s putting Alaska’s bridge to nowhere over Bridgeport are sadly now memorialized in the Congress Street Bridge, and the communities that are split apart because the bridge has been left to rot. He probably doesn’t lose sleep over this, because let’s face it – he takes orders from the Big Money interests who fund his illegal slush fund, not from regular working people in places like Bridgeport who can’t ante up the thousands of dollars to attend Joe’s lobbyist fundraisers in Washington.

Make no mistake about it – Bridgeport is working hard to build itself in spite of the neglect by people like Joe. We could see this before the event, when Ned and John spent some time visiting restaurants, barber shops, and other small businesses populating Main Street in the heart of the city’s downtown. No matter where we went, people were coming up to the candidates and telling them how much they appreciated their work trying to change things. It means that despite Joe’s relentlessly negative and angry campaign, our message is really getting out there.

- David Sirota

Defying the CW In the Naugatuck Valley

(Another report from the bus this morning in Waterbury…)

Conventional wisdom has it that the Naugatuck Valley will provide Joe Lieberman a pocket of key Democratic support on election day. Conventional wisdom says folks here supposedly see Senator K Street as just Average Guy Joe.

But between our events at the football game in Torrington last night and our morning in Waterbury, I’m not so sure. The folks we met in these towns are definitely ready for a change. And I’m not talking only about the Republican town committee member who escorted Ned around Ansonia or the 40 or so volunteers who met us early this morning in Waterbury before canvassing their neighborhoods – I’m talking about a much bigger swath of folks who aren’t formally involved in the campaign who Ned has been meeting in diners, coffeeshops, super markets and on the street.

This is the crucial silent majority in precisely the middle American area that the Washington pundits, pontificators and career politicians don’t really give a crap about, except to once in a while paint it with inaccurate and disparaging “red vs. blue” stereotypes. But just as we are seeing all over the country right now, middle America is restive, and not interested in playing by the Establishment’s conventional wisdom on election day.

Of course, the fact that that Joe would have any support at all in this region is incomprehensible. This is an area that has been economically decimated by deindustrialization – much of that decimation helped by Joe’s strong support of unfair trade pacts that protect all things important to Big Money interests (copyrights, patents, etc.) and none of the things important to the middle class (jobs, wages, health care benefits, etc.).

Those votes have made Joe a big star in Washington, with pundits and lobbyists falling all over themselves to praise his support of these trade deals. They call it “bipartisanship.” But standing next to the boarded up storefronts in downtown Waterbury – once the brass-making capital of the world – it’s obvious that’s merely a poll-tested euphemism for what Joe’s behavior really is: selling out.

This was clearly a very rich region a few generations ago – a place where the great American story called “the middle class” prospered. But thanks to a bought-and-paid-for federal government that has turned its back on working people, the Torringtons and Waterburys now perpetually face serious economic challenges. Those challenges – and their seeming perpetuity – are living examples of this senator’s 18-year record of failure.

Sure, it’s true – Joe certainly dishes out a lot of “I feel your pain” rhetoric. For instance, yesterday at the press conference where this architect of the Iraq War declared himself the second coming of Mahatma Ghandi and the leader of the global peace movement, Joe also said with a straight face that he’s worked to help protect jobs in Connecticut. Apparently, PNTR Joe is now Caesar Chavez., too.

But the record is unavoidable – the Connecticut Post has reported that half of the state’s manufacturing and defense-related jobs have been lost in Joe’s 18 years. Meanwhile, the state has dropped to 49th out of 50 in terms of the amount it gets back from the tax dollars it sends to Washington.

This hasn’t happened in a vacuum: Joe’s voted for the trade and tax policies that have encouraged this destruction, and has racked up the second worst voting attendance record in the Senate, missing the key votes to bring more federal funding back to Connecticut. Both K Street and the Naugatuck Valley have felt the consequences of all this – the former is now swimming in cash, and the latter is, well, not. While Joe talks about his “seniority” and “experience,” Ned forcefully pointed out this morning that “it’s really about results.” And a look at the results shows Joe has cast his “experience” and “seniority” with the very special interests that have hurt the economic prospects of places like the Naugatuck Valley.

To be sure, as author John MacArthur recently reported on a trip to Waterbury, there will be some folks in this region who will reflexively vote for Joe simply because they’ve been doing that for years. And it’s likely true that Joe will use his illegal slush fund to try to pull off some of the usual shenanigans (as an FYI – there was one Joe protestor at the Waterbury event – a bewildered looking woman who wandered aimlessly around as if utterly confused. Perhaps she was wondering where why the Lieberthugz weren’t there – maybe because their antics yesterday landed Joe a spate of terrible stories on the evening news).

But after spending the last half day or so out on the campaign trail in this region, I’m betting the justified anger simmering at an uncaring and corrupt Washington that Joe is a part of is going to translate into strong votes for change. That probably scares the hell out of Joe (which would explain yesterday’s hilarious Return of Angry Joe & the Lieberthugz routine). But it should make everyone else very excited for November 7th.

- David Sirota

Join Ned for the Grand Finale Rally in New Haven

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It all winds up in New Haven, where the grand finale rally to the “Stand Up for Change” tour will take place on Saturday, November 4th at 7pm. Special musical guests Squirrel Nut Zippers will perform, and other officials and guests will join Ned in rallying supporters to send a message of real change on election day!

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Video from Day 2

And another picture from Enfield:

It Smells Like Victory

As we drive on to our next stop, there’s a phrase that comes to mind to describe what the political landscape looks like right now. As Robert Duvall famously said in Apocalyse Now, “it smells like victory.”

Following the Attack of the Lieberthugs this morning, we headed out to a senior center in Enfield where we were welcomed by an overflow crowd of about 100. Ned and Annie mingled with folks for about 30 minutes and then we headed off to a big event at AFSCME headquarters in New Britain. Again, it was an overflow crowd of more than 100, with Ned getting a huge applause throughout his speech.

Now we’re on our way out from an energized town hall style event at the Polish American Citizens Club in Bristol, where about 150 people came out. The building had a real old-school character, bringing up images of an earlier day when social clubs – not Big Media – was ground zero in political races. As hot dogs brewed in the back of the main hall, folks in the crowd mingled with each other – and Ned asked all of them to use their personal social networks to spread our campaign’s message of change. That’s not a surprise – the Family Friends and Neighbors program, and the grassroots generally, has been the backbone of this David vs. Goliath campaign.

After his speech to the crowd, Ned headed to the back bar, and introduced himself to as many folks as he could. One guy spontaneously whipped out a handwritten list he had made of the top 11 reasons not to vote for Joe Lieberman.

With four days to go, Ned has fully honed in on Joe. In his speeches, he’s drawing a crystal clear contrast with the 18-year career politician, and not just on Iraq. At AFSCME, for instance, Ned talked a lot about health care and how its finally time for Congress to ignore the Joe Liebermans who have stopped every effort to expand health care, and get serious about making sure every American has health care coverage.

But then, this race will always have the Iraq War running through it – especially considering that today also marked yet another act in the slow-motion, would-be-funny-if-not-so-serious real-life horror story known as The Return of Angry Joe. That’s right – as Ned spent his day talking to as many Connecticut citizens as possible about issues, Joe spent his day throwing one of his vintage “I’m such a persecuted victim please feel sorry for me” temper tantrums. Yes, a day after refusing to appear on statewide television to debate the war with Ned and Republican nominee Alan Schlesinger, Joe held a press conference to scream and whine like a child about our new ad that references the war. Specifically, Joe took issue with the ad’s matter-of-fact statement that a vote for Ned is a vote to change, and a vote for Joe is a vote for more war.

Joe stood in front of reporters and claimed with a straight face that there is “no evidence” to suggest that a vote for Joe is a vote for more war. I guess “no evidence” is defined as his votes against every serious effort to end the war and his statements attacking the patriotism of war critics.

When I went to baseball games with my dad as a kid, he always told me that when a ball is hit to the outfield, the way to tell if it’s headed out of the park is not to watch the ball, but to watch the outfielder. Similarly, in politics, you can tell what’s really going on by watching the candidate you are working against. The fact that Lieberman is holding a press conference to insist he’s not for a war that he wrote the resolution for, pushed and continues to shill for means not just that he’s dishonest – it means that he believes the key to his campaign is to confuse voters by tricking them into believing he is really against the war even as he aggressively pushes that same war.

But as historian Rick Perlstein points out in an incisive op-ed in today’s Journal Inquirer, we’ve seen this act before. Joe Lieberman is running touting his experience,” writes Perlstein. “But it is clear that experience has taught him one of Nixon’s favorite tricks – saying he’s against the war, yet continuing to push it.”

For a while, Joe’s Nixonian tricks have worked. Consider this quote from a Toronto Star story today about Lieberman’s position pushing President Bush’s “stay the course” policy on Iraq:

“Yeah, it gives me pause,” says Jean Michaud, a member of a local carpenters’ union, which has stuck with Lieberman. “He is for it, but he’s against it, too. He wants to bring the troops home. But it’s not his fault; it’s the top levels of the government.”

But now, in the final days of the race, people are starting to tune in, starting to figure out that Lieberman is talking out of both sides of his mouth, and starting to see exactly what our new ad says: a vote for Joe Lieberman is a vote for more war. And Joe knows that the awakening that is happening all over this small state means his time arrogantly using Connecticut’s senate seat for his own personal agenda is coming to an end.

- David Sirota

Lieberthugs in Hartford

(A report from David Sirota from the tour… more later on this and the great event in Enfield that took place later this morning – Charles)

I must say, it is quite a sight to see young people voiciferously cheer on a broken-down career politician who has used his position to insist that other young people continue to be killed and maimed in a war based on lies. And though I had heard a lot about Joe Lieberman small band of paid thugs from the primary, seeing it up close today was, in a word, frightening.

The moment the bus door opened today at the Hartford senior center at this morning’s first bus tour event, the wild-eyed group of Lieberthugs surrounded and screamed at Ned as he met with seniors. The group was pathetically small, although admittedly loud. They didn’t scream anything other than the word “Joe” – they didn’t chant about the war or any other issue. Just “Joe.”

That was, in poker terms, the “tell.” The fact that they weren’t there to push any issue but instead there to scream the name of a tired career politician – that was the giveaway that these were not impassioned volunteers motivated by a cause – these were mercenaries who have sold their soul for a piece of street money.

When I realized this, I suddenly understood why they were so wild-eyed: because something has to have short circuited in your brain to be a young person willing to so viciously attack someone like Ned Lamont whose candidacy, at its root, is about trying to prevent more young people from being maimed and killed in the Iraq War. Sure, the street money probably helps make this short circuit happen. And as Dan ”$30,000 a Month” Gerstein shows, Lieberman is having to pay people a lot of money to get them to remove their souls.

But still – money only goes so far, and it begs some questions: would the Lieberthugs be willing to sell off their souls if, say, they were on deck to be drafted for combat in Iraq? Would they still be taking Joe’s dirty lobbyist money and screaming “Joe” in the face of an honest war critic if it was their arms and legs that were at risk of being blown off in deference to Lieberman’s “stay the course” policy?

I would like to hope not. I would like to hope that even someone like Dan Gerstein who has proudly auctioned off his humanity for $30,000 a month would behave differently if, for instance, he or his family members were at risk of coming home in a body bag from a war his boss still smiles at and boasts about…

...but something tells me things have gone so wildly off the tracks at the Lieberman campaign asylum that, in fact, they wouldn’t behave any differently. And that gets us back to exactly why the Lieberman campaign is, as I said at the beginning, so frightening: because these people are very openly trying to define American politics as a place that is only about their own power and self-preservation – no matter how many of our troops die because of it.

- David Sirota

Video of Manchester Town Hall Yesterday

Ned talking to a crowd of 300+:

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