MyDD :: Are We Overfunding Lamont?

Are We Overfunding Lamont?

by fstilicho, Wed Sep 06, 2006 at 11:57:15 AM EST

I've already posted this at Kos to a decidedly mixed reaction, but it seems worthwhile to say this at MyDD as well: I am personally worried that Lamont is receiving donations well out of proportion to his importance in this election. I have no wish to see Lieberman around in the next Congress but I would hate to see the goal of expelling him come before the goal of helping Democrats like Jim Webb, Jon Tester, Harold Ford, Sherrod Brown, and Claire McCaskill. Given the ActBlue statistics on donations thus far, it would seem that backing Lamont is a far higher priority to netroots donors than backing any of the others.

As of this morning, ActBlue records the following donation totals:

Ned Lamont: 331K

vs:

Claire McCaskill: 67K
Jon Tester: 124K
Sherrod Brown: 52K
Harold Ford: 12K (!)
Jim Webb: 180K
Bob Casey: 13K

Some caveats:
1.) Totals at this point are clearly heavily related to the intensity of primary contests. Tester, Lamont, and Webb had serious primary contests. The others didn't.
2.) Bob Casey's low total is probably due also to our sense of comfort, his having consistently led Santorum along the way.

That said, I would be very worried to see this ratio of donations continue down the road. Now that the primary season is just about past us (we're still waiting on one in Rhode Island), I would hope that netroots donations to folks like Brown, Tester, Webb, McCaskill, and Ford surpass those to Lamont. If the present skew toward Lamont is representative of trends down the road, we will not take back the Senate.

Right now McCaskill and Webb are heavily outgunned by their opponent's spending. Webb ads are nowhere in sight on Virginia airwaves. Ford consistently trails in polls despite quite a lot of good press. It worries me that all three red state candidates have received less altogether than an already-wealthy candidate in deep blue Connecticut.

I'll come back to a refrain, I have no truck with Lieberman and would be happy to see him go. As a Virginian, though, I'm more concerned with venting George Allen from the national spleen than I am with a race in Connecticut. Allen, with his deep ties to white supremacists and rather formidable campaigning skills, scares me in a way that Lieberman does not and could not.

If my logic here seems a little too zero-sum, it's because I suspect that at some point we will have to resign ourselves to writing only one more check. Limbaugh to the contrary, we don't tend to ride around in limos. The zero-sum logic of donations may seem postponeable now, but it will catch up to us at some point.

These races will, for that matter, tighten. The GOP is assuredly holding some high cards in reserve. Consider how it rescued Conrad Burns at the 11th hour back in 2000 - up until the closing weeks, the race seemed to belong to Schweitzer.

So I'll propose a few ratios one might observe while giving this fall. My personal favorite would be 15:1, but the choice is - only naturally - up to you.

Thanks for reading.

Poll

Votes: 13
Results : Vote Link : Polls

Tags: Democrats, CT-Sen, Joe Lieberman, Ned Lamont, Sherrod Brown, Jon Tester, Jim Webb (all tags)

Permalink :: 5 Comments :: Post a Comment

Re: Are We Overfunding Lamont? (none / 0)

We are not. We have to recognize that Lieberman is the Republican in the race. He has the financial and political support of Bush/Cheney/Rove et al. He cannot win without them, and he will owe them bigtime if he survives.

If his vote determines control of the Senate, he may well screw us. He'll say he's putting his country first, or some such bullshit nonsense. Even if we win six other Senate seats, a 51-49 Democratic majority that includes Lieberman would be as precarious as the one the Republicans had in 2001 before Jeffords flipped. Imagine being at Joe's mercy for two years.

We can not allow him to win this fall. We need to embrace and highlight Joe's "republicanism" and run against it. Connecticut is a legitimate and necessary pickup opportunity for the Democratics. If people like Bob Geiger are correct that Joe's campaign will be out of gas in a month or so, then obviously it will be time to redirect resources. Now is not that time.

by farrellsports on Wed Sep 06, 2006 at 02:34:02 PM EST

Re: Are We Overfunding Lamont? (none / 0)

I absolutely see what you mean, and I certainly wouldn't put a defection past him. In my ideal world he goes along with Allen, Burns, Santorum, and the rest.

My concern here is entirely due to the ratio - I can't see how this is sustainable if we're going to be viable in the other races. VA and MO are going to be tight all the way, and I think MT and PA could tighten if the RNC throws a few late punches.

by fstilicho on Wed Sep 06, 2006 at 03:16:03 PM EST

Re: Are We Overfunding Lamont? (none / 0)

I agree with you. The numbers are skewed too much for Lieberman. Those other candidates are suffering and their GOP challengers are laughing. But, hey, as long as Lieberman doesn't return, it doesn't matter if the GOP controls the Senate? Those folks need to "send their message".

by jiacinto on Wed Sep 06, 2006 at 08:56:29 PM EST

Re: Are We Overfunding Lamont? (none / 0)

Lieberman does far more damage to important issues some of us care about than a republican win elsewhere with his bipartisan cover for Bush skewing the national narrative. It's people like LIeberman who reinforce the narrative that dems are weak on defense. Did you ever wonder why the public has no confidence in the current administration in their war on terror, but then will say they trust the same party to do a better job in the war on terrorism in the same poll? THat's because their bias created by years of a narrative being reinfornced again and again has overwhelmed the logic they subscribe to.

I do not see how funding Lieberman has an effect on Webb or others. You are free to volunteer for the others. It doesn't matter what lieberman supports domestically as long as he supports a war that is sucking up resources that makes his support for unfunded domestic initiatives a moot point.

by Pravin on Thu Sep 07, 2006 at 10:58:08 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Are We Overfunding Lamont? (none / 0)

Do we have any way of gauging the harm Lieberman does? I encounter this argument about him reinforcing this or that narrative, but he clearly hasn't done much to reverse the GOP slide in the polls. I think it's more of a case of him angering us. If his national cred were that strong, he wouldn't have muffed so badly in 2004.

The donations skew I observe above is so profound that it looks self defeating - the attention we are focusing on Connecticut is starving other vital races. Lieberman defeated will still knock us on FOX News, playing the martyr, without any real reduction in cred (since he will paint his defeat as punishment from left wing caricatures). Allen, Santorum, Corker, Burns, Talent, and Chafee defeated will hand us control of the Senate. I'll take the latter goal any day of the week. I'll take a tangible goal over a symbolic goal, too, for that matter. Symbolism won't mean diddly for us if we have 45 senators next January.

by fstilicho on Thu Sep 07, 2006 at 12:11:50 PM EST

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