With Friends Like These...

Photo from NBC 30 in Connecticut.

This is the first of what will probably be several writings on the Democratic primary contest happening right now in Connecticut over the course of the next few weeks, or months if Joe Lieberman loses the primary and runs in November as an independent candidate.

This in today's LA Times:

I feel I have a special obligation to respond to your July 6 editorial, "Lieberman's run." I am a liberal activist. I was also Lieberman's roommate at Yale.

Lieberman is a good and decent man personally, but he has also become a cheerleader for George Bush's bloody, arrogant and disastrous war on Iraq.

As a friend, I wish for him the best. As a Democratic voter, if I lived in Connecticut, I would be voting for Ned Lamont.

DAVID WYLES

Playa del Rey

While the Iraq war is going to be the big issue in every midterm election race this November, I don't think it's the only factor in the challenge to Lieberman, although it certainly hasn't helped him. Lieberman has annoyed a lot of liberal activists over the years, for his real and perceived closeness to Republicans in the Senate and the White House.

Unfortunately for Lieberman, he represents a liberal New England state where the support of President Bush and the Iraq war is not as unwavering as his, and it is precisely those liberal activists who he has annoyed that go out and vote in primary elections, particularly during off-year congressional elections which are traditionally lower in turnout than presidential election years.. From what I've been reading in the Connecticut media and the blogs, it seems to me that everyone who has ever had an axe to grind with Lieberman in the state of Connecticut is now coming out of the woodwork and piling on.

While the "Lieberman's Former Roommate" endorsement is not going to throw the primary or general election in Ned Lamont's favor, his campaign will probably get a chuckle out of it.

Update: Former Democratic presidential candidate Wesley Clark was asked about the Connecticut Senate race at Daily Kos and took a swipe at Lieberman. Here's his response:

I am a proud member of the Democratic Party, and I believe it is our party's responsibility to support the will of the Democratic primary voters in Connecticut. I personally look forward to supporting the candidate CT voters elect as the Democratic nominee. Though, as an aside, I must say I find it ironic that Senator Lieberman is now planning a potential run as an independent after he continually questioned my loyalty to the Democratic Party during the 2004 presidential primary.