Look i'm not buying the 20-point lead either. But you know what? Lamont ISN'T doing that well. This race is reminding me of Phil Angelides' campaign in California. Lamont is BLOWING this just as badly.

First, his campaign ads SUCK! It's not reassuring when you get all these progressives giving each other high fives whenever one of his dumb ads is released. He is preaching to the choir and isn't making the case for change. He's allowing Lieberman to define the race and is being squeezed between Republican support for Liberman, his support among independents, and his one-third support among Democrats.

I fear Lieberman will NOT caucus with Democrats and is just LYING in order not to lose his support among Democratic voters.

This race is completely winnable...but his anti-Iraq ad was terrible, his Red Sox-Yankee ad was just stupid, and his child care ad was cute but ineffective.

Lamont has to make the case that a vote for him is a vote for A DEMOCRATIC Senate! At the very least it would force Lieberman to declare his intentions to caucus with Democrats more forcibly. That would reassure me somewhat.

If you want my opinion, I think he needs to get Bill Clinton to campaign with him, because Clinton's strongest support within the Democratic Party is pretty much the same as those who still support Lieberman. I'm sure that many of them believe that Clinton still supports Lieberman, given his campaigning for him this past summer.

How do you all like your "big dog" right now?

Jack.

P.S. Zobgy is such a liar. Last week he said that Lieberman was leading by about 4 points. His own interactive polls showed it tied. Nothing has happened since then that would warrant such movement.

I think you oversell the role of alleged national progressive momentum and identity (which I take it is actually more of a euphemism for attention from the blogs), and undersell that Lamont is trying to win over Independents and Republicans instead of Democrats.  The primary was "our turf" because our small numbers could cover more ground, and our partisan message and alleged ideological extremism were harder to cast as liabilities.  The week that Lamont won the primary he was trailing by over 20 points in the three way polls.  If it was a deadheat with Democrats in early August, less than two months later Lamont has made huge pick ups among Dems to get to this point.  By these measures, Lamont hasn't lost any momentum, and we should all be really impressed with his candidacy.  

Also, I think everyone who is taking 6-10 as the likely result on election day is ignoring a lot of evidence.  First, the ground game for Lieberman will probably be even worse than it was in August.  Who are the Lieberman die hards?  You think lobbyists from Washington will all bus up to Connecticut and beat the pavement for him?  Second, the ballot issue is also likely to cost him at least a couple points.  Schlessinger's name ID is about zilch.  Some number of Lieberman voters will definitely fall out between these polls and the election.  And the likelihood of conservatives and Republicans actually making it out on election day seems to drop with every passing news cycle.  I like the bad polling b/c it will keep the good guys hungry and fighting.  But if this race poll within 5 in the firs week of November, I like our chances, and 6-10 isn't that far off.

If I'm Lamont, I'm using the predatorgate quote everywhere I can, and I'm drawing a direct comparison to the Clinton years.  Lieberman's biggest liability is his tag as a GOP rubber stamp and as a good kisser.  That quote is the embodiment of his bogus, hypocritical moralism and his bi-partisanship-by-bending-over method of representing Connecticut.

I remain pessimistic about this race. The netroots has bet the farm on Connecticut and it looks increasingly likely that Lieberman will win. Again, I don't see much evidence that the progressive blogosphere knows how to win over moderates and centrists. We seem more interested in pumping each other up with all those shout-outs of "Fitzmas!" and "Nedrenaline!" rather than focusing on the complex calculus required to GOTV and take back control of Congress.

Do the math: with few exceptions campaigns exclusively devoted to turn out progressives, and only progressives, are doomed. The GOP base is more reliable (so far) and much larger than our base -- by millions.

As far as I'm concerned, it's a win simply if Leiberman is forced to remove the "D" from the scroll screen. Lamont losing will suck, but at least he doesn't represent us any more.

I don't think this race has changed at all or is likely to. I posted on the night of the primary that Lieberman figured to lead the general election polling by high single digits, simply based on the new math with indies and Republicans in the mix. IMO the crtiticism of Lamont is misapplied other than the failure to insist on a string of debates including Schlesinger. He needed that early in the cycle. The closer to election day the fewer minds will change. We can dream about Lamont somehow snatching support from Lieberman in each of the three categories but the fact remains by far the most logical blueprint for a Lamont win is Schlesinger doubling or tripling his support level and so far no threat of that.

I am glad there has not been singleminded focus on this race by the progressive blogs during the general election, which is what I feared.

And I do agree with the comment in this thread that the progressive movement only understands how to inspire progressives and not win support elsewhere. Granted, we are birthrighted to have liberals in Connecticut or Massachusetts.

But I'm in Nevada. Newsflash: liberals are smack uphill here in a statewide race. This state, like many others, will embrace an outstanding moderate Democrat but liberals will be routinely rejected. I don't think the progressive blogs get that, that certain states or districts simply won't vote for the progressive candidate. In the primary here Dina Titus was markedly superior to Jim Gibson, in debates and overall campaign. But I voted for Gibson since I know the way this state votes. Review Columnist Erin Neff wrote the same thing, that she wanted a Democrat to run the state and she was certain Gibson had much greater chance to win a general election as a moderate. Latest polling confirmed that dynamic, with Titus retaining only 59% of Democratic support. You can't just look at registration figures to determine partisan levels. Many of the Democrats I know here are moderate to slightly conservative and they will vote for a Republican instead of a liberal Democrat. That is simply fact and the primary voters and progressive blogs do the party a great disservice by inept handicapping and forcefeeding progressives in races where they do not fit.

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