When refering to OUR nominee, I will use:

Ned Lamont (D-CT).

Apparently, there is still one person who hasn't received the memo.

slainte,
cl

CL

If Lamont's win is only about getting DCDems to use different talking points, then it will have been pretty much a waste.

Hopefully it will be about getting them to govern like Democrats as well, in the knowledge that those who don't will find themselves challenged and beaten in their future primaries by Democrats who will.

I think we will also see less triangulation. The PR consultants who teach their candiates to triangulate should be on call from this moment forward.  

Lieberman got strangled by his own triangulationv,while Lamont kept on message without triangulating and it worked.

This win means big changes in that previously sacred branch of PR consulting.  Thank goodness...

 The Republicans are whining like a baby missing its pacifier. Lieberman was a HUGE asset to them, and they're having a lot of trouble letting go.

 I hope that Joe's antics over the last few months have finally laid to rest the idea that he is, or ever really was, a Democrat. This primary challenge brought out the worst in him -- a preening sense of entitlement, out-of-touch arrogance, disdain for his constituents, and a zillion other character flaws for a man supposedly so "principled". The nation has now seen the real Joe Lieberman, and now we all understand why the Republicans love him so much. He's one of them, in so many ways.

 One place where we have a big problem is the media. It was all-Lieberman, all-the-time on the cable news networks when I was at the gym today, with Lamont (the freaking WINNER) treated like a sideshow. The Washington Post headlined its article "Lieberman Loses", featured a grinning picture of The Entitled One, and didn't even bring up Lamont's name until the second paragraph (while repeating the it's-all-about-the-war frame).

 And when Lieberman bellowed "This will not stand" in his nonconcession speech, I shouted "SHAZAM" and started flinging heavy objects around the room. Where was this defiance in November of 2000, when the election REALLY WAS stolen?

 This whole experience has revealed to all of us what the real Joe Lieberman is like. I am embarrassed to even nominally share a party designation with this man.

 Cynthia McKinney handled her primary defeat with far more grace and dignity than Joe Lieberman did. In fact, if Howard Dean or someone like that wants to get snarky, he could publicly praise McKinney for her class in accepting her loss and coalescing behind the primary winner. Then sit back and enjoy the fireworks...

but I'm sure you're happy to see Rendell's head back in the game after those quotes you gave the to the Philly Inquirer, Chris. Party unity, indeed.

IMHO, your analysis is on track. I just finished watching a rerun of the CT Dems press conf this morning and everyone was clearly united behind a "this is about Bush and the direction he's taken the country, we need change" mantra.

The Kerry Campaign was filled with Pro-Republican Democrats.  It was his downfall.  They sat on important information, failed to do the work they were assigned and always pushed hard to the right on any swing issue.

Cleanse the Party people...please.

I'm not so certain about turnout.  Outside of yesterday, turnout has not been that great.  I sort of feel yesterday was more an aberration thus far than a pattern of consistent high voter turnout.

I'm still concerned about the ability of the Democratic Party to get out of the vote in many elections all over the country in November.  

When you have a close race and the insurgent candidate wins-- oh baby now suddenly people who aren't sure if voting against the war as a strategy would work think it's possible.

People who didn't think the campaign could be won in '02 or '04 now think opportunity knocks.

Simply put, the Democrats are in good shape by dumping Lieberman. If the message is "throw the bums out" careerist, meandering politicans are going to have the roughest ride as incumbents. The hard core ideolouges with clearly defined messages will survive. Lamont is just another bullet in the clip to decimate the Republican "do-nothing" Congress.

None of the Republicans in office are losing their primaries, they are afraid of making the party's position stronger than themselves. Lieberman didn't do willingly, but his defeat may in fact redeem the Democrats and ressurect their fortunes. Tester is the same way.

It's great helping support candidtes and working your butt off, but getting beat by campaigns that have all the resources in the world and all the big name Democrats supporting the other side takes a toll.

Getting a win against all these odds is a real boost. It helps to keep moral up and to ready oneself for the next charge into the next well funded fully supported incumbent who can't be beat...

So, while we never got the democratic political machine to back away from their beloved Lieberman before the people voted...I would say we still have a lot more work to do.

I'm guessing Lieberman drops out in the next 3 weeks after having donors dry up and seeing polls that don't look favorable.  No one wants to give money to, or vote for, a loser.  Nor is this a way to attract qualified staff now that he's canned everyone (blaming others, as always, for his own failures).

His dropping out of the race spawns another round of "democrats are against the war" articles, further bolstering our cause of bringing the Democrats back from the center-right.

Side note: I implore everyone to use the term "occupation" rather than "war".  There's no war going on, only an occupation, and as everyone knows (CW), occupations must come to an end, the only question is when.  The winning language is right there for us to use, let's use it!

I have a hunch that Lieberman's independent run will suffer from TAF (The Asshole Factor).  He was an insufferable jerk throughout this primary, and his worst qualities will be magnified as he tries to cope with the fact that his old political friends and allies are abandoning him.  He won't be entirely comfortable in the GOP camp, and he won't have much support in the Democratic Party, so he'll be reduced to this grumpy pariah who turns off his own supporters with his petulant behavior.  It would take a person of extraordinary character and class to move forward from the position he is in now, and Joe ain't got it.

He's toast.

So, obviously a lot of extra energy in Connecticut has been unleashed by Lamont's campaign. What does that mean for the three competitive seats ranked competitive by Charlie Cook?
 - CT-02 D+8 -> R toss up
 - CT-04 D+5 -> R toss up
 - CT-05 D+4 -> R lean

National Journal has the same races ranked 10th, 7th and 34th in the top 50 watch list.

What if Lamont spent a bunch of time walking the front-lines with the candidates in these races? It would make him look positively pro-Dem Party in contrast to a certain he-who-shall-not-be-named.

Isn't Ned still the underdog? The GOP candidate is a joke. His own party barely acknowledges him. Gambling problems, unpaid debts, etc.

It looks to me like Lieberman will be the defacto GOP candidate. If just half his Dem support stays with him, and he's able to haul in all the GOP vote less a few hard core dead enders. That's a win.

Believe me I want a Lamont win but I think this is far from over. Looking forward to the new polls coming out.

JoMo and the GOP guy should be worried about anti-occupation Republicans voting for Lamont.

...against civil liberties.

Bloomberg arranged for the mass arrest of protesters during the 2004 Republican Convention.

He wouldn't let protesters use the Central Park great lawn, under the excuse that they would damage it.

It is tasteless for you to compare Bloomberg to Michael Dukakis.

THE SORE-LOSERMAN IS HELPING REPUBLICANS (AGAIN)
The Republicans want and are doing everything they can to help Lieberman grab headlines and continue his ridiculous spoiler-campaign in order to frame the psedo-issue of so-called "Democratic Party disunity" and distract people from the humongous mess Republicans have made of everything.  
Yet again, Lieberman is doing exactly what the Rove-Mellman strategists want, whether he realizes it (diabolical) or not (tool).
And yet again, the media is dancing like monkeys to the Republican-issue-framing tune, by declaring in absurd headlines everywhere: "Democrats abandon Lieberman and endorse Lamont."
"ABANDON" Lieberman?!!!
Why isn't the media declaring that Lieberman is a sore-loser and is snubbing his nose at the will of the voters?  It's as if all the media  headlines have been written by Rove-Mellman.

HE FIGHTS DEMOCRATS AND ROLLS OVER FOR REPUBLICANS
Lieberman all too happily gave up and did not fight the Republicans in 2000 when he should have.
Yet today, he is on a jihad and will not quit when he should.
Lieberman has no grace or class---or shame.
Worse, he only seems to have a fire in his belly when he is fighting against Democrats.  Fighting Republicans apparently isn't his thing.  
He is pompous, mawkish, holier-than-thou...and worst of all he is dead-wrong about the most important issue of our day, the war in Iraq.

The Democratic establishment that campaigned for Lieberman including Bill Clinton, Chris Dodd, Max Cleland, and the rest, had better talk to him FAST and tell him the hard truth: that his continued campaign is killing our chance of saving our country by electing a Democratic majority in the House or Senate to have some oversight and checks and balances over the criminally incompetent B.ADministration for the first time since 2002.
If Lieberman does not have the decency to stop his sabbotage, then the Democrats had better start publicly naming him for what he is: a vengeful spoiler selfishly disrespecting the will of the voters.

LETTER TO JOE:
Joe, since 2000, the Democrats have been trying your Republican-ass kissing ways and not only have Democrats lost, but the counrty is going down the tubes.
Joe, your way is capitulation masked as cooperation.  The Republicans want you to be "bipartisan" (roll-over and do not criticize President Bush, the Iraq War, etc.) while they mercilessly distort and kick the crap out of Democrats...and you, Joe, obediently oblige.
Joe, do you have the grace to realize how your fake-moralism of "working together" was just kneeling before Republi-thugs?
Will you stop your sabbotage of calling us democratic activists partisan extremists (which you never accuse the Bush or Cheney of being) and let us try a different way?

We've been forced to take the debate on national security head on. We have three months to explain why opposing torture, illegal wiretapping and optional wars based on lies isn't being "anti-security" or weak on security.

This debate should have followed 9/11 but better late than never...

Analysis right on target, good rundown.

So a bad thing about this victory, I think, is that now the netroots will still be sending all of that money to Lamont instead of focusing it where it NEEDS to go, like to Claire McCaskill or Jon Tester or Sherrod Brown or Ted Strickland. Someone please prove me wrong, because otherwise I am very worried that the netroots will continue to virtually ignore races like MO-SEN and consequently will not send $ b/c of this obsession with Lamont.

There were 22,000 new Dems registered.  Lamont won by roughly 10,000.  Its safe to assume that most, if not all the new registered Dems were leaning Lamont--why would anyone suddenly register for an August primary to support the status quo?  If all 22,000 voted, they were the difference.  This is particularly significant, because in 2004, Dean, the net and the progressives generated buzz and registered people.  But at least in Iowa, they didn't make it to the polls.  IF, and its a big IF, this is a sign that new people can be motivated and injected into the system, then 2006 could truly be the beginning of a massive change, not just in control of the Congress, but change in how Washington behaves.  My fingers are crossed.