HORSERACE IN CONNECTICUT-- LIEBERMAN LOOKING MORE AND MORE LIKE THE TIRED NAG HE'S BEEN FOR DECADES

Almost one-fifth of the contributions that have come into Ned Lamont's campaign through ACT BLUE have come from YOU via the Blue America Act Blue Page. I'm proud of you, and it gives me hope for our country. The latest Rasmussen poll just came out and it shows Lamont beating Bush BIG TIME in the primary. We all saw that coming. But the new polling data also shows a 40-40-20 tie in a 3-way race between Ned, Lieberman and the Republicrook they have in the race. And guess where the GIGANTIC momentum is? Jane is on the ground in Connecticut, and her reports from Lamont Country are a MUST.


SUNDAY UPDATE: DEADLY POLL NUMBERS AREN'T THE ONLY THING THAT'S DOOMING LIEBERMAN'S RE-ELECTION BID


Today's Hartford Courant features an editorial penned by Irving Stolberg, who has been a friend and close political ally of Lieberman's and who served two separate terms as speaker of the Connecticut House of Representatives in the 1980s. Stolberg endorsed Ned Lamont.

Joe Lieberman and I have been friends and colleagues for 38 years. We ran for and won seats in the Connecticut legislature as a team of reformers in 1970. He was my state senator and I was his state representative. He rose to Senate majority leader as I became speaker of the House. With others, we formed the Caucus of Connecticut Democrats, a progressive coalition, to further the causes of peace in Vietnam and justice at home.

I have supported him in every election he has had - until now. This year I am supporting Ned Lamont to unseat Joe. Almost four decades of friendship with Joe has made this a wrenching decision for me.

As Joe points out, his record on a number of issues, such as the environment, is good. But on the two biggest issues of our times, he is dead wrong.

His blind support of the Iraq war, begun illegally and a continuing catastrophe, is monstrous.

And his defense of an incompetent president, a vice president who fits the dictionary definition of fascism and an extremist administration that has perpetrated torture, illegal eavesdropping and a general shredding of the Constitution is insulting to the people who elected him in the first place.

Joe's constituency is not Bush and Cheney; it is the progressives and moderates, the blacks and Hispanics who gave him his start in politics. We feel he has betrayed us by becoming "Bush's favorite Democrat."

His announcement that he will not support the winner of the Democratic primary but will seek election as an independent if he loses the primary seems to put self above principle. I thank Ned Lamont, a good and decent man, for giving the people of Connecticut a real choice. We need someone who will confront the Bush-Cheney evils of lies, manipulation and incompetence, which have done us so much harm at home and abroad.

This year I shall vote for Ned Lamont.