Is The DNC Out To Get Lieberman?

If you connect the dots, it's not hard to conclude that the DNC, run by Howard Dean, is actually supporting the takedown of one of its own incumbent Senators, Joe Lieberman, (D) from Connecticut.

DNC Chair Howard Dean and Lieberman have some bad blood.

Senator Lieberman and Howard Dean took occasional swipes at each other when both sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004. And Mr. Lamont has helped Howard Dean in the past.

Howard Dean started Democracy for America (DFA) for his run for the Presidency, but has sinced turned it over to his brother James, who pledged to carry on what his brother Howard started.

Now DFA is working against Lieberman - Hot off a DFA-List endorsement, Ned Lamont is surging. And challenger Ned Lamont hired a guy away from Howard Dean's DNC to run his Internet outreach campaign. It's hard to believe this is anything other than DNC chair Dean going around the DNC to take out one of their own. No wonder Lieberman isn't happy. But maybe he shouldn't be blaming the NetRoots - perhaps he should be looking at the DNC. Read quotes below:

A win by Lamont, 52, a Greenwich businessman challenging Lieberman over his support for President Bush on Iraq and other issues, would be claimed as a victory by Web-based advocacy groups such as MoveOn.org and Democracy for America, as well as bloggers who regularly write about the campaign for state and national sites.

Several hundred supporters attended a noon rally in New Haven Thursday that was organized by MoveOn and DFA, a group founded by Howard Dean and now run by his brother, James. State Rep. John Geragosian, D-New Britain, one of the few elected officials to attend, said he was struck by the new faces that the two groups drew.

Tim Tagaris begins each day by cracking a Diet Pepsi in his New Haven apartment, then searching the Internet for blog postings about Ned Lamont, the challenger to Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman.

The Lamont campaign hired Tagaris away from the Democratic National Committee in April, where he was the party's director of Internet outreach.

"I left the DNC to come here because there is no more important race in my mind and many people's minds than this primary," Tagaris said.

At Lamont's headquarters in Meriden, Tagaris works at a plastic folding table that holds his own tools: a Compaq Presario laptop, scanner, printer and digital cameras.

One project is instructing supporters on how to set up personal fundraising pages. He also maintains a blog on the Lamont website and posts video, Lamont television commercials and text that he hopes others will copy and pass on through e-mail. Spread from person to person, the technique is called "viral communication."

Eli Pariser, the executive director of MoveOn.org, said the Lamont campaign has excelled at using the Web to build a base of volunteers and donors.

Comments

[Sheik Yerbouti]

Lieberman is a Jew. Dean will lose.