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It's Lamont

Mr. Johnson is a professor of history at Brooklyn College and a contributor to HNN's Cliopatria.

I just watched the post-primary speeches of Ned Lamont and Joe Lieberman following Lamont’s stunning victory in the Connecticut Democratic primary. (And it was stunning: even though he led in the last two pre-primary polls, several months ago Lamont trailed by nearly 50 points.) Lamont’s speech was effective, though with politically dubious visuals: he was flanked by Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson as he spoke. Lieberman’s address, meanwhile, was remarkably bitter, filled with denunciations of Lamont for personal attacks. The senator insisted he’d run as an independent.

If I had to bet on the race right now, however, I’d place my money on Lamont. The last candidate to win election to the Senate after losing his party’s nominating process was John Warner (Virginia, 1978), and his was a peculiar case: the party’s nominee died in an accident, and the GOP turned to Warner, the runner-up at the convention. I’m not aware of any senator since World War II who has lost his or her primary and then went on to win the race as an independent. Moreover, Lieberman has spent the last several weeks touting himself as a good Democrat—yet tonight criticized those in Washington who didn’t do enough to reach out to Republicans. In short, for a candidate whose strength has always been his honesty and integrity, Lieberman isn’t all that well-positioned.

In Georgia, meanwhile, Cynthia McKinney went out with a bang. Against a second-tier but competent challenger, county commissioner Hank Johnson, her share of the vote actually fell, from 47% in the runoff to 41% last night. Naturally, McKinney blamed a conspiracy: the first complaint of election improprieties appeared 14 minutes after the polls opened—a wild (untrue) allegation that only Johnson’s name was appearing on the ballot. And in a delicious irony, a male McKinney staffer bumped and grabbed the wrist of a female cameraperson attempting to cover the congresswoman. I suspect we’ve seen the last of McKinney; as for Lieberman, it will be interesting to see what level of support he can retain from national Democrats in the coming days.

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Posted on Wednesday, August 9, 2006 at 12:29 AM | Comments (12) | Return

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