Lamont does Yale

From the Yale College Democrats Blog (photo credit: Han Xu)

Ned Lamont spoke last night (Monday, 2/27/06) to a meeting of the Yale Democrats and the Yale community at large. Here is a summary of what he said, interspersed with some of my own comments. He made a very good overall impression on the crowd of 80-100 people, mostly students. He gave what is becoming his standard stump speech, followed by a brief Q & A session. I think that he’s getting very good at telling the crowd who he is, what he’s about, and why Lieberman has to go.

Background:

After college, Ned worked at a small newspaper in Ludlow, VT. This experience gave him appreciation for the needs of everyday Americans. It seems like those in DC, he said, are not even trying to make a difference anymore.

Who is he?:

He is an entrepreneur, who started his own cable company that, for the first time, offered colleges a choice in their cable service. Now he wants to offer CT residents a real choice for the first time in too long. Through his business experience, he learned that you can’t kick problems down the road – they’ll only get worse.
Obviously, he’s not afraid of a challenge. He wants to challenge the status quo and bring his entrepreneurial approach to CT politics and the US Senate.

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Lamont On the issues:

The War:

“’Stay the course’ is a losing strategy. 'More of the same’ is a losing strategy”.

Ned respects Lieberman and his integrity, but stridently disagrees with him. Lieberman’s WSJ op-ed from November spurred him to enter this race. He thinks we needed to ask more questions from the beginning and challenge the President’s litany of questionable assertions. The troops have fought wonderfully, but the leadership in Washington has let them down. We need to hold those leaders accountable for their errors.

He says we need to pull the troops back. Start with reservists and Nat’l guard troops– bring them home. Pull the regular troops back to the periphery – our presence is doing more to destabilize Iraq than to help secure it.

Lamont will stand up to the President – Democrats need to stand up and be heard. The war and our conduct in the GWOT has thoroughly eroded our moral authority in the world, and we need to reclaim it.

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Q & A:

Q: If you’re elected, but the senate is still in Republican hands, what should Democrats do?
A: Stand up and make your strong opposition heard! However, he said that Democrats will take back the Senate.

Q: What is your ideal Democratic foreign policy?
A: 1) Utilize our allies. 2) Reclaim the moral high ground. 3) Preserve a viable military option, something the President has not done.

Bottom line?:

“Democrats should stand up and be Democrats again”

Amen to that.