Manchester backs Lieberman?

Enough of the emails people and take a deep breath. Okay, now lets take a very close look at the delegate breakdown from Manchester.

In preparation for the May 20 state convention, town committee members spent about two hours debating the pros and cons of each of the Democrats hoping to gain the party's nod as a candidate - Malloy and New Haven Mayor John DeStefano, and Lieberman and Greenwich cable television executive Ned Lamont.

"We've got some negotiating and bargaining to do within the convention delegates," Town Chairman Ted Cummings said following a 13-6 vote in favor of Malloy and a 20-4 vote in favor of Lieberman. Some 13 committee members are uncommitted in the race for governor and eight are uncommitted for senator.

[...]

Cummings said that while he's uncommitted in the race for governor, he does support Lieberman's reelection - despite a resolution the town committee passed nearly unanimously this year that chastised the senator for his support of the Bush policy in Iraq.

Nevertheless, Cummings said, Lieberman shouldn't take Manchester's support for granted and the town committee should send its message clearly. He urged the delegates to split their votes 17-10 for Lieberman.

Although Cummings is backing Lieberman, there are some things to consider here.

1. Manchester is the first city to pass a resolution chastising Joe Lieberman for his supporting the Iraq War.

2. Currently, there are 8 uncommitted votes or in other words, some delegates don't like Lieberman but need to here from Lamont.

3. Cummings is urging his delegates to split their votes 17-10 for Lieberman.

Manchester is offering their support to Lieberman, the support is not as black and white as it seems. Based on Cummings own words, he's urging the vote count to go 17-10, which gives Lamont more than the 15 percent needs from the city. Nevertheless, the media will probably try to spin this as the first good news Lieberman because of Manchester's resolution against Joe based on the war.

You can't take any vote for granted and if the events in Manchester should tell you how important it is for a candidate to reach out to every delegate. In the end, Lamont will still have the 15 percent he needs to force the primary but nevertheless, Lamont's campaign will have to work extremely hard to get Ned's message out to the delegates simply because Lieberman has the name recognition while people are still learning where Lamont stands on issues other than Iraq. As we get closer to the convention, the delegates will need to be convinced that voting for Lamont will not jeopardize a "safe seat" in the senate.

UPDATE: Thirdparty nails it.

It's important for all to come to grips with the fact that the GOP will not put up any serious competition in November. Alan Schlesinger, the state GOP's preferred candidate, is only slightly less of a complete joke than Paul Streitz.

Voting for Ned Lamont at the convention or in August will not endanger this safe Democratic seat in November. Joe Lieberman will be the one who endangers the seat if he decides to leave the party to run as an Independent.

There is NO WAY the GOP will win the election with either Schlesinger or Streitz on the ticket. Streitz is a xenophobe and a nutcase and Schlesinger's campaign has already jumped the shark with his pitiful interview on Colin McEnroe's show. This race is between Lieberman and Lamont and Democrats didn't leave Lieberman, he left the Democratic Party ages ago. Look at Lieberman's record and you can see that the Democrats never had this seat in the first place.

A vote for Lieberman=a safe Democratic seat? We are talking about Bush's favorite Democrat right?