Reporter gets the real story

People came out to Waterbury to see Bill Clinton, not to see Joe Lieberman.

An awestruck crowd of about 2,000 Democrats swooned over the former president as he campaigned for Lieberman's re-election at Waterbury's Palace Theater, several of them shouting "four more years" as Clinton reminisced about his two terms in office.

[...]

With Clinton's appearance and both primary candidates in the city, Waterbury was the political center of the state yesterday.

"I think he's awesome," Gus Vassiliou, manager of Louie's Pizza, said of Clinton. The pizzeria is next door to the theater. "I wish he was still the president."

Some antiwar demonstrators and supporters of Lamont tried to seize on the joint appearance of Lieberman and Clinton.

Edward Anderson, a New Haven Democrat who is part of a group of Lieberman critics who started the Web site DumpJoe.com, created a special sign to hold outside the theater.

"Bill's indiscretions or Bush's idiotic war?" the sign said.

Mary Ellen Shea, a South Windsor Democrat and a Lamont supporter, speculated that Lieberman was not the main attraction.

"If I had to make an educated guess, the majority are here to see Clinton," said Shea, who went to the rally with friends who are Lieberman supporters.


[...]

Watertown Democrat Jerry Langlais said Clinton's popularity within the party is unrivaled.

"There's nobody I'd rather listen to speak than Clinton," Langlais said.

As for whether undecided voters will listen to the former president, Langlais said the former president could only do so much.

Will Clinton's visit have any impact on Lieberman? With two weeks until primary day, I don't think so. Simply put, Lieberman's tactics are too little, too late. To back up this statement, lets take a look at the important part of the latest poll.

19. (If candidate choice given q18) Is your mind made up, or do you think you might change your mind before the primary?

Made up 79%
Might change 19
DK/NA 2

With almost 80 percent of the public having their mind already made up, I don't think Clinton, Boxer or anyone can sway voters to vote for Lieberman. The only person who can get people to vote for him at this point is Lieberman and to this day, Lieberman has refuse to hold a public event (in order to go to see Clinton yesterday, you needed to get a ticket from the Lieberman campaign which required you to give your social security number. Anyone who didn't support Lieberman were either denied a ticket or blocked from entering the event).

In the end, people came out to see Clinton and the whole event will be forgotten by the end of the news cycle (which is about now). When the dust settles, people will rememebr that this election is about Joe Lieberman and whether or not voters think he deserves to serve as senator of Connecticut for another term.