ConnecticutBLOG

I hope this guy gets a prize for all the great reporting he's doing (note to Susan and Mark, this is how reporting is done).

Lieberman race-baiting flyer
Front side:

Back side:

In a phone interview with me, Sharpton, who has endorsed Ned Lamont, criticized Lieberman for what appeared to be the first time during this campaign. He hammered Lieberman for the flyer, saying it was "beneath" Lieberman and "beneath the kind of person I thought he was."

Sharpton also told me that he planned to raise the issue of the flyer in a private conversation with Lieberman he intended to have before going to Connecticut to campaign for Lamont tomorrow.

Sharpton faulted the Lieberman campaign for bringing up the country club issue.

"I think it is very unfortunate and disappointing," Sharpton said, adding that he wished the campaign would focus instead on "the issues that are of concern to voters, particularly African American voters -- like this war, which has certainly bled from our community at a disproportionate rate, and questions about Lieberman's closeness to Bush throughout Bush's tenure."

"I respect and like Joe Lieberman as a person," Sharpton added. "This country club stuff reminds me of how people smeared Bill Clinton. It's ironic that they have a picture of Clinton on the cover of the flyer."

When Sargent asked LIEBERMAN ADVISER Dan Gerstein (the former blogger, (as of July 27th) who tried to cover his tracks talking to Sargent on the 27th as an unidentified advisor for team Joementum, as well as a day before to the NYT as an "informal" adviser in his pathetic attempt to smear Lamont) offered up this line of bullshit.

Dan Gerstein, a Lieberman adviser speaking officially for the campaign, said that the flyer raised perfectly legitimate issues.

"We believe that Ned Lamont's hypocrisy is very relevant to this race," Gerstein told Election Central. "All we did with this flyer was point out on the one hand the facts about Joe Lieberman's great record on civil rights, and on the other the facts about Ned Lamont's membership in an all-white country club."

Asked if he knew that the club was in fact "all-white," Gerstein said: "No one's proven to the contrary."

Like I said, more bullshit from team Lieberman as there is NO evidence that the club does not allow African-Americans members.

Yawn...anyway, Sharpton says he's going to raise the issue with Joe before stumping for Lamont.

Sharpton concluded that he would air his objections to the flyer in a private conversation with Lieberman before campaigning in Connecticut for Lamont tomorrow. "I'm gonna raise it," Sharpton said. "I'm gonna ask him, Is he aware of it?"

Note to Sharpton: Don't fall for Joe's lies. At this point, he doesn't even deserve your respect SINCE his campaign acknowledged yesterday that they were behind the flyers that was clearly targeted towards the African-American community.

Do you want a senator who offer up his association with Dr. Martin Luther King at African-American churches (with a smile) while giving the green light to pass out race-bating flyers on the church members cars? Connecticut can do better than someone like Lieberman representing us in Washington.

I trust Ned Lamont would never lower himself to this type of disgusting campaigning.

NOTE: For the record, Lieberman's camp used the flyer as a RACE-BAITING tactic. They didn't come right out and call Lamont a racist but they left that judgement up to the readers of the misleading flyer (thus the term race-baiting).

Again: here the key phrase on the back of the flyer:

"He didn't pay as much attention to race...until he got into the sente race"

Not only is this misleading, it's clearly a race-baiting tactic and below any Democratic politician's standard, especially someone who touts his high level of professionalism and good conduct such as Lieberman.