Vast left-winged conspiracy?

Good grief, team Joementum have totally lost their minds.

There is no better barometer of the increasing desperation of the Lamont campaign than the reaction of Ned 's biggest blogger boosters to yesterday's debate.

Instead of touting Ned's performance -- which would have been a challenge for the even the best spinmasters --the usually Republican-hating keyboard jockeys spent an inordinate amount of their hype on Alan Schlesinger.

The reason for this sudden turnabout could not be more transparent. The bloggers know that Negative Ned' s message of blame and blather has totally failed to resonate with voters outside his anti-war base, and that Lamont's only hope in this race now is to try to peel away Republican voters from Joe Lieberman's broad-based coalition.

Seems pretty clear to us this cynical tactic is part of a coordinated strategy -- and that it will fall as flat as the rest of Ned 's general election campaign.

This has to be the dumbest thing I've ever read. Because the blogs correctly stated that Alan Schlesinger kicked the crap out of Joe Lieberman, we're now part of some vast left-winged conspiracy and propping Schlesinger in order to take votes away from Lieberman.

Crybabies.

Let's take a look at the quotes they pulled.

Connecticut Blog:

All I can say is WOW! It think Joe Lieberman just lost a big piece of his Republican support base as the true Republican Alan Schlesinger ripped the de facto Republican to shreds at today's debate. Knowing that he didn't have anything to lose, the Republican nominate candidate came out of the gate swinging and really whacked Lieberman upside the head on a variety of issues ranging from North Korea to Social Security. . . At one point while Schlesinger was tearing Lieberman to pieces, I turned around to get a feel of the crowd and a majority of the people were very impressed with Schlesinger. . .”

Connecticut Bob:
Recap part 2
Overall, I think Schlesinger helped himself the most -- by getting fair time to talk and present himself to his Republican constituents. I think he will get a big bump out of this one.

Now (and it really pains me to do this), lets take a look at what one state conservative blog said about the debate.

Schlesinger Wins Debate

You can watch the video of the debate here, from NBC 30's website. The consensus, not even just from conservatives but from everyone, is that Schlesinger won the debate.

[...]

Most blogs aren't taking the ambigious position that the mainstream newspapers are taking and instead have declared victory for Schlesinger, some even going so far as to say he stole the show.

Let's take a look at another conservative site.

All that being said, the big surprise of the debate was Schlesinger. He was knowledgeable, made some pretty interesting points, and threw some amusing barbs at both Lieberman and Lamont.

Now this blog as pro-Lieberman and ranted about a vote for Schlesinger is a vote for Lamont but in the end, even he had to tip his hat to Schlesinger.

Genghis hit the nail on the head regarding team Joementum's outburst.

The post also mentions something about a "coordinated strategy," and even goes as far as to suggest that Lamont's "wealthy friends" will start funnelling money to Schlesinger. It also, in a twist of irony, accuses Lamont's campaign of deep cynicism.

It's posts like this one that remind me of the defensive, nasty and paranoid Lieberman campaign that crashed and burned so dramatically this summer: not least of all because the Lieberman campaign suddenly has something to be paranoid about.

Lieberman's campaign playbook strategy: blame everyone but themselves for their mistakes.

Lieberman hires a new campaign team and gets the same results.

D-E-S-P-E-R-A-T-E