Learning from Lamont - By David Sirota

[Jon8503]

What Connecticut's Senate race says about the progressive movement and American politics

It was raining hard when I returned my rental car at Hartford’s Bradley International Airport on Wednesday—the weather was not helping to raise my spirits from the night before. I had been working as a strategist and rapid response staffer for Ned Lamont’s Senate campaign against pro-war incumbent Joe Lieberman, and we had just lost the general election by 10 points. Needless to say, I wasn’t happy. But my mood lifted when the middle-aged woman at the Avis counter said, “I voted for him.”

She was pointing at the Lamont for Senate button still pinned to my rumpled jacket lapel. During a day where I, like thousands of others in Connecticut, were looking for answers, her simple statement — “I voted for him” — was a much-needed reminder to me that we had done something very profound.

“I wish he would have won,” she went on. “I just don’t get why he lost.”

A lot of people don’t get why Ned Lamont lost and Sen. Joe Lieberman (CFL-Conn.) won. But over the coming weeks and months, both the right and left will try to explain Lamont’s high-profile loss in ways that are advantageous to each side. Already, two major narratives on what happened have emerged—both of which conflict with each other, both of which are wrong, and both of which will be debunked right here, right now.

(article below @ link)

http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/2917/