"Joe Keeps Focus On Mud..." it's going to get REAL dirty in CT....

[98geoduck]

`Negative' Brand Frustrates Lamont
October 22, 2006
By MARK PAZNIOKAS, Courant Staff Writer

Upon hearing that Ned Lamont was about to launch his closing advertising blitz, Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman hastily called a press conference to pre-emptively denounce ads he'd never seen.

"Ned is going to use his wealth to run an uglier campaign and throw as much manufactured mud at me as he possibly can ... every half hour of every television viewing day from here on in," Lieberman said.....

snip

"Thomas D'Amore, a former top Weicker aide now advising Lamont, said the Lieberman campaign has tried to inoculate itself from criticism by branding Lamont as negative.

"Give the devil his due," D'Amore said.

Lamont's counter strategy is an ambitious multitrack advertising campaign on television and radio intended to build up Lamont as a businessman, tear down Lieberman as a career politician and neutralize the senator's ability to define Lamont as negative.

To combat the "Negative Ned" label, one track of Lamont's message will attempt to define Lieberman as "Whining Joe." Lamont is using Lieberman's own 1988 campaign against Weicker as a template, a gambit the challenger's campaign is calling, "Joe vs. Joe."

On Thursday, when Lieberman stood inside his Hartford campaign headquarters denouncing the coming "Lamont onslaught of attack ads," Edward Vale of the Lamont campaign was waiting outside to give reporters a DVD of footage from 1988, when Lieberman was a challenger accused of being the negative one.

On the DVD case were portraits of Lieberman from 1988 and 2006 and the title, "Joe vs. Joe. A portrait of hypocrisy." On the disc were clips from Lieberman's last debate with Weicker.

"I've talked in this campaign about my opponent's record, and I've talked about my record," Lieberman says in the first clip. "I know he's complained about that, but that's part of a campaign. I don't mean it personally."

In another clip posted Friday on Lamont's website, Lieberman can be seen saying of Weicker: "He has been whining a lot about my campaign. But maybe he can't take the criticism; the reality is that is what a campaign is all about."

One ad from the "Joe vs. Joe" track reminds voters that Lieberman pledged not to serve more than three terms when he was running against Weicker, then a three-term incumbent.

"Is that negative?" Lamont asked after Lieberman's press conference. "Or is that just holding people to the very standard they set for themselves?"

snip
""I've given people a positive alternative, telling these people exactly what I would do," Lamont told reporters. "Just because keeps making these accusations, there's no need for you to keep repeating them."

This week, Lamont is spending $1 million on television, enough to air a commercial every 30 minutes from 5 a.m. to 1 a.m. on every network affiliate, Lieberman said. Lamont did not dispute the size of the ad buys, which are tracked by each campaign."...

http://www.courant.com/news/politics/hc-senate1022.artoct22,0,5008517.story?page=2&coll=hc-headlines-home

[Rex]

1. Why didn't Lieberman fight with this much 'mud' during his VP bid in 2000?

It is most interesting in what Joe will fight tooth and nail over. VPOTUS, eh no not at all. His Senate seat? Yes, even if it means he loses all respect with Dems.

What a pathetic little man Joe is.

[98geoduck]

2. "Many GOP Donors Pitch In For Joe" for all the DUers that support Joe

"Many GOP Donors Pitch In For Joe
October 21, 2006
By DAVID LIGHTMAN, Washington Bureau Chief

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman collected millions of dollars in campaign cash since his Democratic primary loss by tapping a lengthy list of major contributors to President Bush, dozens of Washington special interest groups and a lot of loyal Democrats.

Lieberman's 1,877-page campaign finance report, made public by the Federal Election Commission this week, shows that while he relied on a lot of familiar Democratic names to help him collect $5.1 million since beginning his general election campaign Aug. 9 as an independent, he also got significant help from the White House donor network.

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Among the post-primary contributors to the Connecticut senator, running as an independent for a fourth term, was Joseph Allbaugh, one of the four members of Bush's tight inner circle during his 2000 presidential campaign, and two Republican Senate committee chairmen.

Also giving was Melvin Sembler, former ambassador to Italy and longtime friend of the Bush family, former assistant Republican Senate Leader Don Nickles, and dozens of others from Texas, Missouri, Colorado and other states where Lieberman usually does not find contributors.

The effort to get Bush loyalists into Lieberman's camp was triggered by White House political guru Karl Rove's Aug. 8 phone call to the senator, just before Lieberman learned he would lose to Ned Lamont in the Connecticut Democratic Senate primary.

Rove did not promise any help, or offer any support. "I called him. He's a personal friend, and I called him," Rove said later. "It was a personal call. Look, Harry Reid's been at my house for dinner. So I actually do have friendships on the other side of the aisle."

That call, said Republican strategist Scott Reed, "was a signal to a lot of the Republican faithful to get engaged in the Lieberman race."

The White House has kept up the drumbeat, consistently sending other signals as Lieberman continues to push for funds in the campaign's closing days. Thursday, for instance, Bush praised Lieberman at Republican rallies in Pennsylvania and Virginia, and Vice President Dick Cheney has made it a part of his standard stump speech to decry how the Democratic Party has "turned its back" on the senator.

Lieberman campaign manager Sherry Brown said the campaign has had no contact with the White House or the Republican Party, though she said of the GOP money, "We reached out and people reached out to us." Usually that meant that traditional Lieberman fundraisers contacted Republicans for cash, something they were often unable to do in the past.

"We're happy when we get support from anybody," Brown said."

snip

http://www.courant.com/news/politics/hc-joemoney1021.artoct21,0,4575129.story?coll=hc-headlines-politics-state

[Rex]

3. Yes his primary loss really brought out the truth about Joe.

Repukes had no choice but to go public with support for Joe. I doubt anyone here on DU supports Judas Lieberman.