This past Monday evening our DTC welcomed Ned Lamont to his third meeting of that day. The town meeting was held in the old Newtown Meeting House where religion and politics mixed during the early days in New England. This didn't go unnoticed by Lamont (he showed just what a quck study he is) when he noted that he felt rather odd speaking in what was an old church, at a time when religion and politics seem to be overlapping like never before.
Who would have thought that Lamont could be making such headway in a state where Joementum thought everything was his..lock, stock, and barrel?
Below are a few pictures from the evening..
And I couln't resist throwing in this photo from the Jefferson Jackson Bailey Dinner, wherein Lieberman's table was woefully lacking interested Democrats.
Lamont arrived about a half hour later than scheduled but we all (roughly 50 people) had a great discussion session prior to his arrival, (very much in the mode of a New England town meeting.) His driver spoke with me and said he had never seen such energy and, as he put it, buzz about a candidacy. In fact, a Washington Post reporter (frazzled keeping up with Lamont, I might add) was busily following Lamont throughout the day.
One item of note: the head of our DTC has been friends with Lieberman for over 15 years, and he is happily flipping to Lamont. There are at least 3 other delegates going for Lamont, but I'll have a more accurate headcount after our regular meeting tonight.
Issues that came up and were well fielded by Ned had a wide range.
The Iraq war actually was dealt with as an understood...it's the underpinning of what drove Lamont to get into the race in the first place. And so we moved on to many other topics.
We asked Ned about healthcare, immigration, small business, the economic climate, the bankruptcy bill, social security privitazation to name a few of the most urgent topics. One gentleman brought along 2 DVDs (Loose Change and The Aftermath) which he passed on to Ned, and he graciously accepted.
Lamont's contining ease about getting into this important race has not gone unnoticed. As noted in an opinion piece in The Hartford Courant on April 2, 2006 written by Kevin Rennie (a lawyer and former Republican lawmaker)....
It isn't the first role reversal of late. Much has been made of Lieberman's disputatious appearance on WTIC radio's "Bruce and Colin" program. The 18-year Senate veteran sounded peeved with a column by co-host and Courant columnist Colin McEnroe. His anxieties over the race with Lamont started to show.
And this:
Not as widely noted was Lamont's appearance on the program not long after. He's become a polished ad-libber in the two months since I interviewed him at his Greenwich office. His set piece announcement speech was a typical mix of slogans, jargon and rah- rah rhetoric cooked up for the newly converted. On his own in a radio studio fielding calls, a common battlefield in campaigns, Lamont is a pro.
One sign of his maturity as a candidate is that Lamont does not sound desperate for votes. When one caller, proclaiming the virtue of her own candor, started what sounded like an anti-Semitic rant against Lieberman, Lamont quickly dissociated himself from his ugly- minded supporter and launched into a paean to Lieberman's patriotism. In this era of brutal political combat, it was a rare moment. It sounded like the sort of exchange that, if repeated in enough forums, will transform the race for the nomination from interesting to close, maybe even stunning.
All in all, it was an uplifting evening. Maybe this is what we need, as Democrats, to show the country. Intelligent, open men and women. People who look you right in the eye and give you their word that they'll do what's best and right for the people of this country.