Thread to call on Ned Lamont to run for Dodd's Senate seat

[Ken Burch]

Ned would have been a good governor. But the situation has changed.

He'd win Dodd's seat going away this year.

And really, the governorship wouldn't give him the chance to do all that much, at least as long as revenue-sharing keeps getting cut and budget shortfalls continue. There's really no good reason for progressive to run for offices in states with revenue shortfalls. There can't be a progressive way to make cuts. All cuts are the same.

This time, it can happen.

This time, Joe can't stop him.

Join me in calling for Ned Lamont to run for the U.S. Senate in 2010.

[dkf]

1. Let blumenthal have it.

He has earned his props.

[Ken Burch]

24. He helped Pay Moynihan demonize poor women

No one who did that should EVER get a Democratic nomination.

It's bad enough that our last Democratic president told the poor to fuck off, and didn't gain a single vote for doing so. We don't have to cut the poor loose to win.

[babylonsister]

2. What do you know about Blumenthal? I knew nothing until today, and

if he's a shoo-in, that sounds okay by me.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=433x112890

[Ken Burch]

It can never be a good thing to nominate a Dem of whom THIS can be said

(and this is from your own post on the guy):

"Pat Moynihan liked Blumenthal's senior thesis on the failure of poverty programs so much that he incorporated much of it into his own book and recruited Blumenthal to work for him in the Nixon White House."

1)It's Republican to agree with Pat Moynihan on poverty (Moynihan was the man who started the 40 YEARS HATE against "welfare mothers").

2)Why should we ever nominate anybody who could've ended up in the Nixon administration?

Obviously, if you hate poor women(which you'd have to do to agree with Moynihan about poverty issues)you have no place in the Democratic Party.

We don't need a bland, centrist pretty face.

[bobbolink]

14. But, as you can see, POVERTY isn't an important issue here.

Thank you so much for pointing this out.

:yourock:

I wish it were getting more attention... the silence speaks volumes.

[Ken Burch]

15. Apparently, at some point, this turned into Yuppie Underground

You're welcome. Thanks for the support.

I think the fix is already in on this. We're simply to accept this guy because our betters have said so.

[bobbolink]

19. While I wish that were so, it is the state of the NATIONAL party, too.

Obama was NEVER a poverty candidate, any issue of poverty here sinks unless it is tied to health care, Kucinich dropped poverty in '04, JE was demonized for speaking out on poverty, etc.

People like me are supposed to sacrifice ourselves "for the good of the party".

:wtf:

Again, I thank you. It is really difficult seeing your whole issue to just survive being ignored and dissed.

[dkf]

32. I don't think permanent welfare as an example sets someone up to be a success in life

Success only comes through work.

[Ken Burch]

35. Poor people themselves would agree

Which is why Moynihan and Blumenthal should have called for jobs programs, rather than just calling for stigmatization of poor women. They blamed it all on the poor themselves, and offered no positive alternatives.

[dkf]

41. That doesn't make any sense to me.

How is that even a platform? I don't know about this so I'll refrain from further comments.

[Ken Burch]

43. A real plafform to deal with poverty would include the following

1)creating New Deal-type public works programs(with modern skill-training)to actually create jobs for those on welfare(most of whom are on welfare due to the historic consequences of redlining in their neighborhoods);

2)Allow, at least in some circumstances, two-parent families to get public assistance. If we could subsidize tobacco, we could've subsidized intact families. The bar on that forcibly broke up hundreds of thousands of poor families, leaving those kids to be raised in crisis and uncertainty just to appease right-wing ideologues.

3)Massive infusions of credit and insurance into those areas impoverished by redlining, because the private insurance/credit trusts were never going to stop choking those areas to death in the hopes that everyone in them would die out and the white suburbanites would get rich off the economic genocide thus inflicted.

4)Creation of a constitutional RIGHT to a job.

[dkf]

48. At this rate a constitutional right to a job would be drafting into the military.

It's the only true shortage in jobs we have right now.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

3. Nah, Ned can run for Lieberman's seat

[Ken Burch]

10. It'll be too late to matter by then

n/t.

[hlthe2b]

4. Why would we do that when the DEM AG is such a good candidate

and with polls so suggestive of a ready win?

I like Lamont, but... why look a gift horse in the mouth?

[Ken Burch]

5. Does the AG actually stand for anything, or is he just a pretty face?

Besides, you can't do anything progressive as governor.

[hlthe2b]

29. Everything I've read thus far has been positive...

I defer to Connecticut residents for more specifics.

[babylonsister]

6. +1. You got it. nt

[AllentownJake]

7. No I like Blumenthal

He's Spitzer without the hookers.

[madokie]

8. We hope anyway

[Shadowwiggs]

9. Blumenthal's "30" point lead will evaporate as he has to do what all politicians have to do;

Blumenthal's "30" point lead will evaporate as he has to do what all politicians have to do: Tell Connecticut your position on issues such as abortion, terrorism, taxes, etc. etc. etc.

The problem with taking someone with "name recognition" and leaping for joy over a 30 point lead is the sad fact that as soon as he starts telling people what he believes; support tanks.

[Jennicut]

12. Nah, Blumenthal's positions have been known for years. He has been AG since 1990.

He has always been known as a liberal. People here in CT don't care what his ideology is because he has fought many times for the little person against the big guys. That is his rep in this state and it is a good one. He is known as an advocate for people without a voice. That appeal crosses party lines. In CT, that crossover appeal matters. A 30 point lead may evaporate but I doubt he loses the lead unless he has a big scandal somewhere and having been in the limelight here in CT for a long time now I doubt that.

[Shadowwiggs]

17. Well go ahead and run with him; I think he is unelectable.

Purely because of his twisted positions and 180's over his career, not to mention his wealth and the guestions over that.

[Jennicut]

23. Yeah, he is only the best candidate we have in CT as Dems.

I sense desperation on the part of Repubs who thought they had this whole thing sewn up.

[DainBramaged]

30. I've read he is squeaky clean, and has 70% approval by republicans

how do you like your pizza?

[Ken Burch]

36. Nothing that person posted was 'stonable.

it was fair comment, and it wasn't a personal attack on anyone.

[DainBramaged]

37. You need to read a few other threads...............but that's Ok

[S_E_Fudd]

11. Blumenthal is a great candidate...

And a sure bet to hold onto the seat...

[Ken Burch]

13. He's not progressive. He agrees with Moynihan about poor women

he has a "talent for making friends with the rich and powerful".

That doesn't equal a DEMOCRAT.

[bobbolink]

16. THANK YOU.

Clearly, the lack of concern for poor women isn't an issue here.

:cry:

[Ken Burch]

21. Winning in name is all that matters to you.

The guy will just be a younger Lieberman. And we don't have to settle for that.

[Jennicut]

28. As a CT resident, avoiding Simmons again is what matters to me. Or Linda nutso McMahon.

Or that even more nutso guy, Peter Schiff. My Mom worked for his Dad and the whole family is a bunch of survivalists.
Anyway, Blumenthal of the 90's and 2000's was a fighter against big corps. He will make a good Senator, believe me. He is nothing like Lieberman here. In CT he is known as very liberal while Lieberman is seen as increasingly conservative (and less popular then ever, thankfully).

[cali]

18. you haven't a clue as to what you're talking about.

Blumenthal is an excellent candidate.

[Ken Burch]

20. He agrees with Moynihan about poor women.

He almost ended up in the Nixon Administration. By you that's EXCELLENT?

[Freddie Stubbs]

33. What did the two of them agree about regarding poor women?

:shrug:

[Ken Burch]

38. From this quote in babytonsisters pro-Blumenthal post, pretty much everything

"Pat Moynihan liked Blumenthal's senior thesis on the failure of poverty programs so much that he incorporated much of it into his own book and recruited Blumenthal to work for him in the Nixon White House. "

Obviously, that's an endorsement of Moynihan's vicious, hate-based thesis that poor women were wrong to accept AFDC rather than let their children starve(which is what the alternative would have been, given that those women were never going to be given jobs in the free market system).

Then again, you pretty much hate poor women and accepted Rush Limbaugh's slurs on them in the Nineties, so the above quote is probably a selling point for you.

[hlthe2b]

39. Who, Ken, are you suggesting "hates poor women & accepted

Rush Limbaugh's slurs on them in the 90s?" Wow... :shrug:

[Ken Burch]

40. The person who I was responding to

The man self-identifies as a Blue Dog, and was a DLC'er before that. Obviously, that tells you where he comes down on social justice issues and the poor right there.

[hlthe2b]

42. I'm seeing accounts of Blumenthal that suggest

he has been very proactive towards the poor and a populist... Perhaps the thesis (lauded by Moynihan years ago) that appears to have suggested a less sympathetic approach to women and poverty is a function of his youth at the time? I'm still learning about him, but this does not seem to be coming up in discussions on other progressive blogs I've read to date. :shrug:

[David Zephyr]

22. It's a free country. Primaries are good. Maybe Ned should enter himself also.

The fact that Chris Dodd -- who ended his "career" in shame with his sweetheart and crooked mortgage deal, by voting against the re-importation of meds from Canada for Americans, by voting for this travesty of a corporate "health" bill -- announced his "retirement" and the establishment already had Blumenthal in the wings concerns me. Makes me wonder.

I like Ned Lamont.

If Lamont wants to run, then let him and Blumenthal face the voters in that state.

[Ken Burch]

25. Thanks. The whole effort to just tell people they have to settle for Blumenthal is arrogant

The guy isn't THAT good. He's just a centrist pretty boy who hates poor women.

[Exultant Democracy]

44. He is a solid progressive and it is clear you know nothing or little of his record as CT AG

[Exultant Democracy]

26. Let CT decide for ourselves ( and I'm pretty sure we already have.)

[Ken Burch]

27. What do you mean "we already have"

All that's happened is that the power elite rolled this guy out.

It doesn't bother you that he agrees with Pat Moynihan about poor women?

[Exultant Democracy]

31. I judge him by his actions. He has been a tireless defender of the poor,

fighting for, economic, social, educational and environmental justice. I can't hold an adult accountable for something he wrote when he was just a kid just to get credit for a class, that is the kind of desperate dirty politics I would expect from the right wing.

[Jennicut]

34. Yup. He was probably younger then me when he worked for Moynihan too.

I am 34 and believe me I have changed many positions I held when I was younger. Being in CT I have never seen Blumenthal as anything but a liberal.

[Ken Burch]

45. If you changed your positions, you moved RIGHT since then

People almost never develop more progressive values with time. If you did, I congratulate you on a freakishly unusual course of development.

No politician has moved from the right to the left since Bobby Kennedy, though. None ever will again.

[Exultant Democracy]

46. Obviously Alan Spector and Bob Barr don't count as politicians. Arianna Huffington and

Cenk Ugar are both very good examples of people who developed far more progressive values well into adulthood. Shoot I can't even start to name the number of friends I had who voted for Bush in 2000 only in turn to become solid progressives.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

47. Kos too.

Although I wouldn't count Specter. He goes wherever it's best for him.

[Exultant Democracy]

49. I didn't know about Markos. Frank Schaeffer is another all star new lib.

[Jennicut]

51. I started off as much more moderate. DU actually made me more liberal.

[derby378]

50. Ned Lamont belongs in the Senate

Seeing him replace Dodd would be great. One way to make Lieberman shiver.