Should progressives shift their money and attention from the Connecticut Senate race to more important contests? Absolutely.
Look, one of the Dems’ problems in recent years is an inability to walk and chew gum at the same time. Rove Republicans throw everything but the kitchen sink into various electoral strategies. They don’t worry if the strategies are inconsistent or even diametrically opposed. Some will work; some won’t. But you don’t know what will stick until you throw it against the wall. Meanwhile, Dems engage in agonizing strategy debates, looking for that one electoral silver bullet.
So I am all for multi-tasking: pay passing attention to the Connecticut race, while focusing with laser intensity on the races that will actually determine control of the Senate (as TPM Reader BM suggests below). Rove may be goading Democrats into fighting like hell amongst themselves in Connecticut, but that doesn’t mean we have to take the bait.
Out of curiosity I did a few Technorati searches to compare how many mentions the various Senate challengers have gotten in the blogosphere. It’s a rough gauge, but interesting nonetheless:
Ned Lamont (CT) — 26,578 hits
Sherrod Brown (OH) — 6,764
Jim Webb (VA) — 4,516
Bob Casey, Jr. (PA) — 3,157
Jon Tester (MT) — 2,325
Jack Carter (NV) — 2,077
Claire McCaskill (MO) — 1,976
Lamont v. Lieberman is a carnival sideshow, a titilating and distracting spectacle. Rove is the carnival barker. So ignore the hoopla and keep moving on down the midway, folks. The main event is still to come, and it will be in places like Montana, Missouri, and Ohio. We’ve come too far to get side-tracked now.
