deja vu all over again...

marshall's quiet, thoughtful, and very thorough analyses always gets me thinking:

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/009461.php

"Anyway, the Joe cult aside, I'm more and more getting the sense that Ned Lamont just didn't get, coming off last Tuesday's win, that he was still very much the underdog and had maybe a week to thoroughly dispatch Joe from the race. But he didn't. From what I can tell he went on vacation to Maine right after the primary. And he was scarce for like a week after the primary.

"Lieberman, on the hand, went basically beserk right after the vote, which of course he had to do, to make absolutely sure that everyone realized that, as far as he was concerned, his primary loss meant nothing more than a difference in the way he'd be identified on the ballot in November. He was still the senator, still running for reelection. News of his demise had been greatly exaggerated, and so forth."

for a local radio reporter who covered the dukakis campaign in '88 from a vantage of the UMass-amherst campus, this rings serious alarm bells... the massachusetts governor had a 16% lead immediately following the democratic convention and then went on a little vaycay...

and lee atwater went to work to "strip the bark off the bastard!"...

does anybody remember george senior uttering the phrase: "what is it about the pledge of allegiance that bothers him so?"

how 'bout the allusions that dukakis had issues with depression and had seen a therapist about it... ?

of course the american people wouldn't be taken in with so shallow a hook, i thought -- and wrongly... ! when the duke came out of his summer hibernation, his response (to his signing a law that prohibited mandating the pledge in public schools) was lame and utterly forgettable, and i refuse to google it, i'm still so disgusted... more famous, of course, was dukakis' robotic response to bernard gibson of CNN at the last debate about what he'd do if kitty dukakis was raped and murdered -- would he *then* favor the death penalty... ? nope... but if you like the feeling of your eyes glazing over, he said *something*...

in hindsight, dukakis had it coming, but lamont should know better than to take a break right after the primary... especially with the republican machine, headed by atwater's acolyte karl rove, is running lieberman's campaign now and they're geting especially scummy:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rj-eskow/detective-story-has-rov_b_26908.html

if lamont doesn't get on the offensive, *and* get some help from the party leadership (my eyes well up with tears)... aww, what the hell can i be thinking... ?

lieberman is vichy and a weasal (which my dictionary describes as "a deceitful and treacherous person", so i'd say that's spot-on); he needs to get kicked to the curb and then kicked repeatedly...

not very "progressive" of me, i grant you, but these are desperate times...

grrrrr...