Obama's Connecticut Win, And What It Means For Our Movement

(the disclosure is I voted for Obama, but I would write this even if I was a Hillary supporter)

The one thing that didn't match up in last night's results, to me, was Barack Obama's victory in Connecticut. Hillary Clinton's leads in key northeastern states (Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York) all seemed to hold up - EXCEPT for Connecticut. He won despite exit polling showing that 59% of the electorate was female, and 30% was over 60. Why? What did this mean?

The New York Times thinks it has the answer.

Ned Lamont was not on the ballot, but his presence was nonetheless felt in Connecticut’s Democratic presidential primary.

It was the young, the rich and voters who called Iraq the top issue who helped provide the margin of victory for Senator Barack Obama in Connecticut, according to surveys of voters leaving the polls, narrowly defeating Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in her own backyard.

With 96 percent of the votes counted, Mr. Obama had 50 percent of the vote, compared with 47 percent for Mrs. Clinton. The exit polls, conducted by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International, showed Mr. Obama doing well among what some in that state might call the “Ned Lamont coalition.”

I am not trying to say that the Ned Lamont endorsement, which came late after Lamont went in strong for Chris Dodd, had an impact. No, I would argue it was not Lamont but THE MOVEMENT THAT LAMONT LEFT BEHIND that helped Obama the most. Bunches of new voters were energized by that campaign in 2006. It appears that they didn't go back to their couches and stew after the general election loss to Joe Lieberman, they stuck around and became part of a movement for change.

“The Lamont campaign was part of my political awakening,” said Bill Dauphin, 47, a technical writer who attended the Obama campaign’s victory party Tuesday night at the Sweet Jane Bar in Hartford. “That’s the thing that got me off the sofa and onto the street.” [...]

In a state where Mrs. Clinton consistently held double-digit poll leads until mid-January, Mr. Obama ran strong among voters who made up their minds in the last month, the last week and the last three days, the exit poll showed. Thousands of unaffiliated Connecticut voters joined the Democratic Party in recent weeks in order to cast ballots in the primary, and among the nearly 20 percent of voters surveyed on Tuesday who identified themselves as independents, Mr. Obama won 6 of every 10 votes.

My Left Nutmeg has a bit more.

While I actually have zero interest in linking Clinton to Lieberman, it must be said (as Scarce mentioned last night) that this primary cycle in CT cemented the realignment that happened in 2006 – Clinton's campaign in the state was made up of many of Lieberman's most enthusiastic post-primary Dem supporters (you know the list), and the results from last night showed their weakness.

That DeLauro and Larson joined up with Obama surprised me when I first heard of their endorsements – but in retrospect, it looks like they at least in part interpreted the political tides in a correct and savvy fashion. (That's why they're in Congress, and I'm just some schmoe. Ah well :)

Winning begets more winning. Ned Lamont, Don Williams, Chris Murphy, Rosa DeLauro, and John Larson are mainstream CT Democrats. I feel pretty good being in that coalition, personally.

It's frankly unfair to Clinton to link her to Lieberman; nothing could be further from the truth. But her war vote was probably a factor, as Iraq has been a galvanizing cause for the progressive movement.

This is why we have to keep fighting in these primary races. Real and vital infrastructure does get left behind every time we do a primary in one of these states, and it has residual effects. If we had a "50-state Ned Lamont strategy," the amount of activists and energy that would engender would be incalculable. It's a seeding strategy, where new leaders are cultivated.

Now, in a way there's a wistful quality to this, because Obama kind of screwed Lamont in 2006 by not going to bat for him completely. It's one thing to see a progressive movement defy odds, and another to direct where it channels itself. But over time, I believe those activists will get things right. I'm less concerned about who won and who lost here than the idea that a progressive movement borne from the ashes of a primary challenge can overcome structural disadvantages and win.