The Conways have an interesting analysis of Connecticut politics.
I am VERY interested in what the sudden rush of voters changing from unaffiliated to Democrat, and then back to unaffiliated is all about.
Is the "Law of Unintended Consequences" about to bite the Dem establishment in the ass?
Not sure what you mean by unintended consequences.
ReplyDelete"Not sure what you mean by unintended consequences.
ReplyDeleteThe loss of the seat to the Republican candidate, or the election of Lieberman as an independent who will not caucus with the Democrats all qualify as unintended consequences here.
The sudden switch of independents to Democrat registration may be signs of a groundswell of support that could push Lieberman over the top in the primary, too. The backlash over the Dem's sometimes nasty opposition to Lieberman may qualify as an unintended consequence of the Dem's Dump Lieberman campaign.
Well, yeah, the loss of a candidate of any party to a candidate of another party is always unintended -- nothing eye-opening there.
ReplyDeleteAs for the increase of indies registering as Dems, I'm not sure that favors Lieberman. How can one tell, other than guessing? So, here's my guess. Indies registering as Dems probably are to help Lamont. Here's why.
Conservative voters, as William F. Buckley has noted, have little in common with Lieberman. Conservative independents benefit from having Lamont win the primary. Here's why. While Lamont still out-polls the Republican Schlesinger, Lieberman does so by a greater margin. A straight up Lieberman/Schlesinger race is almost a certain win for Lieberman. If Lamont wins the primary and Joe runs as an independent, that's the best case scenario for conservatives. Even if Joe doesn't run, a Lamont/Schlesinger race is the second-best scenario for conservative voters. The worst-case scenario is a Lieberman/Schlesinger race, so I can't see many conservative independents voters switching their registration just to get Joe through the primary. They register as Dems though if they think they can possibly eliminate the Lieberman or create a three-way race by voting for Lamont.
Additionally, I can quite easily understand progressive independents registering as Dems to vote against Lieberman so, all in all, I'd guess that the indies switching to Dems, although not all necessarily with the same objective, will benefit Lamont.
Oh, and here's another more straight-forward clue: the switching from independent to democratic registration has corresponded to an increasing lead in the polls for Lamont, from 4 points over Lieberman two weeks ago to 13 points on Thursday.
ReplyDelete