by Nicholas Beaudrot of Electoral Math I think Ed Kilgore's compare-and-contrast piece on the primary challenges to Cynthia McKinney (D-GA4) and Joe Lieberman (D-CT) continues to overstate the importance of the blogofascists on the "angry left". Total Actblue contributions to Lamont's campaign amount to just under $300,000, which is less than ten percent of the campaign's total revenue (though perhaps 20 or 25 percent of contributions not from the candidate himself). Meanwhile Hank Johnson received $34,100 from former pro-Majette donors and PACs in one day, amounting to over half his contributions that day (Kilgore notes that "pro-Majette" may not equate to "maximally hawkish on Israel issues", which is of course true). I can't find the link, but Blogosphere day-the most active day of internet fundraising for Lamont- raised roughly that amount for the campaign. Kilgore goes on to claim that the blogosphere has given nothing but full-throated opposition to Joe Lieberman and support for Ned Lamont. But that shouldn't be a surprise; "internet-activist" Democrats are looking for partisan puglists anyway. Yet despite the thirst for partisanship (or at least a return to "reasonable compromise" partisanship of the mid-90s, rather than "cover for reactionary Bushism" partisanship of the 00s), there was plenty of tactical handwringing about the Lamont campaign. Here's Matt Stoller openly evaluating the risks of crossing the Connecticut Democratic machine. Here's Duncan Black this weekend remembering his own internal debate on whether it was worth it to push his readers to challenge Lieberman. Here's Mark Schmitt, a veteran of Connecticut politics, pointing out that there has never been a particularly successful primary challenge in Connecticut. And here's yours truly saying it wasn't possible to round up the thousands of volunteer hours on an unlikely-to-succeed primary challenge which could instead be spent driving the species Republicanus Newenglandus (and its close cousin Republicanus Midatlanticus) to extinction. Look, there's plenty of national opposition to Lieberman, especially out here on the blogs, where readers and writers are probably more liberal and partisan than party voters as a whole. But the scale of financial support for Lieberman coming from the blogs isn't an order of magnitude larger than the opposition, especially given that a maverick Senator who was the former Vice Presidential nominee is just a bit more prominent than a loose-cannon House backbencher.
