Awful ad. Just awful. Too long, too many examples. And really off point. The effective negative vis a vis Iraq is NOT that Lieberman and Bush have changed their tune. That's what we've been calling on them to do all along, for chrissakes!!! The issue is not intellectual consistency. The issue is blood and treasure wasted in a ridiculous overseas adventure. Why can't the Lamont campaign understand that? If they're doing an Iraq ad (which is frankly ALL they should be doing at this point) it needs to be ABOUT IRAQ, not about Bush and Lieberman changing their rhetoric. This is the kind of hyper-intellectual, gotcha! ad that just kind of rolls over people without hitting them at all. You've got to get more emotional than this!

On top of that, most of the ad is about the Bush administration, and they're not on the ballot. On top of that, the music is cheesy. On top of that, it's in SERIOUS need of editing. Lieberman actually looks pretty good (passionate ... if wrong ... and angry).

Sheesh. Just cut to the chase and show people dying in Iraq, and relatives grieving, and show how it has nothing to do with terrorism. It's really that simple. What are they scared of?

Bush is dead center on the ballot.

Blood and guys make can enhance the point of how badly things are going, but its not necessary in this case. If anything I would show coffins. It makes the point and honors the dead.

If you have ever been to the grave yards on the coast of france. It's crosses as far as the eye can see. That the Bush administration has not honored our dead the same way, while playing tough guy show just how disgusting the administration and its sycophants really are. Flag draped coffins or funeral services would be more visceral.

This is an awesome ad...it should be part of every Democrats campaign nationally this last week. It is powerful.

When it showed on Cris matthews, there were fewer stay the course blurbs at the beginning. That made it more impactful.

I hope Ned wins...I hear Lieberman declined to do another debate.

Guess he is tired of being sandwiched between Lamont and the GOP candidate ganging up on his 'stay the course' resolve.

How ironic!!

I'd say it is more than fair to criticize Joe Lieberman for his dishonesty with regards to Iraq.

It is time for Democrats who distrust President Bush to acknowledge that he will be Commander-in-Chief for three more critical years, and that in matters of war we undermine Presidential credibility at our nation's peril.

Joe Lieberman, December 6, 2005.

If it says paid for by Lamont for Senate, rather than I'm Ned Lamont and I approved this message, then its a Youtube.

I dunno how you use it in the last week unless you burn it on a DVD and leave it hanging from doorknobs.

Does anyone think this will change a single voter's mind? It seems to me that this is only preaching to the choir.

And if he'd done that all the squawking would be about exploiting images of dead American soldiers for his own political gain. This add nails Lie-berman on the most irrefutable territory. And the whole point is just how MANY times they pushed this line before just blithely turning a 180. "Flip flop" doesn't even come close to covering it. So mounting up the examples is the point.

Finally this idea of the Bush admin not being on the ballot is, excuse me, blithering idiocy. I mean, Lieberman's support of the radioactive Mr Bush is, like, kind of a fundamental issue in the CT race. Not to mention Bush being, yup, kinda significant in the nationwide elections.

Regarding C-Span Monopoly on Congressional Coverage

Back in 2000, Republican Missouri congressional candidate Bill Federer used some C-Span footage in an ad about his opponent Dick Gephardt. C-Span sued him to stop using the footage and won. Federer appealed, and according the the article qouted below, the 8th District Court of Appeals upheld his right to use the footage on First Amendment grounds. Interesting.

from World Net Daily (of all places!):

"The ads first aired Oct. 24, but were ordered off the air by U.S. District Judge Charles A. Shaw Oct. 27 after Gephardt officials complained to local television stations that an ad featuring the C-SPAN footage violated copyright laws.

"We understand that C-SPAN does not authorize their footage to be used in political television ads and the Federer campaign may be violating a copyright and other intellectual property rights," said Kevin Gunn of the Gephardt campaign, in letters to KDNL-TV and KSDK-TV.

Officials at C-SPAN, said Tom Federer -- a campaign spokesman and the candidate's brother -- faxed a warning to the Federer campaign within a day of the ad's first airing, threatening legal action if campaign officials did not have it pulled.

However, Federer's campaign appealed Shaw's ruling to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, and Nov. 2 the appeals court reversed the district court's ruling, supporting the Federer campaign's claims that barring use of C-SPAN video footage was a violation of the First Amendment right to free speech."

http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=21090

Well, it might change the mind of the disengaged, Dem-leaning voter who has warm and fuzzy feelings towards Lieberman (was VP nominee after all) and considers him a man of principle.

Voters are much more forgiving of candidates with whom they disagree on the issues if they *feel* that the candidate's stance is based on deeply felt principle. Hence Bush's ability to bamboozle so many for so long.

This ad attacks the 'principled man above party' blarney that Lieberman's campaign has been churning out, or at the very least depending on to carry 1/3 of the Dem vote.

Lamont doesn't have to win a majority, just more votes than Lieberman. If the Repub candidate keeps eating away from the right and Lamont from the left - bingo!

Nothing hurts Lieberman than an attack on his integrity, since it can alienate voters from him on both ends of the spectrum, benefitting both Schlesinger and Lamont.