A post by Matthew Slutsky

Clintons: Do They Really Help?

Bill and Hillary

Here is an entry from The New Republic’s Blog by editor-in-chief Martin Peretz. Last night’s win by Lamont is just further proof that TNR is less and less relevant every day.

THE CLINTON FACTOR:

I was for Joe Lieberman. I wrote an article about the race between him and Ned Lamont in Monday’s Wall Street Journal. It was not neutral. But, though it got plenty of attention in the blogs and on television, it did not, alas, help Joe very much. Worse can be said of Bill Clinton’s stumping in Connecticut for Joe (and Hillary’s endorsement, too.) When Clinton came into the state, Lieberman and Lamont were running dead even in the polls, more or less. Clinton’s appearance began Lieberman’s decline. Within two or three days, Lieberman was down by ten points. (In the last few days of the campaign, Lieberman recovered considerably … but not enough.) I know there’s some nostalgia in the Democratic Party for Clinton and for Hillary, too. But for many, in the party and out, the Clintons are a nightmare. A nightmare, as James Joyce said, from which we are trying to awake. The common wisdom is that Al Gore would have won in 2000 had he embraced Clinton more or had he allowed Clinton to embrace him. Well, look at what happened to Joe.

-Martin Peretz

And if Lieberman had won last night, Peretz would have said it was Clinton that turned it around. C’mon Marty, learn your logic.