TONIGHT

• Home
• Video
• Podcasts/RSS 
• Local Showtimes
• Past Shows
• Blogs
• About the Show
• Tell Tavis
• Features
• Mobile

RELATED LINKS

• Mr. Simpson's official site
• Hartford Courant
• Saturdays with Stan Simpson

E-mail a friend

Tavis: A look at the Senate race in Connecticut tonight with Stan Simpson, columnist for the 'Hartford Courant,' and a radio talk show host on WTIC. He is a veteran journalist in the state of Connecticut, and past president of the Connecticut Association of Black Communications. He joins us tonight from Hartford. Stan Simpson, nice to have you on the program, sir.

Stan Simpson: Tavis, how are you? Pleasure to be here.

Tavis: Glad to have you. There are, I suspect, some folk watching who are saying, no doubt, enough already about Connecticut. (Laugh) Ya'll ain't got but 12 folk in the state. I love Connecticut. You got more letters in the name of the state than you got folk who live in the state, and yet every TV show is obsessed with talking about the Senate race in Connecticut. Why is this race, then, so important, or quite frankly, is it overstated?

Simpson: Well, Tavis, great question. We're getting much love here in Connecticut. Don't forget, we're one of the smallest states in the Union, as you emphasized. But here you have this national dialogue on whether or not President George Bush's foreign policy has been misguided and misdirected, and how that will play out now in November elections.

You have a guy here named Ned Lamont, a political neophyte, but a millionaire who's taking on a Goliath in the Democratic Party, Joe Lieberman. Took him on, beat him in the primary. Joe Lieberman is a three-term senator; 18 years. Ran for vice president; ran for president. A political neophyte took him on and beat him in the primary on the singular issue that the war is being mismanaged, and that Mr. Lieberman is too aligned with Bush. So the thinking is, Tavis, that if it can happen here, in little old Connecticut, as you put it, it can happen anywhere.

Tavis: And you're right, David takes down Goliath, takes him down in the primary. But in the Bible story, Goliath doesn't get up. (Laugh) After David hits him with those rocks, he goes down; game over. In this case, Lieberman, Goliath, has gotten back up. And not only has he gotten back up, he's ahead in the polls. If the race were held tomorrow, if the election were held tomorrow, Lamont would be the Goliath, and Lieberman would be the David victor.

Simpson: But Lamont is closing fast, and had some very effective ads. You're gonna see the next few weeks here some very aggressive, very effective ads. He is calling out Joe Lieberman, running old tapes from 18 years ago, where Lieberman said that he would not ever run for a third term or for a fourth term. He is. Running tapes where Lieberman said he would never miss more than 300 meetings. He's missed 400 votes. So he's saying listen, look at the old Joe Lieberman, and what he promised you. He has not come through on his promises. I think he's closing fast, Tavis.

Tavis: So, fair to say that this race doesn't really even consider the Republican candidate? It really is about Lieberman and Lamont? The Republican guy is off in the distance somewhere?

Simpson: Well, the Republican guy is Alan Schlesinger, who actually has more political background than Ned. He's a former mayor, he's a former state rep, and he's saying, "Listen, I've got skills, too." And he's promising, in the next few debates, to make the case that he hopes will raise his percentage from three to five percent to more than that. If indeed he gets some traction, that could hurt the Lieberman camp.

Tavis: To your point, there are two key constituencies here that those who are paying attention to this race are watching, including - all jokes aside about Connecticut; I love Connecticut - including yours truly, there are two groups I'm watching very closely, as I suspect you are as well, inside the state. In no particular order: one, Republican voters. To your point now, Lieberman has more traction with Republican voters, given his moderate ways. He's got more traction with Republicans than the Republican candidate does, number one. I want your take on that.

And then number two, the Black vote is going to be key in this. And I know a lot of folk outside of Connecticut are thinking, "Are there Black folk in Connecticut?" (Laugh) But Ned Lamont had a huge turnout from Black folk in the Democrat primary, which helped him beat Joe Lieberman. So let's take them one constituency at a time.

Simpson: Okay, with the GOP, I'd say this. What you're seeing is Joe Lieberman moving from the center more to the right, to appeal to the GOP bloc. They have a candidate there who they're not really enamored of in Al Schlesinger. In fact, the governor, who's Republican, has not endorsed the Republican-endorsed candidate.

Tavis: Wow.

Simpson: That's how bad it is right now. So Lieberman is clearly in the center, moving to the right, and trying to embrace that constituency. 'Cause he's trying to broaden his appeal. He wants a sliver of the Democrats, the Independents and the GOP. And in Connecticut, the unaffiliated voters are the largest voting bloc in the state. So it's really an appeal to the center.

Now, for the Black vote. We have about 10 to 12 percent here, Tavis, believe it or not, and about 10 percent of Latino voters. I would say this, that the issue of the Black vote going away from Lieberman has been a bit overplayed. Granted, he has lost significant Black vote, but I would say it's been in proportion to the Democrat votes that he's lost. For example, in the primary, Lieberman won Waterbury and Bridgeport, two urban areas with Black folks there. So, I think he is losing Black votes, but not to the degree that everyone is trying to say that he is. I think it's more in proportion to the Democrats vote that he's lost.

Tavis: But doesn't Lieberman, my words, not yours, doesn't his political, convenient scurrying to the right to get reelected as an Independent, doesn't that underscore the lesson, or the point, at least, that Ned Lamont is raising? Here's a guy who's been in Washington for so long, who does not have conviction, does not have courage, does not have commitment to the kinds of ideals that a Democrat ought to have.

And again, it's not to suggest that President Bush is wrong about everything, but on issues like Iraq, if you're not gonna stand up and face down the White House with the lying, the spying, etcetera, etcetera, then why do we send you to Washington to begin with? So doesn't his scurrying to the right underscore the message to Black voters, and everybody else, for that matter, that Lamont is trying to deliver?

Simpson: But Lieberman would counter right now that it's not about politics, it's about experience. He's gonna argue that there's so many critical issues going on that don't make this political. Make it about experience, about gravitas, about connections, and about intellectual depth. And they're saying on all those issues that Ned Lamont comes up lacking.

Tavis: The voters will buy that argument, you think, more than Lamont's argument that it's about the courage of your convictions, and not about politics and experience? Experience and connections, etcetera, etcetera, are nice, but they're only nice if you yield something that people believe in.

Simpson: Well, it boils down to this. I think there are people who are fed up with Joe Lieberman, who are concerned about his inflexibility with the Bush policies, but they don't really know much about Ned Lamont. This is a six-year term as Senator. The only experience he has in politics was on the town council in Greenwich. So even though folks are fed up with Joe, they're not really sold on Ned, and that's the problem.

Tavis: The other reason why we're watching Connecticut, again, all jokes aside, is not just because of Lieberman and Lamont, but indeed there are a number of well-known Republicans out of that state. Christopher Shays comes to mind immediately, he's been on this program and every other program. He's very much seen on the political scene, S-C-E-N-E.

So Shays, of late, again, my phrase, not yours, but in terms of how bright this guy is, he's starting to have a meltdown of late with some of these statements he's been making. Is it being read that way inside the state?

Simpson: Yeah, Chris Shays has always fashioned himself as a maverick, as an Independent. I think you're referring to the Abu Ghraib comments, where he mentioned it wasn't really torture, it was...

Tavis: Sex.

Simpson: Yeah, sexual abuse. He's backing away from that. Then you had the whole Ted Kennedy comment. You had Speaker Hastert in town recently, and the comment from Mr. Shays was at least, well, I'm sorry, you had Ted Kennedy in town recently, and the comment from Speaker, from Mr. Shays was that at least Hastert didn't kill anyone, referring to Kennedy and the Chappaquiddick.

And so, some thought that was way out of bounds and a low blow. But it's a very tight race that he's involved in with Diane Farrell, and many think he will lose that race. So what you're seeing now is a guy who's panicking.

Tavis: All right, so we're watching Connecticut, as we've already established. Let me ask now perhaps the question, or one of the questions I should have asked earlier. Is there something happening in Connecticut? We're obviously watching the state. But is there something happening in that state that is causing, for this kind of political upheaval, causing the waters to roar just a little bit?

Simpson: Well, two things. With Ned Lamont, you had the two keys in politics. You had message and money. He had a very sharp, focused message. It came at a good time, and he had a bunch of money to put behind it. He spent almost $10 million of his own money behind his message. And also, don't forget with Joe Lieberman, while he became a national star, he became more distant from the home base. So here you had a guy that, as he was elevating nationwide, the home base said, "Joe, where are you?" So it was all timing. Joe was MIA; there was a strong issue, and a lot of money.

Tavis: Let me close here, Stan, by going back to the beginning. And that is, should Joe Lieberman lose right now, as I said earlier, if the election were held tomorrow, Lieberman, eight, 10 points up, would win. As you know, though, three weeks is a lifetime, many lifetimes, in politics. So we'll see what happens on November the seventh.

If Joe Lieberman, though, does go down to defeat, what's your sense of what that means nationally for the Bush administration, and for that matter, for the '08 race for the White House?

Simpson: I think it'll be a precursor of things to come. If indeed Ned Lamont, again, can't overemphasize, a political neophyte can take on and beat an icon in the Democratic Party, someone very aligned to George Bush like Joe Lieberman, then a whole lot of incumbents who are aligned with the president are in trouble.

Tavis: Is it your sense right now that this race is Lieberman's to lose, and if so, what would he have to do, what would have to happen for him to lose it three weeks out?

Simpson: I think the race is closing very fast. Again, I think the ads the Lamont campaign has put out have been very, very effective, because they show you a tape of Lieberman 18 years ago, in his own words, saying he would never run for anything past three terms, that he would never miss more than 300 votes. He's done both of those, and I think people are gonna hold him accountable.

Tavis: Radio talk show host and columnist for the 'Hartford Courant' in Connecticut, Stan Simpson. Stan, thanks for your insight. Glad to have you on the program.

Simpson: Tavis, thank you.

Tavis: Up next on this program, he's the son of Bill Moyers. You all know Bill Moyers here on PBS for many, many years. You might not know that his son, William Cope Moyers, has battled with addiction most of his teenage and adult life. He's written a provocative and powerful new book called 'Broken.' The son of Bill Moyers, William Cope Moyers, in a moment.