The high and wide spaces of the atrium in the Goodwin Hotel in Hartford were crammed with national and local news reporters milling about with a few dozen Lieberman supporters and operatives, amid bunches of red, white and blue balloons stretching on strings toward the towering columns and arches above them. More than 25 TV cameras on tripods, on three levels of risers, all trained on a podium with a sign that said: “Joe Lieberman Fighting for Connecticut.”
Fighting for his political existence was more like it. With about 34 percent of the state’s precincts reporting just after 9 p.m., Lieberman was trailing challenger Ned Lamont 54 to 46 percent. The vote tally was 55,294 for Lamont and 46,941 for Lieberman.
It’s way too early for anyone to project, grieve or celebrate. But one thing of which you can be assured: stories that are in effect political obituaries of Joe Lieberman as a national Democratic political leader are being prepared in the mainstream media as you read this. They’ll just top them when the final returns come in. If this holds, it won’t be a “squeeker.”
UPDATE: The New York Times has updated results HERE. We’ll use that for our period updates (we will not update everytime there is a new tally — only a significant shift or percentage).
—It’s narrowing (7:10 PM PST): Lieberman 48 percent; Lamont 51 percent.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.