Joe Lieberman’s friends are helping him out. More specifically Mayor of New York Michael R. Bloomberg.
In his battle for re-election to the United States Senate without the backing of the Democratic Party, Joseph I. Lieberman is deploying a secret weapon in the race’s closing days: a sophisticated operation to identify and turn out voters, courtesy of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.
The Bloomberg group includes several top-level operatives who played key roles in the mayor’s decisive re-election last year or who are in the administration, and have taken leaves from their jobs to work on Mr. Lieberman’s campaign.
Since Mr. Lieberman lost the Democratic primary in Connecticut to Ned Lamont, they have helped open campaign offices, devised a strategy to reach voters and are corralling enough volunteers to cover 2,800 shifts at more than 700 polling sites on Election Day, Nov. 7.
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With his 2005 re-election campaign behind him, Mr. Bloomberg has been relishing his role as kingmaker, endorsing Gov. Rod Blagojevich in Illinois and Gov. M. Jodi Rell in Connecticut, raising money for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in California and appearing in a television commercial for Representative Christopher Shays in Connecticut. (Mr. Blagojevich is a Democrat, and the others are Republicans.
But his work for Mr. Lieberman, which includes substantial fund-raising and Mr. Bloomberg’s first out-of-state stumping in addition to the gift of manpower, marks his most intense and direct engagement in someone else’s political bid. It may not only broaden his image of nonpartisan, influence-free pragmatism, but it could also test how well his political machine can function in an independent campaign with national repercussions.
Bloomberg is quite a fascinating character. One would almost start to think that he is setting himself up for something bigger than mayor of New York.
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