"Hillary Clinton can't win a national general election". This is conventional wisdom among people who know about these things. As is so often the case with the conventional wisdom, this assessment is based on a very rich and consistent amount of data, collected and analyzed over years.

It stands to reason, however, that she also has loyalists; given that New York is her present base of operations, they're rather thick on the ground here. These loyalists rather recently were giddy over polling results showing her able to just break over the 50% hurdle in a national election. I said at the time that this was an announcement bounce, in a very customary and well-known pattern.

And so it was. Polling data released earlier this week and month shows Hillary losing New Jersey, and barely holding New York and Connecticut. Read on.

The 'Connecticut for Lieberman' party has been taken over by outside activsts, reports The New Haven Independent.

Lest one think that this is just as meaningless as would be loose talk of the integrity of Senator LieberSchmuck, note that CfL has a guaranteed ballot line in the 2012 elections, because the party prevailed over Democrat Ned Lamont in November.

The occasion was the second organizational meeting of the Connecticut for Lieberman Party, the vehicle created to propel Connecticut's junior senator to a general election win in 2006 after he lost the Democratic primary to anti-war challenger Ned Lamont. Lieberman created the "party" to have a line on the November ballot. Then he forgot about it.

John Orman, a political science professor at Fairfield University and a longtime outspoken Lieberman critic, contacted the Secretary of the State's office to legally join and then take over the abandoned party, which has a guaranteed ballot line in the next Senate election. Orman came to a Milford Howard Johnson hotel Thursday night with a tall agenda to make the party a soapbox for political theater and Lieberman criticism.

Snip. There's more.

Torrington, Connecticut

For normal people, Christmas is a one or maybe two-day holiday. For me, by virtue of having married into a vast Italian-Irish family, it is a weeklong, inescapable frenzy, and I am beginning to buckle under the strain.

Again, normalcy, the way things should be. You have dinner on Christmas Eve, unwrap presents that night or the next day, get drunk on eggnog, done. Finished. Move on.

We, that is hubby and myself, don't do that. We set out, this year, on Friday. We are still here, midway in our peregrinations to visit, it seems, every single individual in North America with whom hubby shares even the tiniest sliver of DNA. And at every stop along the route, the ritual continues: god-awful music - I am ready to exhume Bing Crosby and burn the remains - too much food, too much drink, too much too much too much. We do this death march by rental car; at last checking, the damned thing had recorded over five hundred miles of travel. This is not, emphatically, the way things should be.

And we're not done yet. The agony continues.

Torrington, Connecticut

Hallelujah. I have WiFi, coffee, cigarettes, and a hangover - in short, life on the road is beginning to take on the familiar trappings of home.

So how is the War on Christmas developing?

Interestingly, flags in Connecticut today are at half mast; this because, presumably, the state has again had casualties in the real war, the one that republicans started in Iraq. Local television coverage this morning announced another such death; a young Marine was killed in Afghanistan, where we're losing as well, it seems.

Also on television, and elsewhere: there's a new war going on in Africa, and since it involves Islamic extremists, needless to say, we'll be involved in some way.

There's another war going on here: the Wal-Mart war on American prosperity. Torrington used to be a thriving, prosperous mill town. You can see just how rich this town used to be when you see their magnificent municipal library, an elegant sandstone jewelbox from the nineteenth century. Now, of course, the industry that nourished this prosperity has withered away, and hasn't been replaced.

'Stay the course' has become political poison, reports the New York Times.

Somebody really should tell Joe Lieberman – but wait, his opponents already are. Is there really a pro-war majority in Connecticut? Somehow, one doubts it. By the way, because Lamont just isn't good enough, there's a Green in that race, too.

Constituents of an indicted former Assemblyman in Queens profess to be 'shocked' at his malfeasance, says the Times. This because, presumably, the outer-borough Democratic machines are known for their transparency and ethics.

Disgraced Rep. John Sweeney is seeking 'guidance' from his House committee on how to declare his trip to the Marianas with Jack Abramoff in 2001, according to The Albany Times-Union. As we reported yesterday, Sweeney, along with other New York republicans, is facing collapsing support from the electorate, and now trails his Democratic challenger Kristen Gillibrand 54% to 41%.

The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle says 'hell, no!' to legislative pay raises. The logic being that they should fix some of the state's problems, such as escalating debt, before increasing their own pay. Can't really argue with that.

The Washington Post keeps tabs on the resurgent Democratic Party of... Kansas.

Also in WaPo, President Clinton lays out the stark differences between the parties, for the benefit, perhaps, of people who claim that there are no such differences, or those that have bought the tired Limbaugh talking point that 'Democrats don't stand for anything'. Here's a quote:

"I long for the day when we will return to a debate that is not about who's a good person and who's a slug, not about who represents the religious truth and who is basically running for office on his or her way to hell," he said. "I long for the day when Republicans and Democrats will sit around and have these raucous, exciting arguments and actually love learning from one another and we create the common good out of the dynamic center."

Via MyDD, here's the newest ad from Joe Lieberman, attacking Ned Lamont.

Lamont responds here.

Now don't you wish he had fought this hard for the Vice Presidency? If only...

Via DailyKos and Google Bomb CT Blog: if you have a web site, how about pasting this into it somehere convenient:

Joe Lieberman - "Seasonal Memory Lapses" by Paul Bass (Hartford Courant)
Joe Lieberman - "Truth About Joe"
Joe Lieberman - "Lieberman Wins Republican Friends, Democratic Enemies... (WaPo)
Joe Lieberman - "Joe Lieberman is a Big Oil Republican" (LamontBlog)
Joe Lieberman - "Kerry Calls Lieberman the New Cheney" (ABC)
Joe Lieberman - "Joe Lieberman Doesn't Care About Handicapped People" (Wonkette)
Joe Lieberman - "Joe Lieberman is Running With a Bad Crowd" (Firedoglake)

So Senator LieberSchmuck showed up in New York yesterday, taking his campaign for the hearts and minds of Connecticut republicans voters to Grand Central Station. In attendance was, of course, our very own Ed Koch, the Bush-endorser.

I'm beginning to wonder whether Ed Koch even still matters. Seriously, does anyone care what he thinks? Or is this just a sad case of someone clinging to the limelight at any price? "You have sat here too long for any good you may be doing" and all that?

We report, you decide.

Taegan Goddard has Joe Lieberman's reaction to George Bush's decision to stay neutral in the Connecticut Senate race.

Lieberman, of course, is running as an "Independent Democrat" against the Democratic Party nominee, Ned Lamont.

"I certainly have not sought and will not seek President Bush's support. I am focused on speaking to the voters of Connecticut and convincing them that I can do so much more on the issues that matter to them than Ned Lamont in the tough years ahead. But the President’s statement of neutrality, combined with Governor Rell’s lack of support for my Republican opponent, is encouraging, simply because it shows I have a strong chance to build a broad coalition of Democrats, Independents, and Republicans in Connecticut for a new politics of unity and purpose in Washington."

There's cause to be wary when a three-term incumbent starts prattling on about a 'new politics'. This because it is precisely the 'old politics' of surrender and treason - and yes, working with this administration is tantamount to treason if you love this country - that got him in trouble in the first place. I'm no longer too worried about this race; Joe Lieberman is digging ever deeper into the refuse heap of history.

The Lieberman saga just gets more tragic with each passing day, even hour. Today, the NYT's Empire Zone reports that the republican party - that would be Ann Coulter's, Dick Cheney's and Sean Hannity's republican party - is considering fielding a real candidate in Connecticut, as opposed to the sacrificial laughingstock currently on the ballot.

The Politicker says that Jack Orchulli, the Connecticut multimillionaire who ran and lost against Senator Chris Dodd in 2004, is pondering a jump into the general election this fall against Ned Lamont, the Democrat, and Joe Lieberman, the “independent Democrat.” He would apparently replace Alan Schlesinger, the Republican.

Memo to Joe: they like you because you are useful to them. You're less useful, however, than one of their own. So given a choice, what do you think they're going to do?

"Republican bi-partisanship" has always looked curiously like "Democratic surrender"; let's hope that Holy Joe isn't too far gone to see the writing on the wall. In BushWorld, the only yardstick is political utility. Joe Lieberman may find out that by that measure, he is found wanting, if the other choice is a real republican.