Your Predictions
What do you think will be the outcome of today's Connecticut primary?
Update: Since a good number of journalists read this site, allow me to point out that the "Lieberman website is hacked" story is complete nonsense. All available evidence points to simple server overload -- which, I can tell you from experience, is a big problem that campaigns need to show some foresight on before election day.
The fact that the site is still "down" and reports of it being down are all over the newswires indicates that the Lieberman campaign is more interested in making political hay out of its own shortsightedness, and blaming it on their opponents, than fixing a very simple problem.
It's incompetence, not a conspiracy. Nor is it a "hack." Any journalist that reports it as such is being played for a fool, as the Lieberman campaign lays out its initial justifications for a "do over" of the primary in November. But the site is only down because the Lieberman campaign has a cheap $15/per month hosting plan.
Hair's Breadth Lieberman Win
Media has been singing the praise of the sensible "moderate" for so long I believe folks will wind up voting for him. Whether he is or not, Lieberman has certainly branded himself a moderate.
Reportage has reflected this moderate tag of Lieberman. His primary opposition has been successfully labled radically anti-war.
Having been represented by Zell Miller myself, I hope the good people of Connecticut prove me wrong. Joe's given radical Republicans bipartisan cover for too long.
Connecticutt Senate
Lamont 58.3
Lieberman 41.7
Joe: 50.5% Ned: 49.5%
Joe: 50.5%
Ned: 49.5%
Predictions for Lieberman/Lamont
I'm with the Gadflyer:
Paul Waldman (2:28PM)
Allow me to make a prediction on how events are going to unfold in the Nutmeg State after Tuesday:
1. Lamont wins. No one is surprised, except maybe Joe himself.
2. Joe announces that despite being in a one-way tie for second place, he will keep his pledge to run as an independent (provided he gets enough signatures to get on the ballot, which by no means is a sure thing).
3. The polls that showed him winning a three-way general election easily show a remarkable swing. All of a sudden, Lieberman the Senator looks like Lieberman the Loser, and his effort to blackmail Democrats into voting for him turns off not only every Democrat, but most independents as well. Before you know it, Lamont is leading in the three-way general by 10 points.
4. All those Democrats who said they would support the party's nominee start trooping up to Connecticut, campaigning against Joe. Things look increasingly dire for him.
5. A phone call is placed, in which a party bigwig tells Joe that the game is over, and for all concerned it would be best if he pulled out now before he endures any more humiliation and does any more damage. Joe has no choice but to relent. The next day, he holds a press conference announcing the closing of his campaign.
Of course, the person making that call - the one person to whom Joe would not be able to say no - is the Big Dog himself, Bill Clinton.
OH BOY - WHAT IS THIS ALL ABO
OH BOY - WHAT IS THIS ALL ABOUT
Major Alaskan Oil Field Could Remain Shut Down for Weeks, Months
Outtages
As someone whose business is all about Web servers, given what I read at Kos and my own net reporting tools, Senator Lieberman's site is definitely on a shared server with lots of other sites whose quality I don't judge. (Heck, we host Mom&Pop sites on the same shared servers as ecommerce, and if you do it right, then it's just fine.)
The problem is burstable bandwidth (or lack thereof), which these servers apparently don't have. You pay for "x" bandwidth/month but you have a reserve of "burstable" bandwidth for those heavy-hitting times (like when you get Slash-dotted). Problem is, el-cheapo hosting services don't deploy burstable bandwidth. That's why they're cheap. That's why we're not. But we have a 99.8% uptime and most hosting shacks don't. But many sites don't care (but we do).
It was poor planning by the Senator's staff but it was a cost-savings. I'd have spoken to the hosting company and moved the domain to a new server by now. Of course, we have backup tapes, too, and can do that sort of thing.
For a guy who is getting hammered by the netroots, he didn't do a great job of deploying his technology effort in this campaign.
My own guess
Is a strong Lamont victory, 56-44.