Right before Super Tuesday, News Editor Ezra Silk spoke to Ned Lamont about 2008’s heated presidential primary. Lamont, angered over Connecticut Democrat Joe Lieberman’s support of the Bush administration’s policies in Iraq, ran against Lieberman for his U.S. Senate seat in 2006. Lamont won the primary and became the Democratic candidate, but ultimately lost to Lieberman, who was forced to run as an independent.
Ezra Silk: Do you think Lieberman will run with McCain for vice president?
Ned Lamont: I guarantee one thing: of 300 million Americans, I think I’m the last one that he would mention that to.
ES: What have you thought about the Republican race?
NL: I thought the greatest choice for America would be McCain and Barack. I just thought those were two principled people who, if they disagreed on the issues, it would [still] draw people together. I thought McCain, in that last debate, seemed small and peevish the way he went after Romney.
ES: Have you met Obama?
NL: I’ve met him a couple of times briefly. I actually spent Wednesday night with Michelle Obama. She was great. We had all those folks from West Connecticut, all these wealthy folks, and she went right at them, she did not customize her talk at all. She said, “You got no idea what it’s like to be a single mom in America today. You don’t know what it’s like to be middle class trying to raise a kid.”
ES: How have you found the media coverage for this campaign? Do you think it’s been biased?
NL: I think the media coverage in general is terrible…
ES: Hey, I’m the media here…
NL: Well it’s your chance to fix it. I just think they speak down to the American people. It’s one ridiculous distraction after another and as you go into people’s living rooms, they’re really asking about real stuff. And I just wish the media would spend a little bit more time talking about personality, tell us about Barack and Hillary and Edwards…
ES: You want to know more about personality?
NL: Or get into the issues. But instead, they love the give and take; they love the little attacks.
ES: What should have been more focused on in this campaign?
NL: I’d say that Hillary and Barack have really civil high-minded debates and for two minutes the debate before last, we had slumlord versus Wal-mart director. Right? Then that was the front page of the New York Times, you know, “negative turn,” look at how they’re slamming each other, and that was all you could hear on talk radio and TV for a long time.
ES: Do you think Bill Clinton’s presence should have been downplayed recently, or were his remarks about Jesse Jackson outrageous enough to warrant such attention?
NL: I think Bill Clinton is the most brilliant politician in America and everything he says he says for a reason. I’m gonna leave it at that.
ES: Have you met Hillary?
NL: Hillary’s great. She’s a genuine person, which sometimes doesn’t translate as much on TV. She was very helpful on my campaign, a straight shooter.
ES: Obama’s rhetoric about bipartisanship and post-partisanship sometimes reminds me of Joe Lieberman in his 2006 campaign. What’s the difference?
NL: Because with Senator Lieberman it was, “If you agree with me, you are a high minded patriot. And if you disagree with me you are a partisan hack, and we’ve got too much partisanship in our country.” I think when it comes to Barack Obama, he gets elected, and he’s looking beyond Republican and Democrat and he’s going to confront big issues in a serious way, and I think Republicans and independents are willing to listen to him.
ES: When you were running, were you at all worried about not having experience? Did your aides tell you what your potential job was going to be like?
NL: In my race, Joe had been there forever in politics, and never stood an hour in the private sector, and I said I think starting a business is just the type of experience you want in the halls of Congress.
ES: But were you at all nervous? As in, “Um, maybe I’m not going to be able to do this?”
NL: No. I think that when our legislature was created 200 years ago, it was a citizen-legislature—the butcher, the baker, the soldier—I mean it was folks like that. One of the things Michelle said was that “up until about three years ago I was paying off student loans and asking Barack how are you going to support the family? You told me you’re going to write another book—well, we need more strategy than that.” And when somebody said, “Hey why don’t you wait four more years before you run?” it was Barack who said, “That will be four more years removed from normalcy.” I thought that was a great line.