Does Lamont Hurt Downticket?

By Ezra

Over at Tapped, my colleague and friend Alec Oveis has a pessimistic post on the Lieberman/Lamont primary:

this seems like a terrible waste of influence. Kos, Stoller, and Hamsher could have gone to Connecticut to help Democrats defeat actual Republicans. Instead, they’re there helping one Democrat defeat another. I understand that Lieberman sometimes serves a useful role for Republicans, but I’m afraid some bloggers and activists have lost sight of the real goal for 2006 -- retaking the House -- and in the process have made it more difficult to achieve.

I'm assuming, for the moment, that Alec means Kos, Stoller, and Hamsher could have directed their online minions to fund and organize for Democrats running against Republicans, as I don't much see what good Markos can do on the ground. That said, I think Alec makes a common mistake here: There is not X amount of money floating around the netroots to be funneled to one candidate or another in the way there's X amount of money lying in the DCCC coffers. The amount of online cash that actually emerges is a dependent variable -- dependent on the enthusiasm for the candidates, the excitement of the races, the sense of momentum, and so forth. Lamont, who's raised a relatively paltry amount of cash online, isn't necessarily draining a cent from these other races. If he wins, the sense of positive reinforcement -- we actually won one! -- may well convince his online donors that their contributions actually can effect a race, and they may open their wallets far wider than they otherwise would.

Additionally, I think Alec is wrong that the race is potentially hurting the downticket campaigns in Connecticut. Assume Lamont wins the primary and, as seems likely, Lieberman contests the general. Theoretically, the amount of excitement swirling around two putative Democratic candidates, both of whom will trumpet their progressive credentials and ostentatiously support the consensus Democratic House nominees, may, in generating turnout from both moderate and liberal wings of the Democratic primary, bring out more left-leaning voters than either candidate would activate on his own. Indeed, so much as I'd love to see Lieberman exit the contest tonight, the absolute absence of either Lamont or Lieberman from the general (and thus the disaffection of their partisans) is, in fact, the only scenario I can envision where their primary hurts the House candidates.