Today’s installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn’t generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers:<\/p>\n
* Since [tag]Ned Lamont[\/tag] defeated [tag]Joe Lieberman[\/tag] in the Connecticut Dem Senate primary, a handful of Dem senators have said they’d ignore the will of the party’s voters and back Lieberman anyway. Yesterday, the handful shrunk a little<\/a>. Sen. [tag]Daniel Inouye[\/tag] (D-Hawai’i) initially said he’d back Lieberman’s independent campaign, but Hawai’i’s senior senator said he was disappointed when Lieberman made a speech “very critical of the Democratic Party.” “I told some of my friends after he gave his speech saying the party isn’t the party he knew that he doesn’t get my support,” Inouye said in an interview.<\/p>\n * In Florida, an Insider Advantage\/Majority Opinion poll<\/a> shows the Republicans’ gubernatorial primary race tightening a bit in advance of the election. The poll showed [tag]Charlie Crist[\/tag] (R) leading [tag]Tom Gallagher[\/tag] (R), 39% to 29%, though most recent polls showed Crist well above 50%. (via Taegan Goddard<\/a>)<\/p>\n * Sen. [tag]George Allen[\/tag]’s “macaca” controversy, and the ensuing controversy which Allen bungled badly, led Bob Novak<\/a> to say the other day, ” It\u2019s hard for them [Democrats] in the Senate to pick up the six seats. You can even count to five and not get to six, but Senator George Allen of Virginia is doing his best to try to, try to make that sixth seat viable for a Democratic win.”<\/p>\n * In Connecticut<\/strike> Rhode Island, GOP Senate hopeful [tag]Stephen Laffey[\/tag] is scrambling a bit to explain some anti-gay columns<\/a> he wrote 20 years ago. In one piece, Laffey wrote, “I have never once seen a happy homosexual. This is not to say there aren’t any; I simply haven’t seen one in my lifetime. Maybe they are all in the closet. All the homosexuals I’ve seen are sickly and decrepit, their eyes devoid of life.” Over the weekend, asked if any of the columns represented his views, Laffey said, “No. Not now, nor then, or ever . . . Do I regret writing some of these things? Sure. But at the time, we were just having fun. We thought it was funny.”<\/p>\n