Demographics
Hotline has a fascinating demographic breakdown of the Connecticut primary. It's really quite surprising and I think rather revealing.
If there was a way to obtain the per capita income and racial demographics of each Connecticut town, some politico cartographer wizard out there could have a field day portraying the economics and ethnicity of this race. Ned Lamont, scion of the Eastern Establishment, rolled up staggering margins in those places most likely to include his fellow anti-war WASPs. Joe Lieberman, son of a Stamford liquor store owner, won the workaday towns most likely to include other ethnic voters less motivated by opposition to Iraq.
With the exception of some of the cities or grittier suburbs, Lamont racked up victories of 10% or higher in town after town along the state's affluent shoreline. From his hometown of Greenwich (68-32%) on the Gold Coast next to NYC all the way up to Stonington (60-40%) on the RI line, Lamont won the Long Island Sound vote. He performed even better in the more wealthy parts of Litchfield Co, in the bucolic northwest corner of the state, crushing the three-term Senator with eye-popping numbers (Cornwall 91-9%; Canaan 83-17%) in some of the smaller towns there. The pattern was the same throughout the antique towns dotting the Connecticut River Valley, 15 point and higher margins throughout.
Lieberman's best returns came in the blue-collar and heavily-Irish and Italian Naugatuck River Valley, where he picked up 60-40 victories in places like Prospect, Beacon Falls, Naugatuck and Waterbury (where the rally with Pres Clinton was held).
So Lamont's win appears to have been driven by a well-off constituency, not the traditional base of the Democratic party. I rather suspect that does not bode well for that traditional base in the long run.
By TC@LeatherPenguin, Wednesday, 9 August , 2006 @ 12:57 pm
I
wroteranted about this. KosLamont’s constituency are folks who live in walled, gated communities and believe you can just hire gunsel help to keep “those people” from messing up your day.Until they blow Metro-North right off the rails.
By Black Jack, Wednesday, 9 August , 2006 @ 1:12 pm
Ned Lamont, from Wikipedia:
Ned Lamont graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy in 1972. Four years later he received an undergraduate degree from Harvard, home of the Lamont Library named for his great-grandfather, Thomas W Lamont. In 1980 Ned Lamont received a Masters of Public and Private Management from Yale.
Lamont’s wife Annie is a venture capitalist, their 18 year old daughter Emily attends Harvard, and gave her father a $4,200 campaign contribution.
Lamont’s great-grandfather, Thomas W Lamont was chairman of JP Morgan. Lamont is also grandnephew of Corliss Lamont, a socialist sympathetic to Soviet communism, and a former director of the ACLU.
Lamont’s net worth has been self-reported at somewhere between $90 and $300 million. The assessed value of his Greenwich home is $30 million.
Lamont resigned his membership in a predominantly white country club shortly before he began campaigning to prevent it from becoming an issue. However, the Lieberman campaign questioned Lamont’s record on race and the issue surfaced.
By TC@LeatherPenguin, Wednesday, 9 August , 2006 @ 3:14 pm
Black Jack’s Wiki grab is interesting. Wife: Using family money; Daughter: using family money. Ned: Funnels the family money.
Do the Kos Kidz really believe a guy so wired up won’t throw THEM under the bus first chance he gets?
By Gaius, Wednesday, 9 August , 2006 @ 3:22 pm
If he can let go. It’s kind of like grabbing an electric fence….