(DEAN BARNETT HERE)

Thanks to the intellectual generosity of the Hugh Hewitt audience, I now know why the good people of Connecticut decided to name themselves after a spice.

In days gone by, nutmeg was a valuable commodity. Apparently, Connecticut natives developed an inordinate amount of skill in carving chunks of wood to resemble nutmeg which, back in the days before preservatives, was worth considerably more than inert pieces of wood. Connecticut’s citizenry developed such a facility for this peculiar form of grifting that the state ultimately became known as the Nutmeg State. That’s the legend, anyway.

Given this piece of history regarding Connecticut, I’ve decided that Ned Lamont would be the perfect Senator to represent the Nutmeg state. Like the pieces of wood that Connecticut conmen used to try to pass of as nutmeg, Lamont is not as he seems, or as he wishes to be seen.

As is uniformly the case with multi-zillionaire populists, there’s a lot of hooey behind the Lamont shtick. While he claims to have long been obsessed with the plight of America’s poor and minorities, he jarringly maintained a membership at Greenwich’s super-tony haven for the finest WASPS, the Round Hill Club, until the campaign swung into high gear. No doubt Lamont developed a strong empathy for the downtrodden at Round Hill as they cleaned his golf spikes and picked up his shower towels.

Not that I have anything against private exclusive country clubs. Most Republicans don’t. But there was a well documented time when such an affiliation was a hanging offense in the eyes of the kind of progressive populist that Lamont now claims to be. But apparently Lamont gets a pass.

There’s a reason the left was willing to overlook Lamont’s feet of clay – Lamont is not Joe Lieberman; Lamont has not shown an undue amount of civility towards Republicans. Lamont is the “other guy” personified – he’s a perfect blank slate. That’s why he’s so adored.

Lamont’s greatest strength to date has been precisely what an empty suit he is. When I watched the replay of his victory speech, I couldn’t help but be struck by the candidate’s and his words’ utter vacuity. He identifies our healthcare system as broken; he says we need to fix it. America falls asleep.

But this dullness, combined with an appealing low-key manner (everyone who has interviewed him, including James Taranto, has come away liking the guy), is what positioned him so perfectly to be the yin to the status quo’s yang. All the polls showed that Lamont’s support came primarily from people who were voting against Lieberman. A piece of further proof? The nutroots aren’t so happy today because they think Ned Lamont in the Senate will change the Republic; they’re happy because they knocked off Joe Lieberman.

AND THEREIN LIES Lieberman’s chance to pull this thing off. As I’ve written several times, Lieberman’s likelihood to come off as a Sore Loserman threatens to end the race before it really begins.

But it doesn’t necessarily have to be that way. Instead of letting the issue of the next month be his own choice to fight on, Lieberman must make defining Lamont the campaign’s first major issue. He has to flood the zone with talk of Lamont’s curious choice of friends – does Connecticut want a Senator who accepts the sweaty embraces of Al Sharpton, Markos Moulitsas, Jesse Jackson and the people powered movement? Given the way the Jane Hamsher incident seems to have driven things in Lieberman’s direction during the last days of the campaign, the answer seems to be no.

Can the Lieberman campaign shake off its ineptitude and become a first class operation? If it can, and he’s still alive and fighting and winning in the polls a month from now, he may pull this thing out.

But I still think the Nutmeg State will get the Senator that fits it perfectly.

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