Day By Day© by Chris Muir.

September 04, 2006

It's A Great Day for a Parade and Campaigning

Ah, Labor Day...a day devoted to retail sales, picnics, and parades. Here in Connecticut, the town of Newtown has its annual Labor Day parade and this being an election year, all of the candidates were out in full force. As usual I was caught without a camera (had to rush out the door this morning), but managed to borrow one from a friend for a couple of important photo ops. (You can enlarge each photo below by clicking on them.)

Here, you see Democratic candidate for Senate Ned Lamont gladhanding with the crowd. (Sorry, my finger got in the way of the lens on the second photo.)

See that? He had a large number of volunteers marching with him, chanting something like "Go Lamont!" (I can't remember the actual chant).

And here, you see former Democrat now-running-as-an-Independent Senator Joe Lieberman shaking hands with parade-goers.

Lieberman didn't have near the amount of people marching with him. But let me tell you something he did have: more popular support. Where I was sitting, when Lieberman came around the bend, he received a tremendous cheer from the crowd. Lamont didn't receive nearly as much cheering when he showed up. Most of the noise being made for him was from campaign volunteers.

Oh, and Lieberman's popularity is quite satisfying when you realize that, according to the local weekly paper, he was contacted by Newtown's First Selectman Herb Rosenthal (a Democrat), asking him not to march with the Newtown Democrats. (First Selectman is Newtown's version of mayor.)

Quite telling, no?

(Others marching (who I didn't get photos of): Senate candidate Alan Schesinger (R), who I'll bet no one but political junkies like me have heard of; Congresswoman Nancy Johnson (R) (another big cheer getter) and her opponent Chris Murphy (D); and our popular Governor Jodi Rell (R), who received many more cheers than her rival Joe DeStefano (D).)