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Unlikely Lamont boosters

BY GLENN THRUSH | Newsday Washington Bureau

August 10, 2006

WASHINGTON - Ned Lamont's victory over Joe Lieberman Tuesday has sparked surprising reactions from Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Jonathan Tasini.

Clinton, whose continued support of the war drew an attack from anti-war filmmaker Michael Moore yesterday, has already sent Lamont $5,000 through her political action committee, according to aides.

Tasini, Clinton's anti-war opponent, while delighting in Lieberman's defeat, chided Lamont for self-financing his campaign.

"I think it's great that Ned defeated Lieberman," said Tasini, who has loaned his cash-strapped campaign $30,000. "But it reflects one of the worst aspects of our political system: That you have to be rich to win election in this country."

Lamont, a cable company executive and Long Island native whose family tree includes a business partner of J.P. Morgan's, spent $4 million of his estimated $100-million fortune.

Tasini, the former head of the National Writers Union, has raised about $100,000 from donors so far, according to federal elections filings.

Clinton, who has about $22 million, had promised to back the winner of Tuesday's primary in Connecticut. Her pet political action committee, HILLPAC, sent a $5,000 check to Lamont's campaign yesterday.

Sen. Charles Schumer, head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said his organization will back Lamont.

Clinton, speaking in Harlem yesterday, stopped short of calling on Lieberman to quit but urged him to "search his conscience and decide what is best for Connecticut and for the Democratic party," adding that "the voters of Connecticut have made their decision and I think that decision should be respected."

In a letter to the senator, filmmaker Moore tied Clinton to Lieberman. "You and Joe have been Bush's biggest Democratic supporters of the war. ... Can you hear the writing on the wall?"