Hillary Scrambling to Support One-Note Ned

Hillary Clinton has a big problem with the anti-war left and she knows it. After watching Joe Lieberman lose a primary to the nutroots poster boy, she's scrambling to ingratiate herself with Lamont, and by extension the nutroots who don't like her very much:

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton had Connecticut Senate candidate Ned Lamont over for coffee Friday, discussing campaign strategy and offering to host a fundraiser, a spokesman for the senator said.

"It was a great meeting. Senator Clinton thinks Ned Lamont did a fabulous job in Connecticut," spokesman Howard Wolfson said, referring to Lamont's upset victory over Sen. Joe Lieberman in the state's Democratic primary.

Lieberman is running as an independent in November, and Republicans have attempted to cast his primary loss as a sign that the Democratic Party has been taken over by its extreme left wing.

At Clinton's Westchester County home, she and Lamont "talked about what Mr. Lamont can expect from the George Bush-Karl Rove attack machine," Wolfson said. "She told him Republicans were invested in defeating him."

Clinton has contributed $5,000 from her political action committee to Lamont's campaign and will do "whatever works for the campaign," Wolfson said. Wolfson, one of Clinton's senior political strategists, also said he will join the Lamont campaign as an adviser.

Clinton had offered tepid support to Lieberman, but moved quickly after the Aug. 8 primary to endorse Lamont, a Greenwich businessman who heavily criticized Lieberman's support of the Iraq war.

I think K-Lo at National Review has it about right. She thinks Hillary is trying to horn in on Lamont's action in order to keep Sen. Russ Feingold at bay. Feingold is one of the most ardently anti-war Senators and potential candidates for 2008, and would certainly be to the left of Hillary, which would make him the nutroots favorite. Hillary can't afford to give Feingold any momentum.