The Kiss of Death

Karl Rove (Republican Svengali) called Joe Lieberman (ex-Democrat, now independant) to wish him luck during the Democratic primary Tuesday. I'll let the piece speak for itself:

"'I called him. He's a personal friend,' Rove told reporters [...] The call was made late Tuesday afternoon, the day of the primary won by challenger Ned Lamont, who painted Lieberman as too cozy with Bush."

Now Rove is the clever dick who set up phone "polls" when the current lame-duck president was facing John McCain in the deep south.

The calls pretended to be from a polling organization (rather than a Republican PR storefront) and asked about whether respondents had any feelings about "mixed-race" families, implying also that McCain had had a black daughter.

In civilized society no-one gives a rat's ass about that sort of thing. But in the group Rove targetted, you might well expect a few voters to swing a little.

So assuming Rove isn't as stupid as his former boss ... why did he want Lamont to win?