National Republican Senatorial Committee

It's no coincidence that a purposeful silence has replaced the well-publicized calls from Republicans last month for no-hope GOP Senate candidate Alan Schlesinger to make way for someone more credible.

The state and national party, it seems, have concluded that they can't succeed in Connecticut this year under any circumstance, and would rather see Joe Lieberman win -- which polls show he's likely to do, absent a credible Republican candidate -- than risk handing the election to Democrat Ned Lamont.

This morning, a source at the National Republican Senatorial Committee confirmed in a phone interview that the party will not help Schlesinger or any other potential Republican candidate in Connecticut, and it now favors a Lieberman victory in November.

"We did a poll and there is no way any Republican we put out there can win, so we are just going to leave that one alone," said the NRSC source.

Instead, the NRSC is pulling for Lieberman over Ned Lamont, who rode an anti-war message to a victory in the Aug 8 primary.

"Most Republicans would agree that he'd clearly be a better choice than Lamont," said the source.

--Jason Horowitz UPDATE: An NRSC spokesman just called to make clear the distinction between actively and openly supporting Lieberman, which they're not doing, and merely opting not to support a Republican in Connecticut.

"The NRSC is not supporting Lieberman," said Brian Nick, a spokesman for the NRSC. "He is a Democrat who votes 90 percent of the time with the Democrats. The race isn't competitive at this point -- our resources will be used elsewhere."

Apparently Rob Ryan and the John Spencer campaign team have hit a nerve.

Morgan Ortagus, KT McFarland's usually mild-mannered and sweet-natured spokeswoman, just sent Ryan an angry letter accusing the Spencer campaign of falsely claiming the support of National Republican Senatorial Committee chair Elizabeth Dole. Here's are a couple of samples:

"The fact that he needs to pretend he has Mrs. Dole's support is a little sad, frankly."

"Trying to gain advantage in the Republican Primary by spreading falsehoods--wrongly using the good name of a prominent and respected U.S. Senator in the process--only belittles your candidate. It makes him look small. Please stop doing it."

The NRSC folks must be thrilled.  read more »

(Full text after the jump.)

--Jason Horowitz

Also at this morning’s Crain’s breakfast, Bill Weld took another shot at explaining Al D’Amato’s grudge against him (which reportedly extends, today, to trying to recruit yet another GOPer to run for Governor.)

Weld recalled that when he ran for Senate in 1996, D’Amato -- then chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee -- called him in to hand over a $750,000 check. He also berated Weld for the fact that Robert Mueller -- a Weld protege, now FBI director -- was involved in the failed prosecution of the Senator’s brother, Armand.

"If I ever see that expletive Mueller at an expletive fundraiser I’m going to get every expletive dollar of that back out of your hide."