How can this be?

With headlines like this:

U.S. casualties surge amid worsening Iraq violence

U.S. military casualties have surged in Iraq in recent weeks, with U.S. troops engaging in perilous urban sweeps to curb sectarian violence in Baghdad while facing unrelenting violence elsewhere.

At least 44 U.S. troops have been killed so far in October. At the current pace, the month would be the deadliest for U.S. forces since January 2005. After falling to 43 in July, the U.S. toll rose in August and September before spiking this month. The war's average monthly U.S. death toll is 64.

The number of U.S. troops wounded in combat also has surged, with September's total of more than 770 the highest since November 2004, when U.S. forces launched a ground offensive to clear insurgents from Falluja.

How can this be:

Political Climate Warms to Lieberman’s Favor

Now Steve Gillard isn't buying it either.

Ok, Chris Shays is shitting his pants, and other Republican moderates expect to lose their seats, but the CW in Washington is that Lieberman is reelected?

Look, Lieberman has ridden name recognition as far as it can go, but with a shitty ballot position, no field operations and no way to ask for votes, especially with a likely depressed GOP turn out, it's going to be hard for him to win. Lamont's team did make some mistakes, especially assuming that this was a local election, it wasn't, but they general view of him in DC was that if he wanted to win the seat, he'd have to spend the money for it.

My argument was in August and is in October, is that Lamont's field ops give him an edge. Polling in this race isn't reliable because of those factors. Come election day, the entire machine will be working for Lamont, and despite Lieberman's ability to stop the total collapse of his campaign, the problem is that the moderate center isn't going to knock on doors, nor can the desperate GOP campaigns for the House waste a second to help him.

Lieberman has used TV, but in New England, you have to ask for votes. Of course, Lamont is going to go back to their core issues, Iraq, and hammer Lieberman on it. He's got money and time to do so.

I think that sounds about right. The polls also show the Republican candidate only polling about 5% of the vote. In the end I suspect he will get 3 or 4 times that and those votes will all come from Lieberman.