From a White House pool report today:
A senior administration official came to the press cabin during the flight to Green Bay to reflect on background about the CT primary and other political matters. The official noted that Lamont’s victory reflected the opinions of a tiny fraction of the electorate – about 7 percent. “I have to be careful about not extrapolating too much, but the fact of the matter is that as the election got closer, the race got closer,” the official said. “It went from 13 to 6 to 4 in the last 10 days of the campaign. And I think that’s in part because at the end of the day people look at the consequences of failure and the consequences of victory, the consequences of withdrawal and the consequences of finishing the fight, and they draw very important lessons about what it means to our country.
“So, if you have Lamont Democrats who say, ‘Bring ‘em home, turn away, and it will be all over,’ the American people say, ‘You’re kidding yourself. We’re in war and the only way you walk away from a war is as a victor, defeating the enemy.’”
Asked whether it was appropriate to talk about war in the context of a political campaign, the official replied: “You lost me.” The official added: “The issue’s going to be discussed in the fall. … Are you saying if the Democrats talk about the war, we shouldn’t? … We’ll talk about the war and we will talk about the consequences of the policies advocated by the Democrats.”