Josh Marshall spots Tony Snow saying the president will not endorse Alan Schlesinger, the Republican candidate for Senate in Connecticut. (UPDATE: Look at the item below; it wasn’t just Josh Marshall!) RNC chairman Ken Mehlman offered the weakest possible endorsement of a Republican candidate in party-boss history yesterday on Meet the Press. What’s going on here? Is the White House knifing a legitimate Republican in the back to do Joe Lieberman a favor? Not exactly. Well before the Connecticut primary last week, Schlesinger had been subjected to astonishing pressure in Connecticut from its Republican governor, Jodi Rell, and the state’s Republican chairman, George Gallo — both of whom did everything they could to force Schlesinger to drop out of the race following vague revelations of gambling expenses.

The first major poll since the primary has Schlesinger receiving 6 percent — this in a state that has elected Republicans governor. There’s no way Schlesinger can win, the party thinks he can’t win, and the better he does the more likely it is that Ned Lamont becomes the next senator in Connecticut. So why do anything to help that become a reality? If anything, netroots Lamontnik lunatics should be spending millions to boost Schlesinger’s vote tally.