Did I miss something? Didn’t the shock Quinnipiac poll that had Lamont ahead by 15 points last week just shrink to 6 points today? A nine-point swing in a week?

This could mean:

1) Lamont was never ahead by 15 and that poll last week was an out-lier. This new poll more precisely parallels the poll two weeks ago that had Lamont up by 4.

2) There may have major overpolling of certain Democratic group likely to vote against Lieberman.

3) This is an impossible primary to poll. In the Democratic presidential primary in Connecticut in 2000, only 160,000 votes were cast. In the Democratic presidential primary in 2004, only 105,000 votes were cast. And those were Presidential primaries. This is an August Senatorial primary. There could be a turnout as low as 10 percent of Democratic voters. In that circumstance, you almost certainly have people telling pollsters they are going to vote when they’re not going to.

4) I certainly want Lieberman to win, because a) I think he’s a great man and b) I fear for the country’s health if a politician as responsible as Lieberman is turned out by ideological schismatics who are dedicating themselves to a suicidal effort to purify their party. (I felt the same way, by the way, about the effort to defeat Arlen Specter in a primary, even though I have serious problems with Specter.) So I admit I’m hoping there’s something to points 1 & 2. (One thing to dampen my hope is another poll out today that has Lamont up 10.) But I think there’s more to my hope than just hope, and I think #3 explains why.