NEW YORK (AP) - Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton had Connecticut Senate candidate Ned Lamont over for coffee Friday, discussing campaign strategy and offering to host a fundraiser, a spokesman for the senator said. "It was a great meeting. Senator Clinton thinks Ned Lamont did a fabulous job in Connecticut," spokesman Howard Wolfson said, referring to Lamont's upset victory over Sen. Joe Lieberman in the state's Democratic primary.
Lieberman is running as an independent in November, and Republicans have attempted to cast his primary loss as a sign that the Democratic Party has been taken over by its extreme left wing.
At Clinton's Westchester County home, she and Lamont "talked about what Mr. Lamont can expect from the George Bush-Karl Rove attack machine," Wolfson said. "She told him Republicans were invested in defeating him."
Clinton has contributed $5,000 from her political action committee to Lamont's campaign and will do "whatever works for the campaign," Wolfson said. Wolfson, one of Clinton's senior political strategists, also said he will join the Lamont campaign as an adviser.
Clinton had offered tepid support to Lieberman, but moved quickly after the Aug. 8 primary to endorse Lamont, a Greenwich businessman who heavily criticized Lieberman's support of the Iraq war.
Lamont campaign manager Tom Swan said Lamont found Friday's meeting beneficial.
"It was clear that Senator Clinton and her team want to be helpful to Ned's election in November," Swan said.
Lieberman spokesman Dan Gerstein said he was not surprised Clinton was offering further support to Lamont, but suggested it probably would not help much.
"If endorsements meant anything, Joe Lieberman would have won the primary running away," Gerstein said. He added, "Senator Clinton's position on Iraq is far closer to Joe Lieberman's than it is to Ned Lamont's."
Clinton has borne considerable criticism from opponents of the war for her refusal to recant her 2002 vote authorizing the Iraq conflict.
Recent polls show Lieberman with a narrowing lead over Lamont in the general election, with Republican candidate Alan Schlesinger in single digits.
