It’s “crunch time” for the Democratic party in the face of the announcement that Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman is getting ready to run as an independent in his home state of Connecticut in case he’s spurned by rank-and-file members of his own party in the upcoming Democratic primary.
Lieberman is now being accused — before the primary votes are cast — of wanting to have it both ways: of running in the primary as a loyal Democrat but preparing to compete with and defeat the Democratic choice if he loses (who would be anti-war candidate Ned Lamont).
Is it a blunder? Polls show Lieberman ahead. Will his contingency plans woo or anger Democratic voters?
It is fitting that a lot of these news stories about Lieberman’s battle for political dominance are popping up around Independence Day: the rebellion against Lieberman is a rebellion, of sorts, by the Democratic party’s liberal wing and the “netwoots” against the more DLC and big-umbrella oriented party leadership. Is the Democratic party better off expanding the size of its umbrella, or does that make it too wishy washy — and should the party instead accentuate differences with the GOP and basically kick those Democrats who support the war in their political butts?
Lieberman’s petition drive to run as an independent now puts the party bigwigs in an extremely difficult position: by supporting Lieberman they’re saying they will support a candidate who might not support the party candidate chosen in a primary by voters. And if Lieberman does run as an independent, many professional Democratic politicians and leaders may be rooting for him but they open up a can of worms if they support someone rejected in the primary.
And if Lieberman wins the primary? How many Democrats will not vote for him, vote for a third party (if one emerges) or even cast a protest Republican vote to get back at him on election day due to his now high-profile threat not to support anyone besides Joe Lieberman as Democratic candidate for Senate?
Videos of Lieberman here and here.
Yours truly just returned from Connecticut (my home state) and here are some observations:
- Ads for Ned Lamont showing Lieberman morph into George Bush are quite visible and prominently placed on Connecticut television stations.
- Lieberman is not as well liked as he previously has been, even among some people who voted for him in the past.
- People outside of Connecticut need to keep in mind that the independent state has supported candidates who bolted a major party before. Notably: Lowell Weicker, who Lieberman defeated as Senator but later became governor.
- Many journalists following this story forget that Lieberman was roundly criticized in 2000 when he ran for Vice President on the Al Gore ticket. Some in his home state accused the centrist to conservative Democrat (choose YOUR categorization of him) of tailoring his views for Gore by moving further to the left — in effect, abandoning his longtime principles. Now he’s being blasted by being too far to the right and has become a kind of test case for purging the Democratic party of politicos who support the Bush administration on the war.
No matter what happens in the primary, it seems Lieberman’s political status in the state — and beyond — will never be the same.
The New York Times:
Six years ago Joseph I. Lieberman came within a hairbreadth of the vice presidency after the Democratic Party chose him as a moderate face whose support for family values and a stronger military might attract Reagan Democrats and independents.
Yet when Mr. Lieberman sought the party’s presidential nomination in 2004, rank-and-file Democrats relegated him to the B list, behind Howard Dean and John Kerry, in large part because of his strong support for military action in Iraq.
Now Mr. Lieberman faces the prospect of rejection by the Democrats who know him best, the party faithful in Connecticut. Once more the problem is Iraq. But this time it is not only Mr. Lieberman who is being challenged; it is the national party leadership, as it faces a grassroots push to toughen its stand against the Iraq war and distance itself from a senator who supports the war.
Leaders of the national Democratic Party, like Mr. Dean, the chairman, and Charles S. Schumer, who is leading the effort to regain control of the Senate, may have to choose between Mr. Lieberman and an antiwar Democrat in the fall, when they had hoped to make Iraq squarely the president’s problem.
Even though Lieberman says he’d vote with the Democrats in Congress if he ran and won as an independent. The Times quotes some Democratic bigwigs — quotes that shows the dilemma:
Senator Schumer, a strong supporter of Mr. Lieberman’s, has been careful in recent days to limit his endorsement of his colleague to the primary race. “We are supporting Joe Lieberman in the primary, and we’re not going to speculate about things afterward because that undermines your candidate,” Mr. Schumer said on Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “We’re supporting Joe. He’s going to win.”
Karen Finney, a spokeswoman for the Democratic National Committee, said the party would support its nominee this fall, whether it is Mr. Lieberman or Mr. Lamont.
Another party official, Donna Brazile, said yesterday that she supported Mr. Lieberman’s candidacy but was concerned that his contingency plan would “hurt more than help his candidacy.” She explained: “I think Joe Lieberman could have really scored with the Democratic voters if he’d said that he was a Democrat, would run as a Democrat and would honor the wishes of the Democratic voters.”
How is this playing in Connecticut? Here’s how the Danbury News-Times reports it:
One day before July 4, U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman took formal steps to declare his independence from the Democratic Party.
The three-term senator and the party’s liberal base have been at odds over the issue of the war in Iraq.
Lieberman’s independence is conditional on whether the party rejects him in the Aug. 8 Democratic primary against Greenwich businessman Ned Lamont, an anti-war candidate. Even then, the independence will probably be for just a few months.
As polls have showed the race tightening up, a three-way race could potentially throw the race open to give even long-shot Republican challenger Alan Schlesinger a chance.
Lieberman announced Monday in Hartford that he is collecting signatures necessary to run as an independent to ensure he is on the ballot in November if he loses the primary.
So — factor not mentioned in many news and blog reports — it could end up that on election day Connecticut has a new Republican Senator, due to a split Democratic vote.
The Stamford Advocate’s report contains this:
Marion Steinfels, Lieberman’s communications director, said the campaign is still considering how to both wage a primary and collect the required 7,500 voter signatures, but will not divert its staff from focusing on winning Aug. 8.
The petitions are due Aug. 9 to the secretary of the state’s office.
A Quinnipiac University poll showed Lieberman would win 56 percent of the vote in a three-way race with Lamont and Republican Alan Schlesinger.
Lieberman captured the support of two-thirds of the Democratic delegates at the state nominating convention May 19 — enough to win the endorsement but not to fend off a primary challenge from Lamont, a cable entrepreneur.
Lamont’s underdog candidacy, founded on opposition to Lieberman’s strong support of the Iraq war, has since won backers among registered Democrats. In Quinnipiac University polls, Lamont went from 19 percent of the vote in May to 32 percent in June, while Lieberman slipped from 65 percent of the vote to 57 percent, according to The Associated Press.
Lieberman yesterday continued to portray Lamont as a “Greenwich millionaire” out to buy the election.
“No one knows how many Democrats will come out to vote on August 8, and few think it will be more than 25 (percent) or 30 percent,” Lieberman said. “And what if my opponent . . . decides to write bigger and bigger checks in the last weeks of the campaign?”
Lamont yesterday issued a statement saying he was confident of a primary victory but would abide by the results. Last month, Lamont’s campaign aired a radio ad challenging Lieberman to support him should he win.
Lamont’s campaign manager, Tom Swan, accused the senator of “hedging his bets” and “gaming the system because he saw he was not going to win in August.”
Paul Bass, in an article in the New Haven Independent titled “Lieberman Launches ‘Cut & Run Campaign’ writes:
In a sign that he fears for his political future, three-term U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman announced outside the state Capitol Monday that his reelection campaign will take out petitions to get his name on the November ballot as an independent — just in case challenger Ned Lamont beats him in an Aug. 8 Democratic primary. Lieberman’s brief announcement signalled both the spin he’ll use to try to limit the political fallout of the move, as well as the main tack he’ll use to try to blunt Lamont’s challenge.
Lieberman reiterated that he’s running as hard as he can to win the Democratic primary, the first time an incumbent Democratic senator has faced such a challenge in Connecticut in 36 years.
But as of Monday, his campaign will canvass voters to sign petitions to get him a place on the November ballot as an independent.
It was a striking symbol of how political tides have turned in Connecticut and of a downward trajectory in Lieberman’s own career. Just six years ago he was an international celebrity as Al Gore’s running mate in the presidential campaign. He ran for president in 2004, although he didn’t get far. He started this year far ahead of Lamont in the polls. Now a three-term incumbent is fighting for his life to retain his own party’s nomination.
Political pundit Dick Morris (whose analysis and advice is not always on the dime but thought-provoking) warned weeks ago that Lieberman was committing “political suicide” by running in the primary. In that piece he also discussed the perils of Lieberman running as an independent AFTER he loses a primary:
Scott Rasmussen has Lieberman clinging to a narrow 45-41 lead over Lamont, based largely on his name recognition. Other pollsters give the Senate a larger margin. But the inevitable dynamics of this primary are likely to flow toward the challenger as he picks up money, support and recognition and offers a way to do something there is no other way to do: Vote against the war.
Lieberman’s supporters argue that if he loses the primary he can always then run as an independent. Technically that is not true. He would have to file his nominating petitions as an independent before the primary.
But politically it is a failed choice as well. If Lieberman loses the primary, the defeat will empower Lamont and make him a viable candidate in November. Like a parasite, he will thrive on the nutrients in the senator’s blood and use them to animate his candidacy. But if Lieberman withdraws from the primary (even if his name has to remain on the ballot), he denies Lamont that victory. Without it, the insurgent can never amass the resources and credibility he would need to run and win in November.
Lieberman speaks of his loyalty to the Democratic Party. Obviously, if he wins as an independent, he will continue to vote with his party in the Senate and will continue to call himself a Democrat. But this misguided party loyalty may help to elect Republican candidate Alan Schlesinger. If Lieberman is so weakened by a primary defeat that he fades as a front-runner in the general election, we will see a three-way race that anyone can win.
Morris calls Lieberman’s ads attacking Lamont “pathetic.” And he issued a warning, pointing to political history:
One hopes that Lieberman remembers the parable of Jacob Javits, the former New York senator whose tenure was much like Lieberman’s. A liberal Republican who never marched to the beat of his party’s drummer, Javits faced a primary from Alfonse D’Amato from the right wing of the GOP.
Had Javits simply run as an independent (in New York at the time that meant running on the Liberal Party line), he would easily have been elected. But because he lost in the primary, when he did run as a Liberal Party candidate he ran a poor third. Splitting the progressive vote, he so crippled the Democratic candidate, Rep. Elizabeth Holtzman, that D’Amato won by a hair.
The bottom line is that Lieberman already made the choice Morris was urging him to reject (running in the primary)…and now he is readying a campaign to run as an independent, just in case.
So you could come up with a bunch of scenarios for Joe Lieberman. And none of them indicate he’ll have a tranquil political life in the immediate future:
–He wins the primary. He may have problems: some Democrats angered over his decision prepare to run as an independent might not vote for him or could even cast protest votes to defeat him.
–He loses the primary and runs as an independent and loses.
–He loses the primary and runs as an independent and wins but is effectively persona non grata among some members of his own party in Connecticut and perhaps in Congress — if Democrats are pressured by his foes to keep their distance from him.
–He loses the primary, loses as an independent, and helps send a Republican to Congress.
One thing seems certain: no matter how this turns out, Joe Lieberman’s days as someone who is considered material for a national presidential political ticket are definitively behind him.
A CROSS SECTION OF SITES COMMENTING ON THE LIEBERMAN RACE:
The Next Hurrah, Ed Morrissey, Fresh Paint,A Blog For All, Lamont Blog, CHT, The Influence Peddler, Brothers Judd, Daily Kos, Echidne of Snakes, The Heretik, David Corn, Americablog, The Carpetbagger Report, Murray Farish
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.