Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman would have had to walk a political tightrope to mount what would have been seen as a truly independent re-election bid after losing the primary to challenger Ned Lamont.
And now there are increasing signs he has already fallen off it.
Not a day goes by when there isn’t a new batch of news and blog stories detailing how Lieberman is being embraced by or seemingly embracing the Republican party.
His big problem: so many GOP party elites are in effect endorsing him by not embracing the GOP’s official candidate that in the eyes of his growing legion of critics he has become — in media eyes, at the very least — the defacto Republican candidate.
For instance, the New Haven Independent reports this:
Declaring himself a “non-combatant,” U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman, in remarks at a New Haven press event Friday, raised anew the question of whether his “independent” candidacy will help Republicans hold onto three Congressional seats in Connecticut — and control of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Lieberman — who after losing an Aug. 8 Democratic primary to Ned Lamont has launched a third-party bid to hold onto his seat in the Nov. 7 general election — was asked whether he still endorses Diane Farrell, Joe Courtney and Chris Murphy, three Democrats looking to unseat endangered Republican incumbents Chris Shays, Rob Simmons and Nancy Johnson.
“I’m a non-combatant,� Lieberman declared. “I am not going to be involved in other campaigns. I think it’s better if I just focus on my own race.�
Lieberman made the remarks at a Friday morning photo op held in the rain under an I-95 overpass in the Fair Haven neighborhood to tout his role in bringing $50 million to the state to help ease transportation gridlock.
“It’s a little awkward for me now� to endorse the Democratic candidates in the general election, he said, “since they all endorsed my opponent,� Democratic primary winner Ned Lamont.
Although Lieberman is arguing that he’s being forced into that position, refusing to endorse Democratic candidates now takes his distancing from his own party to a new level. It’s the equivilent of burning his political bridges as he constructs a new political bridge to Republican voters. MORE:
The comment was significant because analysts from both major parties believe that Lieberman’s campaign could help the three Republicans keep their jobs in the face of tough challenges. Lieberman’s strongest support — 75 percent in the most recent Quinnipiac poll — comes from Republicans. If he succeeds in drawing more Republican voters to the polls to support his candidacy, that could help the Republican Congressional candidates. Those three races are considered among the 10 most competitive Congressional races in the country; both parties consider the races key to deciding which party controls the House in 2007. National Republican strategists and donors have come forward to help Lieberman’s campaign; party leaders have abandoned the nominal Republican in the Senate race, Alan Schlesinger. Prominent Republicans like Shays and former Republican House leader Newt Gingrich have endorsed Lieberman.
Meanwhile, all of this has made Lieberman seemingly Public Enemy One And A Half (President George Bush is Number one) among some members of the Democratic party and weblogs. Stephen Elliot, writing on The Huffington Post (a blog that is not in Lieberman’s cheering section) , says many weblogs got it wrong when they claimed Lieberman was campaigning for Republicans…he was just with some Republicans. He notes that most of these these weblogs did not run clarifications or retractions.
So today Joe Lieberman appears poised for something that seemed nearly unthinkable when he was running against Lamont in the primary: a major, bitter confrontation with the party elites and the party leaders and national figures of his own party.
The question they’ll face is if he wins whether they can trust him to support the Democrats.
The question Lieberman will face if he wins is whether he’d get more clout casting his lot (even unofficially) with the GOP.
But the following is not good news for Lieberman:
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton hosted Connecticut Senate candidate Ned Lamont at her Westchester County home Friday morning, discussing campaign strategy and fundraising in an hourlong meeting over coffee, Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson said.
“It was a great meeting. Senator Clinton thinks Ned Lamont did a fabulous job in Connecticut,” Wolfson said, referring to Lamont’s stunning upset victory over Sen. Joe Lieberman in the state’s Democratic primary.
“They 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.”
The New York Times reports that Senator Clinton has promised to help Lamont with fund raising — and it quotes a Lieberman spokesman of being skeptical:
Dan Gerstein, a spokesman for Mr. Lieberman, said that he was skeptical of the level of support that Mrs. Clinton was offering, calling it typical of the “partisan playbook.�
“We will be curious to see if and when Senator Clinton shows up with Mr. Lamont, whether he will turn around and distort her record, too,� Mr. Gerstein said.
One major problem for Lieberman: in recent weeks he has gotten most publicity for his lambasting the Democratic party on security and suggesting that terrorists were happy Lamont run.
If you look at the history of independent candidates (who usually manage to siphon vote away from one major party and help the candidate who has views less similar to the independent) they have usually (but not always) blast BOTH parties. Lieberman so far has been at war with a faction of his party — and it increasingly looks like he will be at war with much broader part of his party.
He has delivered few forceful critiques of the GOP or President George Bush and seems to be actively wooing Republicans and polls show he is picking up a huge chunk of Republican support.
This is creating a narrative for this story in the news media where Lieberman has become the de facto Republican candidate, if you read most news accounts of the race. Add to that the fact that many weblogs that support Lieberman are sites that support him but generally blast the Democrats and Democratic party as a whole. That will add the perception that he is basically waging a campaign for re-election more against his own party and its elites than against the Republican partyand its elites.
That won’t enhance his image (and in politics imagery means a lot) as a genuinely independent candidate who isn’t out to curry favor with one particular party or its voters.
Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton has taken her support of Lamont yet ANOTHER step further.The AP Blog:
Perhaps the most noteworthy outcome of this morning’s meeting between Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Connecticut Democrat Ned Lamont was the disclosure that Clinton strategist Howard Wolfson would be joining the Lamont team as an adviser.
Wolfson’s move demonstrates the confidence Clinton’s team has in her own re-election. Chances are she wouldn’t lend her senior strategist to another campaign if she were in any jeopardy.
More importantly, the move is a vivid public demonstration of Clinton’s support for Lamont.
Wolfson is a seasoned Democratic operative and a partner in the Glover Park Group, a fast-growing consulting firm that handles numerous political clients. But he is best known in political circles for his connection to Clinton, beginning in 2000 when he served as communications director on her first Senate race.
Clinton, who is personally close to the man Lamont vanquished, Sen. Joe Lieberman, could easily have offered Lamont little more than a perfunctory endorsement after he won the Democratic primary. But for Clinton to lend her highest-profile strategist to the Lamont effort signals a much deeper commitment to Lamont’s candidacy than many observers might have expected.
But it isn’t only Hillary Clinton who’s loaning one of her best people to Lamont: So is Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (who would like to be Majority Leader Harry Reid).
This suggest that Democratic party elite leadership determination to
elect Lamont and defeat Lieberman is starting to solidify.
Immediately before the primary that saw Lieberman’s defeat there was considerable speculation that top Democrats, particularly those such as Hillary and Bill Clinton who had been close associates of Lieberman’s for many years, would either try and find an excuse to sit on their hands during the Lamont campaign or give it perfunctory support.
That conventional wisdom now seems erroneous, speculative ancient history that many who uttered (and wrote) it would like to forget.
What has changed the picture so quickly? Most likely several factors:
–The way Lieberman has been embraced by many Republican party elites and praised by conservative talk show hosts who generally make a living out demonizing the Democratic party. “The friend of my enemy is my enemy.”
–The authentic prospect that a strong Lieberman win could mean many GOPers flocking to the polls and Democrats therefore losing some key races in Connecticut and perhaps lose a chance to take over the House.
–Lieberman’s strong attack on the Democratic party on the issue of terrorism which was blasted by Democrats as the same kind of comments made by Vice President Dick Cheney.
And Lieberman? The latest is that he’s considering a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, pointing to a proposal by Republican Congressman:
Sen. Joe Lieberman, the three-term Democrat whose independent campaign for re-election is being seen as a referendum on the Iraq war, said Friday he would consider taking a look at a fellow lawmaker’s proposal for a time-line for troop withdrawals.
The proposal was floated by Republican Rep. Chris Shays, another Connecticut politician facing a tough reelection battle with an anti-war candidate. Shays has long been a supporter of the war and previously opposed withdrawal timetables.
“It seems to me that Chris is saying, maybe we ought to set some goals for when we want to get out, and I’d like to see what he has in mind before I comment on it,” Lieberman said while campaigning in New Haven.
…”As I’ve said to you over and over again, the sooner we get out of Iraq, the better it’s going to be for the Iraqis and us, but if we leave too soon for reasons of American politics, it’s going to be disaster for the Iraqis and for us,” he said.
The LA Times gives a more background on Shay’s shift, which its report suggests is based on what Shays has seen with his own eyes and what he has seen in the political polls:
Since U.S. forces attacked in 2003, Rep. Christopher Shays, a moderate Republican from Connecticut’s liberal Fourth District, has been a stalwart defender of the Iraq war.
Facing an anti-war Democratic opponent in a tough midterm election race, Shays is starting to express reservations.
In a telephone interview Friday after he returned from his 14th trip to Iraq, Shays said he now believes the U.S. should consider setting a timetable for the withdrawal of its troops.
It further adds this perspective:
Shays becomes the third Republican lawmaker from a Democratic or swing state to distance himself from the Bush administration’s war policy.
With public support for the war sagging and many Democratic candidates vocally opposing it, Republicans in tight races in blue states are under particular pressure.
Although he is not the first Republican to part company with Bush on the conduct of the war, Shays is the most prominent pro-war voice so far to call for a timetable for withdrawal.
And experts think there will be many Republican defections to come in the months leading up to the November election.
The remaining danger for the Democrats is that although the Lamont-Lieberman showdown is one of the most dramatic political stories of the 2006 mid-term elections as an actual contest it posts many pitfalls.
Will it gobble up Democratic money, energy, activist focus and media attention that would be more valuable going elsewhere? In the end, could Joe Lieberman be definitively defeated and, due to all of the efforts and time, the Democrats’ hopes to retake control of one or more Houses of Congress be defeated too?
UPDATE: The Silverwood Institute argues that centrist Democrats who vote for Lieberman will be sorely disappointed.
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.