And so in the end Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman’s “Jo-mentum” became “No-mentum.” The news that Lieberman would not seek re-election is being pointed to as an example of how centrists can’t survive.
Is that what happened? Is Arizona Senator John McCain’s best bud yet one more example of an independent, centrist politician falling victim to ideologues out to get him or seeking to exclude him? Was he squeezed to political death in a political pincer? Or is it perhaps a bit more complex than that? The answer: it’s more complex.
I’ve always been ambivalent about Lieberman.
I’m from Connecticut where, in 1988, he defeated my political hero, Lowell Weicker, Jr., for Senate — winning by less than 1 percent with the backing of many Republicans.
An elderly relative of mine met Lieberman before he became Senator and called him a “sourpuss.” She STILL does when I mention his name.
Still, he seemed the quintessential centrist when he ran as Vice President with Al Gore in 2000. And my respect for him grew when my favorite centrist blogger, author Marshall “BullMoose” Wittmann, went to work for him. What happened next is legend: Lieberman broke with his party on Iraq, and lost a grudge match with the Democratic left, which defeated him in the 2006 Connecticut Democratic primary. He triumphed in the general election as independent, went to the Senate and cast votes that sometimes favored one side or another.
Does that explain his retirement and why he is left with lousy poll numbers in Connecticut? Perhaps a bigger reason is that Lieberman became part of the country’s polarizing talk radio political culture.
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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.