POSTED IN REAL CLEAR POLITICS
July 24, 2006
Democrats Lose if Lieberman is Defeated
By Peter Brown
The most interesting question about the possibility that Connecticut Democrats could deny Joseph Lieberman renomination is whether that would help or hurt the senator's political prospects. Or, for that matter, the Democratic Party's.
That's because even if Lieberman loses the Aug. 8 Democratic primary - and the newest polling data says that is a real possibility - he would be a huge favorite for re-election as an independent come November.
And if that is the case, it would not be hard to write a scenario in which the real loser from a Lieberman defeat to anti-war candidate Ned Lamont might be the Democratic Party itself
That would especially be the case if Lieberman's good friend Sen. John McCain of Arizona becomes the 2008 Republican presidential nominee and picks Joe as his running mate.
Then, Lieberman, Al Gore's running mate in 2000, would become the only person in American history to have ever run on the national ticket of both parties. And Lieberman on a Republican fusion ticket in 2008 might be a huge GOP asset.
Farfetched, perhaps, but no more so than the idea that Democrats would reject a three-term senator who, despite his endorsement of President Bush's Iraq War policy, has generally toed the party line on most, but certainly not all, issues.
The anti-Lieberman effort has become a cause celebre for Internet gadflies who are a rising power in Democratic politics. Among Lamont's major backers is the brother of Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean, whose 2004 presidential candidate was the darling of the blogger set that disdains Lieberman for his cordial relationship with Bush.
The defeat of Lieberman, among the Democrats most conservative senators, would again raise the specter of a Democratic Party dominated by a liberal wing unwilling to tolerate dissent.
A Quinnipiac University poll last week showed among likely Democratic primary voters Lamont, a businessman spending part of his $100 million fortune on the race, was narrowly - within the margin of error - ahead of Lieberman, closing a 15-point gap in the last month.
Moreover, the data shows Lamont supporters are more energized and likely to actually show up at the polls than are Democrats for Lieberman.
Lieberman is collecting petition signatures to get on the November ballot as an independent if he loses the primary. The Quinnipiac poll found that in a three-way race against Lamont and a Republican, Lieberman would win by 24 points, although his margin has shrunk 14 points in the last month.
Connecticut Democrats have been down this road before. In 1970, anti-Vietnam War candidate Joseph Duffy knocked off incumbent Thomas Dodd, who had been a supporter of Democratic President Lyndon Johnson's policy. Dodd's son Chris Dodd is now Connecticut's other U.S. senator.
But the anti-war wing, although powerful within Democratic primaries, did not represent the political mainstream in 1970. Duffy lost the November election to Republican Lowell Weicker, who is backing Lamont against Lieberman, who defeated him in 1988.
A Lieberman primary loss might cause more heartburn for Democrats nationally than for the candidate. Democratic primary voters have different views and values than even the larger number of Democrats who vote in the November election, not to mention independents and Republicans. All of which explains the string of Republicans White House victories.
That's why even though Lieberman is trailing among Democratic primary voters he would be the prohibitive favorite in November if he were to run in a three-way race as an independent.
That independent candidacy would complicate life for Democratic big-wigs, who would likely back Lamont against Lieberman in November. Among the 2008 presidential candidates who have said they would do so are front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton, and 2004 nominee John Kerry. That would almost certainly drive a wedge between Lieberman and the Democratic hierarchy if he is re-elected.
If Lieberman were to win as an independent it would give him great influence, not just in the Senate, but as the face of a new politics that transcends party labels.
Although he has pledged to caucus with the Democrats if elected as an independent, he would be a bigger player than even today as the party's former vice presidential candidate.
And he would be an awfully attractive running mate for McCain, not to mention other potential Republican White House hopefuls.
Peter A. Brown is assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. He can be reached at
[email protected] ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MY REBUTTAL VIA E-MAIL
Mr. Brown,
Count me as one of those "Internet Gadflies" if you will, but I am a lifelong Democrat who finally has a bit more voice, thanks to the internet. The term "Gadfly" disparages people like me who take a serious and thoughtful approach to the world and the political process. I obtain more information from my sources, including the internet, than voters who get all their information from 20-second sound and video bites on the 11 o'clock news. I disagree with your "Democrats Lose if Lieberman is Defeated" analysis. The Republican Party has been dominated for many years now by Right Wing activists who allow no dissent. They always speak with one voice, are always on message, so their message gets through to enough voters who will actually vote against their own economic interests. Democrats are perceived by too many people as spineless, aimless, etc. George Bush gets lots of mileage out of his (misguided) resoluteness. If Democrats are to win more national elections, we need to borrow at least a few pages out of the R's playbook. Democrats who want to better stand up to Bush-types and offer alternatives have every right to support Ned Lamont. Democrats, IMO, should be speaking with a more consistent/firm left-of-center voice. Otherwise we are Republican-lite, and useless. I do not live in CT, but my gut says that, this is the year that the electorate in a state like that will punish the Iraq War perpetrators and enablers. I believe that Lamont will handily win the Dem. primary. I believe that, in the general election, most Dems. will then vote for the true Dem., Lamont---they won't want to send Lieberman, (in their view the "war-loving near Republican") back to the Senate. I believe that enough moderates who would like to send a message about the stench from the Iraq misadvanture, will also vote for Lamont. If CT is 55% Dem. and 80% vote for Lamont over the war issue or the "Lieberman is a turncoat" issue, and Lamont gets NO other votes, then he gets 44% MINIMUM, with Lieberman and the R dividing the rest.
On a more moral/emotional level, read the below Irving Stolberg article which might explain why Lamont is now surging.
Lieberman's friend and former colleague in the Connecticut legislature, Irving Stolberg, writing in the Hartford Courant:
I have supported him in every election he has had - until now. This year I am supporting Ned Lamont to unseat Joe. Almost four decades of friendship with Joe has made this a wrenching decision for me. . . .
His blind support of the Iraq war, begun illegally and a continuing catastrophe, is monstrous.
And his defense of an incompetent president, a vice president who fits the dictionary definition of fascism and an extremist administration that has perpetrated torture, illegal eavesdropping and a general shredding of the Constitution is insulting to the people who elected him in the first place.
Joe's constituency is not Bush and Cheney; it is the progressives and moderates, the blacks and Hispanics who gave him his start in politics. We feel he has betrayed us by becoming "Bush's favorite Democrat."
His announcement that he will not support the winner of the Democratic primary but will seek election as an independent if he loses the primary seems to put self above principle. I thank Ned Lamont, a good and decent man, for giving the people of Connecticut a real choice. . . .
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