In Connecticut, Lieberman is on the brink

Tom Curry National affairs writer • Profile • E-mail

HARTFORD, Conn. -

If Sen. Joe Lieberman loses next Tuesday’s Democratic Senate primary in Connecticut, will his political obituary read “another casualty of the Iraq war”?

Lieberman’s support for the war – combined with the millions of dollars spent by Lieberman’s wealthy anti-war challenger, Ned Lamont, have brought Lieberman to the brink, either of a defeat, or of a startling comeback victory, or of a new life as an independent candidate who’ll compete in November in a three-way race against Lamont and Republican Alan Schlesinger.

As Lieberman campaigned Wednesday and Thursday, there was the palpable feeling that these could be the final hours of his 37-year career as a Democratic candidate.

His new career as an independent Democratic candidate may begin first thing Wednesday morning, if Lamont pulls off a win that seemed unimaginable just a few months ago.

Lieberman is gathering the signatures that will allow his name to be on the November ballot regardless of how the primary turns out.

At a rally Wednesday evening at the Mount Bethel African Methodist Episcopal church in New Haven, Lamont ally Jesse Jackson denounced Lieberman’s fall-back plan to run as an independent.

“He should play by the rules! Play by the rules!” Jackson intoned in his trademark style as the crowd chanted along with him.

Jackson was hammering at that theme again Thursday morning at a senior citizens’ center in Hartford, getting the crowd of about 200 to repeat in unison after him: “Those who play by primary rules should accept primary results!”

Jackson told the crowd that they must not “support the Iraq war and support Bush and Lieberman,” but must instead “choose to end the war” by electing Lamont, whom he predicted “will be your next U.S. senator.”

Lamont himself told the crowd that next Tuesday’s primary is a choice: “Do we want to keep fighting in Iraq or do we want to start bringing the troops home?”

In a Quinnipiac poll of likely primary voters released Thursday, Lamont garnered 54 percent to Lieberman’s 41 percent. Two months ago the numbers were almost exactly inverted, favoring Lieberman.

Lamont supporters are touting the notion that with a big enough Lieberman loss on Tuesday -- if Lamont gets 60 percent of the vote, for instance -- the senator will be forced to yield to pressure from party leaders and drop his independent bid.

An independent streak
There was no indication of this from Lieberman, who soldiered on at a series of campaign stops across the state. Longtime Lieberman friend and advisor Lanny Davis – while saying the Iraq war “is a legitimate issue for Mr. Lamont to run on” – said Lamont and his campaign manager “were engaging in wishful thinking” and “drinking their own Kool-Aid” if they think Lieberman will drop his independent bid.

To a samba class at the Milford senior center, Lieberman said Lamont was “trying to make this a vote on one issue, Iraq, which is an important issue which we can have a difference of opinion on, but trust me, I’m working real hard to see if we can bring it to successful end as quickly as possible.”

He added that Lamont was also “making it a referendum on George Bush. Take a look at me. I’m not George Bush. As a matter of fact, I’ve voted against most of what he’s trying to do.”

But if Lieberman loses on Tuesday, plenty of Republicans and independents will vote for him in November, said a Republican ex-state legislator Mae Schmidle in Newtown, Conn. where she showed up at the Lieberman event Wednesday.

Schmidle has known Lieberman since the early 1980s.

“I find an awful lot of Republicans in Newtown that feel very strongly about supporting him,” Schmidle said. “They’re talking to Democrats and telling them ‘this is a particularly fine candidate.’ I think he could very well pull out this primary.”

If not, there’s the November election. “He’s got a three-way race hands down. He’s got the name recognition. He can go to two dozen different places in Connecticut, and say, ‘I supported this (project), I was the one who originally thought of it,’” Schmidle said.

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