HARTFORD, Conn. - Sen. Joe Lieberman, who angered Democratic voters with his staunch support of the war in Iraq, on Tuesday narrowly lost his party's nomination to Ned Lamont, an antiwar candidate who was virtually unknown seven months ago.
Lieberman is only the fourth incumbent senator to lose his party's nomination since 1980. He promised to run for a fourth term as an independent candidate.
The race, initially predicted as a blowout victory for Lieberman, became a lesson in how the war in Iraq has reshaped partisan politics.
Lamont, a wealthy cable executive, led Lieberman by less than four percentage points, with 51.79 percent of the vote to Lieberman's 48.21 percent with 99 percent of precincts reporting.
Several of his supporters said they hoped Lamont's win will prove to be a transforming moment for the Democratic Party.
“I believe this is the most significant election of all the Democrats that are running,” Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., said. Many elected officials, she said, “could not bring themselves to stand up against this war because they thought they didn't have public support. Ned Lamont's courage will give courage to a lot of people.”
As the race drew national attention this summer, nearly 30,000 new voters either registered as Democrats or switched their registration for the chance to vote in the primary. Turnout was close to 40 percent, which is double the percentage which is normal in a Connecticut primary vote.
An independent Lieberman campaign will force an awkward choice for state Democratic leaders: Fully shift their support to the novice politician who has the party's backing, or support Lieberman.
Lamont, 52, poured $2.5 million of his own money into launching the campaign, and paid dozens of visits to small-town Democrats whose frustration with Lieberman was building. The challenger's vigorous, plain-spoken broadsides against the war attracted the attention of progressive activists and bloggers.
From the beginning, most prospective Lamont voters have said they were supporting him out of dislike for Lieberman. In a Quinnipiac University poll released Monday, 54 percent of Lamont voters said that was the main reason they support him.
“Not to say anything bad about the Lamont campaign,” said Kenneth Dautrich, a political science professor at the University of Connecticut. “But this has always been about Lieberman.”
Lieberman became a Democratic star during the 1990s, a time when party strategists worried about losing touch with an increasingly conservative electorate.
The son of a liquor-store owner in Stamford, Conn., Lieberman began running for office as a high school student and never stopped. At Yale, he wrote an admiring senior thesis on John M. Bailey, Connecticut's cigar-chewing political boss whose motto was “You gotta do what you gotta do.”
Lieberman, 64, is an Orthodox Jew who has observed the Sabbath throughout his career, refraining from driving, writing or talking on the telephone. A mild-mannered figure in the Senate, he took stands on moral issues - he chastised Hollywood for glamorizing sex and violence - and won high marks in the labor and environmental movements. Alongside an old friend, Bill Clinton, he cultivated a reputation as a centrist.
Lieberman was the first non-Southern U.S. senator to endorse Clinton in 1992. But six years later, he had become Clinton's most prominent Democratic critic, siding increasingly with Republicans on issues such as fundraising practices. In 1998, he delivered a rebuke of Clinton in the thick of the Monica S. Lewinsky scandal, calling Clinton's behavior “immoral and harmful.” He was the first Democrat to do so.
Democrats' grievances against Lieberman have mounted since then. Many in the party resent the fact that he did not drop out of the race for his Senate seat in 2000, when Al Gore selected him as a vice presidential running mate; others are angry that he backed Republican efforts to prevent the removal of Terri Schiavo's feeding tube, or that he voted to prevent a Democratic filibuster of Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.
But the fundamental complaint from liberals has been Lieberman's support of the war in Iraq, which seemed to grow stronger as other Democrats lined up against it. In December, he chided President Bush's critics, saying that “in matters of war we undermine presidential credibility at our nation's peril.” Earlier this summer, he was one of only six Democrats to vote against a resolution calling for U.S. forces to begin leaving Iraq this year.
Times staff writer Richard Simon in Washington and special correspondent Matthew O'Rourke in Hartford contributed to this report.
AP-NY-08-09-06 0136EDT
The race, initially predicted as a blowout victory for Lieberman, became a lesson in how the war in Iraq has reshaped partisan politics.
Lamont, a wealthy cable executive, led Lieberman by less than four percentage points, with 51.79 percent of the vote to Lieberman's 48.21 percent with 99 percent of precincts reporting.
Several of his supporters said they hoped Lamont's win will prove to be a transforming moment for the Democratic Party.
“I believe this is the most significant election of all the Democrats that are running,” Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., said. Many elected officials, she said, “could not bring themselves to stand up against this war because they thought they didn't have public support. Ned Lamont's courage will give courage to a lot of people.”
As the race drew national attention this summer, nearly 30,000 new voters either registered as Democrats or switched their registration for the chance to vote in the primary. Turnout was close to 40 percent, which is double the percentage which is normal in a Connecticut primary vote.
An independent Lieberman campaign will force an awkward choice for state Democratic leaders: Fully shift their support to the novice politician who has the party's backing, or support Lieberman.
Lamont, 52, poured $2.5 million of his own money into launching the campaign, and paid dozens of visits to small-town Democrats whose frustration with Lieberman was building. The challenger's vigorous, plain-spoken broadsides against the war attracted the attention of progressive activists and bloggers.
From the beginning, most prospective Lamont voters have said they were supporting him out of dislike for Lieberman. In a Quinnipiac University poll released Monday, 54 percent of Lamont voters said that was the main reason they support him.
“Not to say anything bad about the Lamont campaign,” said Kenneth Dautrich, a political science professor at the University of Connecticut. “But this has always been about Lieberman.”
Lieberman became a Democratic star during the 1990s, a time when party strategists worried about losing touch with an increasingly conservative electorate.
The son of a liquor-store owner in Stamford, Conn., Lieberman began running for office as a high school student and never stopped. At Yale, he wrote an admiring senior thesis on John M. Bailey, Connecticut's cigar-chewing political boss whose motto was “You gotta do what you gotta do.”
Lieberman, 64, is an Orthodox Jew who has observed the Sabbath throughout his career, refraining from driving, writing or talking on the telephone. A mild-mannered figure in the Senate, he took stands on moral issues - he chastised Hollywood for glamorizing sex and violence - and won high marks in the labor and environmental movements. Alongside an old friend, Bill Clinton, he cultivated a reputation as a centrist.
Lieberman was the first non-Southern U.S. senator to endorse Clinton in 1992. But six years later, he had become Clinton's most prominent Democratic critic, siding increasingly with Republicans on issues such as fundraising practices. In 1998, he delivered a rebuke of Clinton in the thick of the Monica S. Lewinsky scandal, calling Clinton's behavior “immoral and harmful.” He was the first Democrat to do so.
Democrats' grievances against Lieberman have mounted since then. Many in the party resent the fact that he did not drop out of the race for his Senate seat in 2000, when Al Gore selected him as a vice presidential running mate; others are angry that he backed Republican efforts to prevent the removal of Terri Schiavo's feeding tube, or that he voted to prevent a Democratic filibuster of Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.
But the fundamental complaint from liberals has been Lieberman's support of the war in Iraq, which seemed to grow stronger as other Democrats lined up against it. In December, he chided President Bush's critics, saying that “in matters of war we undermine presidential credibility at our nation's peril.” Earlier this summer, he was one of only six Democrats to vote against a resolution calling for U.S. forces to begin leaving Iraq this year.
Times staff writer Richard Simon in Washington and special correspondent Matthew O'Rourke in Hartford contributed to this report.
AP-NY-08-09-06 0136EDT
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