Joementum Returns

Hartford

SHORTLY AFTER 11:00 P.M. on August 8, 2006, Joe Lieberman's decades-long political career reached a low point. That was when Lieberman took the stage inside the atrium at the Goodwin Hotel here to concede defeat in the Democratic primary to antiwar businessman Ned Lamont, who had won 52 percent to 48 percent. Lieberman, the three-term incumbent senator, was plainly frustrated. His face was lined. He frowned often. His family, friends, and loyal supporters were with him, but the prominent Connecticut Democrats who only hours before greeted visitors in the hotel lobby--including Senator Christopher Dodd--were nowhere to be found. Almost immediately, Lieberman came under pressure from prominent figures in his party, such as Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean and Massachusetts senator John Kerry, to step aside and allow Lamont to coast to victory on Election Day.

Times change. Today Lieberman, running as an independent, leads Lamont in poll after poll, usually by double digits. (In most polls the Republican in the race, Alan Schle singer, has the support of only 6 percent of respondents.) In fact, the striking thing about this general election campaign has been its lack of volatility. Lieberman has been leading by significant margins ever since primary night. An August 17 Quinnipiac University poll showed Lieberman beating Lamont among likely voters 53 percent to 41 percent. The most recent Quinnipiac poll shows Lieberman beating Lamont among likely voters 52 percent to 35 percent. Despite spending more than $12 million of his own money since entering the primary campaign, Lamont has been unable to close the gap.

For Lieberman, the turnaround began on primary night, when he rebuffed calls to withdraw and declared he would run as an independent. "I think the primary was a liberation," says Marshall Witt mann, a senior fellow at the centrist Democratic Leadership Council. "We saw the emergence of a new candidacy." Lieberman's concession speech, seen throughout the state live on the 11 o'clock news, was a blueprint for a campaign strategy based on reaching out to more conservative (and less antiwar) Democrats, sympathetic Republicans, and disaffected independents. "The old politics of partisan polarization won today," Lieberman said. In place of polarization Lieberman offered the electorate "a new politics of unity and purpose." Later on, he addressed voters directly. "I am confident that we can find common ground and secure a better future," he said. "That is exactly the mission I ask you to join me in tonight." Listening to Lieberman, you might have thought that the primary had never occurred.

It also helped Lieberman that Lamont seemed unable to confront the reality that, having won the primary, he would now have to win a general election in which not only Democrats vote. Lamont's August 8 victory speech was a wispy version of the speech he had delivered to great success among crowds of antiwar Democrats and the progressive bloggers who had done so much to promote his candidacy; it was not designed to appeal beyond his core supporters. "Stay the course: That's not a winning strategy in Iraq," La mont said. "And it's not a winning strategy in America." He called for universal health care and the withdrawal of troops from Iraq. Where Lieberman was ecumenical, Lamont was parochial: He specifically mentioned the debt he owed the Democratic "grassroots" and "netroots." And Lamont also erred in allowing two of the most polarizing figures in American politics, Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, neither of whom is from Connecticut, to appear at his side.

It was a sudden role reversal. Lieberman, down but not out, had become the insurgent; Lamont, riding high, had become just another Democratic Senate nominee. After the primary, Lieberman returned to the stump with his new message and energy. Lamont retired to the family vacation home in Maine. Lieberman changed course and fired some on his campaign staff who had contributed to his loss. Lamont made no such changes. Lieberman brought on old hands like Dan Gerstein, who had served as communications director in his Capitol Hill office and in his 2004 presidential campaign but had not been involved in politics since. Lamont turned to David Sirota, a rising Democratic strategist and adviser to Montana governor Brian Schweitzer.