Lieberman Defiant In Defeat

Hartford Courant | August 9, 2006

With the nation watching, Connecticut Democrats thronged to the polls in unexpectedly high numbers Tuesday to reject Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman and endorse his anti-war challenger, Ned Lamont.

Unofficial results showed Lamont winning 52 percent of the vote, defeating a three-term incumbent who had come to be defined by his defense of the war in Iraq despite an advertising blitz begging voters to judge him on a progressive labor and environmental record.

Lieberman, 64, a vice presidential nominee in 2000 and a presidential hopeful only two years ago, conceded at 11:03 p.m. in a Hartford ballroom packed with national and international press, then defiantly announced he would press on as a petitioning candidate, forcing a three-way race in November.

"As I see it, in this campaign we just finished the first half and the Lamont team is ahead. But in the second half our team, Team Connecticut, is going to surge forward to victory in November," Lieberman said. Then he shouted, "Will you join me?"

Lamont, 52, a wealthy Greenwich cable-television entrepreneur who became the unlikely champion of a potent anti-war movement, celebrated in a Meriden hotel filled with supporters who ran the gamut from a former state party chairman to national civil rights leaders to a new brand of activist: Internet bloggers.

"They call Connecticut the land of steady habits," a smiling Lamont told his supporters. "Tonight we voted for a big change."

Lamont called his victory the product of a coalition for change that would spread beyond the borders of a small New England state.

"It's time we fixed George Bush's failed foreign policy," Lamont said, setting off a roaring round of cheers.

Statewide turnout was estimated at more than 40 percent, 15 percentage points higher than the last major statewide Democratic primary, a gubernatorial contest in 1994.

Some voters came to the polls with a passion, certain for months they would either stand by Lieberman or reject him over the war. Others struggled with their decision until entering the voting booth, uneasy over rejecting a man who held statewide office for 26 years.

Sam Goldenberg gave his mother, Minnie Goldenberg, a ride to the polls in the West Hartford so she could cast her usual vote for Lieberman. Then he drove home to West Haven and canceled his mother's choice with a vote for Lamont.

"The war is the main issue," he said, almost sadly. "Actually, Lieberman is a pretty good guy, but the war is simply the most important issue."

Lamont rolled up lopsided margins in the Farmington Valley, Litchfield County, the lower Connecticut River Valley and scattered suburbs around the state. He won Hartford and Lieberman's hometown of New Haven, which first elected Lieberman to the state Senate in 1970.

Lieberman dominated in the New Haven suburbs, the struggling rural towns of eastern Connecticut and old mill towns of the Naugatuck Valley, home of conservative Reagan Democrats and the place he chose to begin his campaign bus tour 10 days ago.

The incumbent carried Bridgeport.

At 11 a.m. today, Lieberman will be on the outside looking in on a Democratic unity press conference, where public pressure is sure to begin on Lieberman to abandon his plans to continue as a petitioning candidate in a three-way race with Lamont and Republican Alan Schlesinger.

At the Goodwin Hotel in Hartford, the ballroom was evenly divided among supporters, including U.S. Rep. John B. Larson, D-1st District, and reporters attracted by the prospect of a preview on the mid-term Congressional elections and a referendum on Iraq.

One of the news crews was from a Japanese TV network. Correspondent Yasushi Komatsu traveled with a cameraman and producer from the New York bureau of TV Asahi America Inc., because of the Lieberman-Lamont primary's significance in Japan.

"People in Japan are interested in the war in Iraq and how it is going to develop," he said. "The result of the election could be interpreted to mean the American people are saying yes or no to what Bush is doing in Iraq."

Early Tuesday, the Lieberman campaign complained that hackers had disabled their web site and demanded state and federal investigations.

Lamont's campaign focused on a massive field organization, staffed with thousands of volunteers.

Urania Petit, 37, a naturalized U.S. citizen from the West Indian island of St. Lucia, said she always found American politics lacking the passion of her homeland, until opinion turned against the war and Lamont launched what he called a campaign for "the heart and soul of the Democratic Party."

"This is the first one," said Petit, a volunteer at Lamont's North Hartford satellite office on Albany Avenue. Carrie Saxon Perry, the former mayor, said, "You have a moment in history. People understand that."

Turnout did notmatch the suburbs, but at midday it ran well ahead of a citywide municipal primary in 2003.

At King Philip Middle School in the north end of West Hartford, turnout hit 40 percent by 2:30 p.m., surprising party leaders who thought a high turnout would be 35 percent.

"I really am voting against Joe Lieberman. I think it's a shame," said Paula Cohn, 76, who abandoned Lieberman over the war. "I'm a liberal Democrat. I feel obligated to vote against Lieberman. Lamont's OK."

"It's a hard vote," said Wendy Ennis, who did not decide until an hour before she voted. "I voted against Lieberman. That's exactly what it was. It was very hard."

Lamont voted early in Greenwich, where 67 percent of Democrats voted for him, then toured the state, greeting voters and thanking supporters. At one polling place in Hartford's West End, he met the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who campaigned for him.

Jackson told Lamont that Lieberman's plan to run as a petitioning candidate in November if he lost the primary had hurt the incumbent.

"Are you hearing a lot of feedback on that?" Lamont asked.

"Of course, because Democrats who support him in the primary do not choose to destroy the party just to support a guy who cannot give it up," Jackson said.

"You know what I love hearing?" Lamont said. Lamont said the early reports of a record high turnout for the mid-summer primary were astounding. By 6 p.m., for example, the turnout in West Hartford was 59 percent. Lamont would take the suburb with 52 percent of the vote.

"When hope rises, turnout rises. In some sense, your campaign represents hope," Jackson told him.

Standing in the late-evening shade, a relaxed Lamont agreed with Jackson and discounted polling data that showed that half of Lamont's vote was a rejection of Lieberman, not an embrace of a man some voters still were getting to know.

"I think we've given people a reason to vote for something, something bigger than themselves," Lamont said.

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