IT was a giddy night for the antiwar crowd, as frustration in both parties with the chaotic situation in Iraq fueled the Democrats’ most successful night on the congressional election front in 24 years.
But they didn’t get the scalp they wanted most: Joe Lieberman is going back to the Senate for a fourth term from Connecticut, having survived the Web-inspired candidacy of Ned Lamont.
It was apparently the first time ever that a U.S. senator, having lost a primary, went on to be re-elected that November as an independent candidate.
And it speaks volumes to the political problems that President Bush faces that about the brightest spot to which he could point as showing support for his Iraq policy was the re-election of a Democrat.
To be sure, not all of the GOP debacle can be blamed on Iraq. There were the scandals – Tom DeLay, Mark Foley, Duke Cunningham, etc. And at least two states in which the Republicans suffered significant losses, Ohio and Indiana, can be chalked up to local issues.
Moreover, many Republicans largely abandoned the conservative values that had swept them into office and kept them there – a situation that former President Bill Clinton, as shrewd a strategist as they come, recently suggested was a key reason why Democrats were looking so strong.
But several exit polls showed Iraq as a major concern of voters as they cast their ballots yesterday. And they are not happy with the way things are going – or with the way Bush is performing as president. In that respect, Lieberman’s re-election was surprising.
His stunning primary defeat by Lamont was due entirely to his support of the decision to go to war in Iraq, even though he’d been critical of the way the post-war effort has gone.
And there was no indication that the war in any way evaporated as an issue in the Nutmeg State: GOP moderate Rep. Nancy Johnson lost her seat after a quarter-century in the House, while another middle-of-the-road Republican, Chris Shays, was fighting for his political life. In both races, Iraq was a deciding issue.
As Lamont continued to make the war his central issue, he may have suffered because many voters seemed to feel that he was a one-issue candidate – even though they agreed with him on it.
Moreover, he had the support of national Democrats, including friends of Lieberman who abandoned him after the primary loss – chief among them, his Connecticut colleague, Chris Dodd.
Yet Lamont lost.
The Connecticut race defied the pattern of nearly every other hotly contested congressional race across the nation last night. In the end, Joe Lieberman won an intensely personal victory – voters re-elected him, even though they disagree strongly with his position and his record on the issue that mattered most to them.
Perhaps the voters decided that the primary results had sent Lieberman a message about their misgivings on Iraq. If so, it didn’t work – Lieberman, courageously, never wavered from his support of the reason for going to war.
But Lieberman apparently reminded the people of Connecticut why they’ve been electing and re-electing him for so long – they trust his integrity, his insistence on putting his beliefs and strongly held positions ahead of political self-interest.
In that respect, it was interesting to see the speculation from pundits that Lieberman might be willing to throw his support behind the GOP should the Senate finish in a 50-50 tie. And, in fact, the Republican leadership had of late been eagerly courting him.
But he made it clear even before the polls closed that it was a non-starter. Indeed, switching sides for personal political gain would have negated the entire campaign Lieberman waged so successfully to keep his seat.
Still, it was a shame to see him rule out such a move so quickly. Given the way that Democratic leaders abandoned him – and worked for his defeat – he owes them nothing. It would have been nice to watch Harry Reid & Co. sweat it out for a bit.
Then again, had he done so, he wouldn’t have been Joe Lieberman.