In politics, it seems you’re only as good—or as bad—as your last term and your last poll. That’s the lesson Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman is learning today, if yesterday’s reports on the then-impending announcement of his retirement are anything to go by. In the papers and on the blogs, Lieberman—in office since 1989—is presented a man defined from 2006 on, and by his declining popularity among his constituents. And his Democratic colleagues? Well, if they weren’t quite popping open the bubbly upon hearing the news, they were certainly putting it on ice. With likely Independent Lieberman out, there will be no pesky three-way vote split to advantage the GOP.
David M. Halbfinger and Raymond Hernandez’s front-page story in the Times today briefly glosses the fall-from-grace bio that led to this Lieberman we’re seeing all over the press today.
Connecticut voters once embraced Mr. Lieberman, the son of a liquor store owner who entered politics as a reform-minded Democrat in 1970, for his folksy ways and his common-sense approach to issues. But he repeatedly broke with his party during the past decade, and the political climate in the state had grown increasingly unwelcoming to him.
Supporting the Iraq war and John McCain will do that.
Referring to Mr. Lieberman’s plan to forgo re-election, Bill Curry, a prominent Democrat who served with Mr. Lieberman in the State Senate, said, “It’s the first thing he’s done in 10 years to make Connecticut Democrats completely happy.”
The Times also gave voice to just how unsurprising Lieberman’s announcement was, given his electoral prospects in 2012.
Rivals were already signaling they believed Mr. Lieberman was vulnerable; even before the news emerged on Tuesday, the Democrat Susan Bysiewicz, a former secretary of state in Hartford, had said she would run for the seat. Other possible contenders include Representatives Christopher S. Murphy, a popular three-term Democrat whose district includes Danbury and Waterbury, and Joseph Courtney, whose district includes New London.
The Hartford Courant reported:
A couple of active Democrats said they think the timing of the event, and the tone of the behind-the-scenes conversations, indicate that Lieberman wants to announce that he’s not running while there’s still speculation that he could still win if he chose to run. In other words, they said, he can pull out of the 2012 race now—before being battered by continual announcements of polls that show him sinking ever farther in his prospects.
Why so unpopular? Well, as Ezra Klein at The Washington Post puts it, for Democrats, Lieberman was the “best of friends, and also the worst.”
Lieberman’s behavior during the debate was often erratic and seemingly unprincipled. Among other things, he skipped the meetings where Democrats were trying to work out a compromise on the public option, and then he killed the Medicare buy-in proposal they’d developed—despite endorsing that exact proposal months before. In doing so, he doomed a great piece of policy, and by doing it at the last minute, endangered the rest of the bill, too. But the reality is that the legislation simply wouldn’t have passed without his vote. And after extracting his pound of flesh, he voted “aye.”
Another CJR research topic idea: press treatment of Republicans-as-mavericks vs. that of Democrats-as-mavericks. Seems like to me that when a Republican bucks his party, he's given the 'conscience over Party' framing. But Lieberman's press treatment has been co-terminus with the treatment by his Party. Gee, I can't imagine why.
#1 Posted by Mark Richard, CJR on Thu 20 Jan 2011 at 12:28 PM
to bad rubbish. A pawn of Connecticut-based insurance companies.
#2 Posted by Joe, CJR on Thu 20 Jan 2011 at 06:30 PM
examples, Mark? or just platitudes as usual?
#3 Posted by Hardrada, CJR on Fri 21 Jan 2011 at 12:26 AM
Hardrada - the piece above will serve as a start. For the rest, I'd ask you to do some research instead of demanding it of me. John McCain in 2000 was practically deified, because he bucked his party's line, particularly on campaign finance politics. When he re-emphasized his Republican bona-fids in 2008, the press treated him like a sellout. When Sen. James Jeffords of Vermont crossed over to the Democratic side in 2001, he was put on the cover of NEWSWEEK - 'sends a loud message to the Republican Right', is my recollection of the framing. When Lieberman bucked his party over the Iraq war, there was no such framing about the danger to the Democrats of pandering to their leftist activists, though the GOP has generally dominated elections for the decade since Jeffords' apostasy. Instead, much space was given to the 'traitor' narrative of Lieberman.
These posts are not research postings. If you disagree with me, do some work on your own - demonstrating how supportive, for a good example, the press has been of those Democratic dissidents who voted against Pelosi for Speaker a couple of weeks ago. Direct me to the NPR interview with Heath Schuler, for instance. Come to think of it, Gabrielle Giffords voted against the practically brainless San Franciscan. When you can at least match this much 'platitude' with citations of your own, get back to me, instead of demanding evidence of the obvious as a way of avoiding reality. I hear men are generally taller than women, in spite of many exceptions to the rule, but I don't exactly expect to have to refer you to statistical studies if I assert that this is so.
#4 Posted by Mark Richard, CJR on Sun 23 Jan 2011 at 09:40 AM