NYT: 'Independent' Senator Lieberman begins 'complicated, occasionally clumsy tango'

RAW STORYPublished: Friday September 8, 2006

Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman, forced to run for reelection as an independent after losing the Democratic primary to challenger Ned Lamont, has "begun a complicated, occasionally clumsy tango as he tries to woo Democrats, Republicans and unaffiliated voters without the backing of any party," according to an article slated for the front page of Saturday's edition of The New York Times.

"Since his defeat in the Aug. 8 Democratic primary, Lieberman has been seeking Democrats while appealing to Republicans with tough talk about terrorism that is similar to President Bush's," write Patrick Healy and Jennifer Media for the Times.

"He is mulling creating nonpartisan 'citizen town committees' because he must build a new voter-turnout operation from scratch," write Healy and Medina for the Times.

"And he is calibrating his language to try to appeal across party lines without seeming inconsistent or awkward -- though, at times, he does," the article continues.
Excerpts from Times article:
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No longer the Democratic nominee, he has lost a handful of union endorsements, and his allies in the AFL-CIO may stay neutral. His campaign must replace and train hundreds of field workers that the state party usually deploys to help turn out voters. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, usually on his side, is now providing fundraising and strategy help to Lamont. And there is no party organization that can quickly gather its members for the large campaign rallies that can be a shot in the arm.

Independent candidacies are rare, because party affiliation provides so many advantages: Fundraising aid, battle-tested organizers, policy and strategy assistance, volunteers and an apparatus that can attack the candidate's opponent without the candidate appearing negative.

But interviews with Lieberman and his advisers make it clear that he has made a strategic bet:

That his stature, name recognition, appeal among Republicans and power to deliver federal money to Connecticut will more than compensate for the lack of a party behind him....
Yet as Lieberman acknowledges, there is an element of making it all up as he goes along.
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FULL TIMES ARTICLE CAN BE READ AT THIS LINK