Albany Times Union

Editorial
Connecticut's lessons
Sen. Lieberman's loss has implications for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's primary

First published: Thursday, August 10, 2006
So here's what it requires for the Democrats to get over their more timid instincts and ask the tough questions about Iraq that could set them clearly apart from President Bush and the Republicans in a midterm election year. Just deny an incumbent senator, loyal to his party and generally progressive on most issues, nomination for a fourth term. A few hundred thousand votes in Connecticut have done what almost 3,000 American deaths in Iraq could not.
Joe Lieberman isn't gone from the Senate, necessarily. That much he made clear in a rather defiant and ungracious concession speech Tuesday night. But he now has to defend a record that includes an unwavering support for the war as he runs as an independent this fall.
His departure from the Senate would be a loss, in many ways. He's right about the nasty tone that dominates the politics of Washington. There most certainly is a place for the bipartisan approach he prefers. On economic and fiscal issues in particular, Mr. Lieberman has been a harsh critic of an administration that may yet be his undoing.
Still, Ned Lamont, a political unknown just a few months ago but now the party nominee, has done the Democrats a considerable service. He's made it acceptable, even imperative, for a party trying to stave off something teetering too close to impotence and irrelevance to talk about the war in earnest, even at the risk of appearing too far to the political left for many Americans' comfort. Party leaders, including Sen. Charles Schumer, have embraced Mr. Lamont's victory already, even as it means parting ways with Mr. Lieberman.
It can be fairly said that the November election campaign now starts anew. A primary election in Connecticut, in the slow days of summer yet, energizes politics just about everywhere. The same questions can be expected to be raised elsewhere.
Should the United States have gone to war in the first place? Was President Bush honest about his intentions and motives for going to war?
Can the war be won? Can peace, or at least an end to bloody sectarian chaos, be secured in Iraq? Should the United States be making plans to leave?
Here in New York, count on Jonathan Tasini to ask them, even if Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton might not be so eager to discuss the war. Mr. Tasini is on even more of a improbable quest than Mr. Lamont was. His long-shot candidacy makes Mr. Lamont's easy by comparison. Mr. Tasini is a one-issue candidate, or quite close to it.
But he has this, at least potentially -- and that part must be emphasized -- on his side. He has been against the war from the start. Sen. Clinton voted for it, almost four years ago, and still supports the overall U.S. mission in Iraq.
In a primary that otherwise wouldn't attract much more than a collective yawn from New York Democrats, they can debate the war this fall. Their state, and their country, will be better for it if they do.