Revenge of Joe Lieberman: Does Joe Lieberman Really Seek Revenge for Being Slighted at the Polls?

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Original Poster: Library of Congress
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The senatorial election in Connecticut — and its aftermath — should be quite interesting. Joe Lieberman lost the Democratic primary, which means that Democrats in Connecticut simply didn’t want him representing them, their interests, or their state in the federal government. That’s their right and that’s the purpose of having primaries. Isn’t it better when Democrats have an opportunity to choose their favored candidate rather than simply letting political leaders tell the voters whom they have to decide upon?

Well, it sounds like a good idea to me but I’m not sure that Joe Lieberman considers it a very good idea. He rejected the opinions of Democratic voters and decided to run as an independent candidate. That’s his right as well — people can’t deny him the right to run for office without undermining their right to not vote for him. The question is, why is he running as an independent? It’s not like he really is an independent who decided that neither party was a good fit and wanted to give voters a third alternative. No, he’s a former Democrat who didn’t like not being picked again for the Democrats’ team for the upcoming game.

In fact, his pique at not being picked for the Democrats’ team may hurt the Democrats’ chances in the upcoming election. Joe Lieberman knows that his chances of winning decrease as the number of Democrats who vote increase and therefore that he needs more conservative Republicans to go to the polls to vote for him. He has, therefore, decided to encourage conservatives to come to the polls — but one likely consequence of this is an increase in the number of people voting for Republican candidates. This decreases the chances of Democrats winning other races.

Lieberman’s reaction to learning that he may hurt the future prospect of the team which rejected him was to say "Well, they should have thought of that before they had the primary.” What did he mean by this? Did he mean that the Democratic Party never should have even held the primary and just picked him to play on the team again? That’s pretty extreme, but it is consistent with the words he used. Did he mean that Democratic voters should have expected him to do something like this as payback for not voting for him, and so they shouldn’t have picked his opponent? Punishing Democrats for exercising their right not to vote for him isn’t as extreme as denying Democrats the opportunity to vote at all, but it’s not much better either.

Either way, Joe Lieberman is expressing significant disdain for democracy even as he hopes to benefit from it. He wants power, but he doesn’t want to be held accountable to the Democrats he’s supposed to represent. He wants the authority that comes with being elected, but he’s not particularly choosy about who elects him — or about whether others are hurt in the process. What’s interesting is the degree to which such attitudes correlate with those expressed by a number of high-ranking Republicans. People have tried to associate Lieberman more closely with Republicans than Democrats on the basis of particular policy choices, but the similarity of these attitudes runs much deeper and could be much more significant.

Usually when someone speaks about the “politics of resentment,” they are referring to people who vote on the basis of resenting some class, or politicians who encourage such attitudes among the people. This is the first time I’ve seen a politician acting out of personal resentment in this manner. If Joe Lieberman is acting out of pique and really is content with hurting liberals — especially Connecticut liberals — out of revenge for their not voting for him, then that may have serious consequences should he win in November. A man who would put his personal pride ahead of basic ethics like this is capable of anything.

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