Connecticut May Be a 2008 Preview

Lieberman long has preached the politics of civility and calm rhetoric, but he appears to be ready to set that history aside to defeat Lamont in November. It was his willingness to work with and support Bush on the Iraq war that helped bring about his loss in the primary to a political neophyte who ran as an opponent of the war and a critic of Lieberman's repeated support for the president.

The aftertaste of that experience produced a concession statement in which Lieberman appeared defiant -- and liberated at the prospect of running against the antiwar rage directed toward him in his primary campaign. "People . . . and not just the Democrats are angry at the direction of this country -- so am I," he told supporters last Tuesday night. "People are fed up with the petty partisanship and angry vitriol in Washington. Let me tell you, I have been there, and I am fed up, too."

Lieberman went on to complain of a brand of politics in which disagreement is viewed as disloyalty and opponents are branded as evil. "It is time for our elected leaders to stop playing political games, so we can get things done for the people who are good enough to send us to Washington to serve them," he said.

Those are sentiments often heard throughout the country, from ordinary citizens and from state and local elected officials who have come to see Washington as stalemated by partisanship and incapable of dealing with pressing issues. Whether such sentiments will attract a champion in 2008 is a question many strategists and analysts are beginning to ask.

Bipartisanship is out of fashion among strategists who plan and execute campaigns. Democrats believe Bush's presidency has ushered in an opposite style of politics, one designed to energize partisans by exploiting the sharp divisions that now exist on the war, on social issues and on Bush himself.

A number of the prospective 2008 Democratic candidates -- Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), former senator John Edwards (N.C.), Sen. Russell Feingold (Wis.), retired Army Gen. Wesley K. Clark -- have stepped up their attacks on the administration's policies on the war and other issues. Months before the 2008 campaign gets into high gear, they are at the barricades, hoping to attract the activists in their party.

Others, such as Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) and former Virginia governor Mark R. Warner, have been testing themes that include lowering the temperature of political rhetoric.

Party strategists believe the crop of presidential candidates will have trouble winning the nomination with a message of working across party lines. "There is a strong antipathy toward what people regard as accommodation and capitulation to Republicans," said Democratic pollster Mark Mellman. "Anybody who tries to [deliver a] message against that grain is going to have a very hard time. Frankly, I think it's true on the Republican side, as well."

Simon Rosenberg, founder of the Democratic group NDN that has sought to be a bridge between centrist Democrats and the more liberal world of bloggers and Internet activists, said: "Lieberman's calculation here that there is a revulsion against Washington is not correct. There's revulsion at Republican governance."

Eli Pariser, executive director of the MoveOn.org political action committee that supported Lamont, argued that Lieberman's general election message is a fundamental misreading of what happened to him in the primary. "I think because the Connecticut primary was driven by real, deep issues that our nation should be grappling with, it's exactly what our politics ought to be like, rather than nasty, gotcha bickering," he said. "It was about big ideas and big challenges facing the country."

Some strategists looking ahead already believe a successful candidate will have to find a message that can reassure hyper-partisans that core principles matter, while appealing to disaffected swing voters with a message that compromise is not always a dirty word. Connecticut's Senate race, flawed as it may be, could produce some early clues about what may be coming in 2008.