US News
Lieberman ousted by anti-war voters, plans independent run (Roundup)
By Chris Cermak
Aug 9, 2006, 19:00 GMT

Washington - Senator Joseph Lieberman began his campaign Wednesday to seek re-election as an independent, after losing his long-time Democratic Party's nomination over his support for the Iraq war.

An anti-war challenger, Ned Lamont, took advantage of disaffection with Lieberman's backing of the war to oust the one-time vice- presidential nominee as the centre-left Democrat's choice to run in November's congressional elections.

While conceding the election to Lamont in a speech Tuesday night, Lieberman vowed to run as an independent - a move that makes Democratic party strategists uneasy because it could split the Democratic vote in favour of the centre-right Republican candidate.

Lieberman's campaign began filing petitions Wednesday morning to secure his listing on November's ballot as an unaffiliated candidate for the Connecticut Senate seat. Recent polls have suggested he has a good chance of winning as an independent.

'Tonight we launch a new campaign to unite the people of Connecticut,' Lieberman said Tuesday night. 'For the sake of our state, our country and my party, I cannot and will not let that result stand.'

Lieberman lost as vice presidential candidate alongside Democrat Al Gore in 2000, and in 2004 failed in a bid to gain his party's presidential nomination. His strong backing of US President George W Bush's decision to invade Iraq in March 2003 was a factor in 2004 as it was Tuesday.

In recent days, Lieberman cited his record of criticizing the Bush administration for mistakes in Iraq while maintaining that his vote to support the war was correct. Lieberman has also argued that he worked hard against Bush's domestic policies.

Ned Lamont, a business man and political unknown who rallied public dissatisfaction with the war in Iraq, won the party's nomination with about 52 per cent of the vote to Lieberman's 48 per cent. Lamont will run on the Democratic ticket in November for the six-year seat.

Senior Democrats offered to 'fully support' Lamont in his campaign and congratulated him on the victory, in a statement released Wednesday.

'This election was, in many respects, a referendum on the president more than anything else,' the statement by Senators Harry Reid and Charles Schumer said, pointing out Lieberman's close ties to Bush.

Republicans currently control both houses of Congress, but Democrats are banking on increasing public criticism of the war in Iraq to help win back one or both chambers in November's mid-term elections.

In other party elections Tuesday, incumbent Democratic Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, known most recently for getting into a scuffle earlier this year with US Capitol police, also lost the party's nomination.

It is not the first time that the outspoken legislator from Atlanta, Georgia has lost the chance to run, having been defeated in 2002 after suggesting the Bush administration had advance knowledge of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

In Texas, former Republican House majority leader Tom Delay said Tuesday that he would do everything possible to get his name removed from the November ballot, after the US Supreme Court refused to allow another Republican candidate to stand in Delay's place.

The 22-year congressman resigned from the House in June as he faced indictment in Texas on campaign finance charges. Delay had already won his party's renomination before deciding to quit, and the Supreme Court Monday declined to reverse lower court rulings saying the party could not choose a replacement.

With no Republican on the ballot, the party's strategists are hoping that their voters will rally around a write-in candidate in the November elections.