Lieberman wins!

The three-term incumbent senator was beaten by a political unknown, but on election night his team was already spinning it as a victory.

By Alex Koppelman

Read more: Politics, News, 2006 Elections, Alex Koppelman

Aug. 9, 2006 | HARTFORD, Conn. -- Just minutes before Sen. Joe Lieberman took the stage at Hartford's Goodwin Hotel to concede that he had lost his primary to challenger Ned Lamont, Lieberman supporter Lanny Davis was talking about a Lieberman victory.

Peering over at television screens in the back of the ballroom that showed Lieberman down four points with more than 80 percent of the precincts in, Davis, a longtime friend of Lieberman's, a former special counsel to President Clinton and a prominent volunteer in Lieberman's campaign, turned to a reporter and said, "Tonight's theme is he's the 'Comeback Kid.'"

"We're down a few points, so it looks like right now, we gained 10 points in a week," Davis said. "I mean, the Quinnipiac poll had [Lieberman] down 13 points a week ago. If he loses by four points tonight, that's an amazing comeback. So he's the 'Comeback Kid,' and he'll win the general election by 20 points."

Whether Davis intended it or not, the moniker is reminiscent of his former employer, who earned the nickname in the process of winning the 1992 Democratic presidential nomination and, eventually, the White House. It's an image the Lieberman campaign appeared eager to embrace Tuesday night, as it tried to spin a come-from-behind victory out of a four-point loss to a political unknown who had been down by 15 points just two months ago.

But before Lieberman's supporters and aides knew how close their man would eventually pull, such optimism was in short supply.

Around 9 p.m., as returns showed Lamont with a commanding advantage -- the earliest numbers had Lamont with 60 percent of the vote to Lieberman's 40 -- Lieberman's supporters had to take hope where they could get it, cheering not for a Lieberman lead but for a smaller Lamont victory.

Watching one TV that showed Lieberman trailing 56-43 with 38 percent of the votes in, one man shouted, "We're on the move, at least! We're on the move!" Next to him, a woman said, "It's looking better. We're up one every time. Every time, we're up one, he's down one."

By 10 p.m., though, with a solid majority of the precincts reporting and Lieberman still hovering three or four points behind, the excitement dimmed. If the faces of the Lieberman faithful weren't grim, they certainly weren't happy, and even the handful who had quietly chanted "Go, Joe, Go" to celebrate some of Lieberman's earlier gains were silent.

It was a marked contrast to the beginning of the night.

At around 6 p.m., just two hours before the polls were due to close, Lieberman campaign manager Sean Smith, his sleeves rolled up, his feet resting casually on a table in the media filing center, looked the picture of serenity. Chatting off the record with a few reporters, Smith cracked jokes and traded speculation about the recent increase in registered Democrats and what it would mean for the election. When a new arrival wandered in and asked Smith where she could find credentials, he joked, still smiling, "You're not a blogger, are you?"

"It may be the fatigue, beyond anything else," said Smith, explaining his calm to Salon. "But no, I feel good. We closed strong. Polls started showing that publicly, that as the election got closer, voters started realizing the real stakes involved and a lot of them started coming back home to us ... The truth is, we don't know what's going to happen. But I do feel like we closed with the right message, with the right amount of energy, and we have a get-out-the-vote operation the likes of which Connecticut has never seen before. I'm superstitious, so I won't say that I'm confident, but I'm optimistic."

Lieberman's supporters, vastly outnumbered by the local, national and even international press on hand to cover one of the country's most closely watched races, were similarly upbeat early on.

Linda Russo, a lawyer from East Hartford who was a volunteer for Lieberman, sported a button showing Lieberman and Clinton with their arms around each other. A jab at the campaign's most iconic image, an infamous kiss on the cheek between Lieberman and President Bush at the 2005 State of the Union address, Russo's button was emblazoned with bold letters reading "The Hug."

"I have no reason to be [nervous]," Russo said. "Because, to me, there's no competition. You're talking about a three-term incumbent United States senator, versus a man who made a fortune in the computer industry. What does he know about running the government? What does he know about the people and their needs? He talks about healthcare, what has he done?"

Walking the ballroom were Christopher Tracy and Tom McEachin, firefighters there to represent their union.

"We've had all of our firefighters in the state out supporting Sen. Lieberman, because we understand what he's going through. We push in on hot fires and fight no matter how hot they get, and he's stood by us," said Tracy, whose shirt proclaimed "Firefighters for Lieberman" in large letters.

"We're pretty confident," McEachin said. "We believe that the early poll numbers may have put a jolt in people, who now see that here's a man who's done a lot of great things for this state and could be in trouble."

Next page: "In the second half, our team is going to surge forward to victory"