10 August 2006
The Democratic member of the US Senate, Joe Lieberman, who was the first-ever Jewish candidate for vice-president in 2000, has lost the Democratic nomination in his home state Connecticut for the senatorial elections in November. However, Lieberman vowed to carry on his campaign for a fourth term in the Senate running as an independent candidate. Lieberman's campaign said it planned to submit the 7,500 signatures required to qualify for the general election ballot to the secretary of the state's office on Wednesday. "The old politics of partisan polarization won today," Lieberman told his supporters on Tuesday night. "For the sake of our state, our country and my party, I cannot and will not let that result stand." Lieberman lost with 48 per cent the vote compared with his challenger Ned Lamont's 52 per cent. The 64-year-old Lieberman came under fire in his home state for supporting the Iraq war and has been labeled by some Democrats as too close to Republicans and to president George W. Bush.
