A Candidate Looking for a Way to Win

Sen. Joe Lieberman’s political new year -- and the first day of his temporary residency in New Hampshire -- began Thursday in an unlikely manner for the self-positioned moderate, moral voice of the Democratic Party.

He went barhopping.

Holding a pint of Bud Light, Lieberman moved through the smoke and beer fumes of Jillian’s Billiard Club to greet about 20 loyal supporters who had come specifically to see him, and a dozen or so midday regulars he caught by surprise. The reception was largely polite. One supporter of President Bush, Gene Myers, moved from the bar to avoid him. But by the time Lieberman left half an hour later, he had done little to draw additional Democratic votes in the Jan. 27 primary.

“It doesn’t seem like he has much of a chance,” said Democrat Ryan McGrady, 22, moments after Lieberman and his wife, Hadassah, had exchanged small talk with him and four friends at the edge of one of the bar’s 14 pool tables. “I will vote for pretty much anybody who can get Bush out, and at this point, [Democratic front-runner Howard Dean] has the biggest chance.”

This has been Lieberman’s most persistent problem. Initially one of the top contenders for the Democratic nomination, the Connecticut senator has failed to capitalize on the valuable name recognition he earned as part of the team that many in the party believe beat Bush in 2000. And, unlike Dean, Lieberman has yet to conceive a strategy for harnessing latent Democratic anger over that election, Bush’s policies and the invasion of Iraq -- which Lieberman continues to defend.

Some think Lieberman, weighted by memories of 2000, is eyeing the wrong prize -- the White House in November instead of primary victories now.

“He’s focusing on his experience as a [candidate for] vice president, and trying to focus on what it would take to win in the fall, when the No. 1 problem is to get nominated in the first place,” said Earl Black, a political scientist at Houston’s Rice University. “I don’t know where he’s going.”

Yet Lieberman insists he has a road map. He conceded in an interview earlier this week during a one-day swing through South Carolina that Dean would likely win the Jan. 19 Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary. He believes his own challenge for the nomination will take shape after that.

“I want to come out of New Hampshire as one of the viable alternatives to Dean, and then win some on Feb. 3, when South Carolina goes to the polls, and then go on throughout the month fighting for the heart and soul of my party and the future of our country,” Lieberman said Tuesday as he rode through South Carolina’s economically battered Pee Dee River district. “We [Democrats] have got a real opportunity to recapture the mainstream, but we’re only going to do it with a mainstream candidate. And that’s me.”

Lieberman has sought to cast himself as the political heir of former President Clinton, a sale that’s been harder to make after Al Gore, Clinton’s vice president, endorsed Dean.

And while Lieberman and Clinton may share pro-business, centrist positions, their campaign styles are dramatically different. Clinton was famous for filling any room he walked into. On Thursday, Lieberman, whose personality is as measured as his politics, had trouble exciting afternoon drinkers in a bar, where his presence registered primarily as a curiosity.

“His problem is his style just doesn’t lend itself to standing out in a crowd,” Black said. “It takes more red meat. Dean has figured out how to stand out in a crowd.... [Lieberman] looks like he’s lost.”

That difficulty in exciting voters has been measured in recent polls, with Lieberman running fourth in New Hampshire and tied for fifth in South Carolina. He earlier gave up on Iowa’s expensive and time-consuming caucuses, but says he’ll take part in debates that begin there Sunday, in hopes of snaring some of the national spotlight.

To try to reverse Lieberman’s fortunes, his campaign this week shifted about one-third of its national staffers to New Hampshire and another third to some of the seven states -- including South Carolina -- holding primaries and caucuses on Feb. 3.

But the focus is heavily on New Hampshire, where Lieberman -- who has homes in Washington and Connecticut -- has rented an apartment near his campaign headquarters just north of downtown in Manchester. Late Thursday afternoon, after making stops at two bars and a bingo hall, Lieberman and his wife hosted a scheduled hourlong house-warming party for supporters before moving on to another party at the home of a backer.

His campaign, which qualified for at least $3.1 million in federal matching funds, plans to quadruple its advertising budget over the next four weeks to $4 million to air television and radio ads in New Hampshire and such Feb. 3 primary states as Missouri, Oklahoma and Arizona.

In South Carolina, some party officials openly wondered this week how hard Lieberman would compete there. Lieberman is one of only two of the main contenders who have not bought the South Carolina Democratic Party’s all-important list of enrolled voters.

“To me, that’s an interesting thing,” said Joe Erwin, the state party chairman, describing buying the list as a signal to party regulars. “I don’t mean you can’t compete without it, but if you’re competing for the win, it is the way to reach our voters.”

Dean, the other candidate who hasn’t bought the voter list, initially ignored South Carolina and was not doing well in early polls in the state. But lately, his national momentum has helped move him to the head of the pack there too, despite a controversy over Dean’s reference to Southern white males with pickup trucks and Confederate flags. Tellingly, Erwin said Dean’s staff had been asking in recent days about buying the list, signaling freshened interest.

Erwin, who is neutral in the race, said he has been surprised by Lieberman’s inability to find more support among the state’s moderate, faith-heavy Democrats.

“He’s unafraid to talk about his faith, and the nature of that belief plays well here,” Erwin said. “He did a very good job early, put together a good staff. He was the early leader here, and a lot of that had to do with high name identification. But he hasn’t grown that.”

That’s partly because he hasn’t been in the state much lately.

Lieberman made a number of trips early on but hadn’t been around for several weeks before Tuesday’s one-day, two-city swing, Erwin said.

That visit was anchored with an appearance in Columbia, the state capital, where Lieberman ran through his basic campaign speech for about 40 supporters on the steps of the state party offices, a converted two-story wood-frame house, before formally filing to enter the primary.

But even that appearance wasn’t quite what it could have been.

Before Lieberman arrived, aides moved through the crowd, enlisting volunteers to hold campaign signs behind the podium to fill the backdrop for local television news cameras.

A few minutes later, a white sport utility vehicle carrying the senator pulled up to the curb and a supporter on the steps, a tall man with a booming voice, began the chant: “Let’s go, Joe!” Most of the crowd joined voices for a few rounds, but the chant -- and the brief flash of excitement -- petered out as the SUV door stayed closed with Lieberman still inside, leaving the faithful to wait.

“C’mon, Joe, get out of the car!” another man finally yelled, drawing laughs as a third chimed in: “We can only smile for so long.”