Former Democrat Vice Presidential candidate Joe Lieberman was defeated in yesterday's Democrat primary.

Ned Lamont, a Connecticut millionaire whose candidacy for the United States Senate soared from nowhere on a fierce antiwar message, won a narrow victory in the Democratic primary last night over the incumbent, Joseph I. Lieberman.

Senator Lieberman, a national party leader and the Democratic nominee for vice president in 2000, conceded defeat in a phone call to Mr. Lamont shortly before 11 p.m. But then, in a combative speech to supporters in Hartford that was carried live on television news, the senator declared that he was not dropping out of the race, but would instead run for re-election as an independent this fall.

“As I see it, in this campaign, we’ve just finished the first half and the Lamont team is ahead — but in the second half, our team, Team Connecticut, is going to surge forward to victory in November,” Mr. Lieberman told cheering supporters.

The senator said he was staying in the race because Mr. Lamont had run a primary campaign of “insults” and “partisan polarizing” that relentlessly blamed Mr. Lieberman for President Bush’s wartime policies, which the senator has supported and defended but also criticized at various points.

“For the sake of our state, our country and my party, I cannot, I will not let this result stand,” Mr. Lieberman said of the Lamont victory.

Stand strong, Senator -- your party may have rejecdted you, but I believe an overwhelming majority of your fellow Americans support you as a man of integrity and decency.

By the way, such purges are common in the Democrat party. the far left became ascendant by adopting an America Last platform and running George McGovern in 1972. And back in the 1920s, former national candidate Oscar Underwood was purged from his position as Senator from Alabama for opposing the Klan. This is simply one more attack upon the decent center by the extreme elements of a party that puts ideology over America.

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Or at least has been decisively rejected by the voters of her district for the second time in the last three elections.

A lawyer and former DeKalb County commissioner unseated Cynthia McKinney, the controversial incumbent congresswoman, on Tuesday night in a runoff election for the Democratic nomination in GeorgiaÂ’s Fourth Congressional District.

The winner, Henry C. Johnson Jr., must still defeat the Republican candidate, Catherine Davis, in November. But as the Democratic nominee in what has historically been considered a safely Democratic seat, he is presumed to already be on his way to Washington. Mr. Johnson led Ms. McKinney by 17 percentage points, winning 58 percent of the vote.

Mr. Johnson, 51, a trial lawyer in Decatur, Ga., said watching the returns “was kind of like waiting for a jury to come back.”

“I was glad to finally get to the end of the campaign,” he said.

At her campaign headquarters, Ms. McKinney began her concession speech by singing along to the song “Dear Mr. President” by the pop artist Pink. “I wanted you to hear this song, which says so much about why this election in Georgia was so important,” she said.

“Not only do we want our country back, we want our party back,” she said in a speech that criticized President Bush, the news media and electronic voting machines. She concluded, “I wish the new representative of the Fourth Congressional District well.”

This woman is whacked and on crack. It is nice that the voters of her district have had the sense to cry out "Enough!"

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Guess he needed to give it to us up the @$$ one more time before he departs the scene.

Former U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay will support a write-in candidate for his old seat, his daughter said today, one day after the state Republican Party lost its legal battle to replace him on the November ballot.

In a statement, DeLay said he would withdraw his name from the ballot. Since state law does not allow a party to replace an official nominee who withdraws from the race, no Republican candidate will be on the ballot.

Dani DeLay Ferro sent the Chronicle an e-mail confirming her father's intentions to support a write-in candidate.

"I will take the actions necessary to remove my name from the Texas ballot," DeLay said in his statement. "To do anything else would be hypocrisy."

"I strongly encourage the Republican Party to take any and all actions necessary to give Texas voters an up-or-down choice this fall between two major party candidates," DeLay said.

DeLay maintains that when he resigned from the House this June that he became a resident of Virginia to establish his new business.

"This decision was and is irrevocable, which I made clear from Day One," he said. "My action was taken in accordance with Texas law, federal precedent and common sense. I felt it was my duty to allow Texas Republicans to choose a new candidate for the Fall Election Ballot."

The write-in candidate ofptio is the worst of all worlds, in that it leaves room for multiple candidates and the process is combersome on the eSlate machines used in this area. Most folks will skip the race or vote for a regular candidate rather than take the time to do a write-in (which involves selecting and entering each letter individually with a dial-and-select set-up.

Besides, who will pick the candidate? DeLay? The party? Who?

I really think we just need to settle on the Libertarian for two years, so we can have a consensus candidate emerge from the grassroots.

And let me say it loud and clear, Tom -- Any attempt to get David Wallace on the ballot will result in the active opposition of most of the GOP precinct chairs in Harris County, and probably in Galveston and Brazoria Counties as well. I don't even know that he could command majority support among Fort Bend chairs. Don't even try it.

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After Justice Scalia refused to stay the unanimous Fifth Circuit's decision, it is clear that the options for the GOP in this district come down to Tom Delay or nothing.

Personally, I hope for nothing.

Texas Republicans on Monday abandoned their court fight to replace former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay on the November ballot after being turned back at the Supreme Court.

The decision came after Justice Antonin Scalia rejected Texas Republicans' request to block an appeals court ruling saying DeLay's name should remain on the ballot.

''I think all our legal avenues are exhausted in terms of affecting the ruling prior to the election,'' said Jim Bopp Jr., the attorney who argued the Republican Party's case to allow party officials to substitute another candidate for DeLay.

All I can say in response is "No shit." But then again, given teh fact that Bopp did such a pooor job litigating this case, the result was a foregone conclusion. I noted several places in the Fifth Crcuit's opinion where the judges simply said that an argument was unavailable to the GOP because it hadn't been raised at the District Court or because it was not presented until the final stage of briefs during the appelate process. That is simply sloppy lawyering. I sure hope the Party isn't paying this clown for his services.

For that matter, I'm somewhat relieved that things have turned out that way. The local powers-that-be had gone out of their way to ensure that the replacement candidate would be State Rep. Robert Talton, who stands to the right of Tom DeLay and has very few legislative accomplishments -- but does have the advantage of being the law partner Harris County GOP Chairman Jared Woodfill. Those of us who dared oppose Talton were left out of the loop during the process of selecting a representative to the committee that would have selected the replacement candidate -- though the selectee (Kathy Haigler) did reach out to the dissidents following her selection, a move which demonstrates her integrity but also underscores the problem with process up to that point.

My personal preference would be to see Tom DeLay withdraw from the race. Remove his name from the ballot and leave us with a race between Democrat Nick Lampson, Libertarian Bob Smither, and the Green Party candidate. In such a case, I believe that many of the voters in CD22 will vote for the Libertarian. Ron paul is the cCongressman in one of the neighboring districts, so I believe that most GOP voters will be comfortable with Smither's philosophy. i also believe this will help us to get the seat back into GOP hands in 2008.

I also have words for some party officials. Tina Benkiser had better realize that she misplayed this thing every step of the way, and her support in this area is severely weakened. She conducted a power-play in Harris and Fort Bend Counties which guaranteed that the establishment-backed Talton would get the votes of at least two of the selectees to the District Exectutive Committee. That didn't even go down well with the Talton backers, who saw her interference as inappropriate. She no longer has our confidence as a competent leader or an honest broker.

And I would suggest to Jared Woodfill that he consider the reality that he has alienated a chunk of the grassroots, and that he will likely face a challenge in two years when he seeks reelection to his current position. If he wants to do what is right by the party, he had better begin mending fences if he can.

So let me say again -- withdraw, Tom, and discourage any candidate from seeking to run as a write-in, especially your little clone David Wallace. You have taken a safe seat and made it a net-loss for the GOP in 2006, so give the grass-roots a chance to grow an acceptable candidate for 2008 without your input.

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Remember -- this means there are five weeks during which they cannot pass any more stupid, unnecessary, liberty-infringing laws designed to protectu us from ourselves.

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