The war that gave Conn. a governor

The world would be a different place in countless ways had the United States not decided 20 years ago Monday, for reasons that remain a mystery, to invade Iraq. But one thing we can say with some degree of certainty is that Connecticut would today have a different governor.

As the two-decade anniversary of the invasion arrives March 20, it’s worth remembering that it never made much sense. No one questioned Saddam Hussein was bad, but in a world full of terrible rulers it was never made clear why the U.S. needed to depose this one. All the reasons offered to explain the invasion fell apart under scrutiny, even before we failed to find the weapons that supposedly justified the mission.

The war started out popular (in this country, anyway), but public opinion soured as the situation deteriorated. Within a few years, by which point the mission has shifted from removing a supposed threat to installing a democracy, many Americans had turned against the war. Some of the greatest wrath was directed at Democrats who had supported the Republican effort to invade, and it was not a short list — Joe Biden, John Kerry and Hillary Clinton all voted for the war, with Clinton’s vote likely costing her the presidency in 2008.

No Democrat was more enthusiastic in his support, however, than Connecticut’s Joe Lieberman. The U.S. senator, who only a few years earlier came a few hanging chads away from being vice president, was outspoken in support of the war, and devastating in his attack on critics. For Democrats, many of whom wondered why their party had supported this boondoggle at all, it was too much to handle.

Lieberman tried to trade in his national-ticket credibility with a run for the presidency in 2004, but it didn’t go well. After trying to spin a fifthplace finish in the New Hampshire primary as a “three-way split decision for third place,” it soon became clear it wasn’t happening, and he returned to Connecticut.

Next up was his 2006 reelection. As the campaign drew closer, Democrats around the state searched for anyone with the courage, and wherewithal, to take on an incumbent senator, which is no easy task. Not only are the odds against you, but you risk making yourself a pariah among the local party. It’s no wonder primaries against sitting senators are so rarely successful.

It got to the point that Lowell Weicker, whom Lieberman had defeated to win his Senate seat back in 1988, said he would take on the challenge if no one else would. Weicker was a Republican in the Senate, back in a time when liberal Republicans existed. Still, given his history of introducing the state income tax as governor, he didn’t seem the most promising candidate.

Then the world met Ned Lamont.

Unless you paid attention to local Greenwich politics or obscure cable companies, no one knew who Lamont was. All anyone knew was he was a Democrat, had a lot of money and wanted to take on Joe Lieberman. Everything else was a blank slate.

And that was good enough. Lamont quickly gained attention as the one chance to stop Lieberman, turning Connecticut’s Democratic primary into a referendum on the Iraq war. Sensing the threat, national Democrats came out in droves for Lieberman, including Bill Clinton, but it wasn’t enough as Lamont pulled off the impossible and won the Democratic primary in August 2006.

And still we couldn’t get rid of Lieberman.

He ran as an independent but served as the election’s de facto Republican, as that party’s actual nominee, a nonentity named Alan Schlesinger, managed to pull in less than 10 percent of the vote in November, a major-party feat of ineptitude nearly unrivaled in modern politics. Lieberman won many Republicans and enough stubborn Democrats to take the November election and hang around for another six years.

Lamont was mostly quiet after his loss, but used his name recognition to run for governor in 2010. Lamont’s opposition to the Iraq war had gained him a reputation in national politics as some kind of wild-eyed liberal, but that description never fit. (It turned out a lot of people of all political persuasions thought Iraq was a bad idea.) He ran as a business-first candidate in 2010, but lost the primary to Dannel Malloy.

Again, Lamont kept mostly quiet for a while. He resurfaced in 2018 to run for governor again; this time, it worked out, and he remains governor today.

It could never have happened without state Democrats’ disgust with their incumbent senator 12 years earlier. Lieberman had a lot of detractors over the years, but it was his overwhelming support for the Iraq war that made him unacceptable to so many in his party.

No Iraq, no Lamont. No 2006 Senate primary, no successful 2018 run.

Looking back, Ned Lamont would have made a fine U.S. senator. It’s a prestigious job, but the demands aren’t necessarily high. You need to vote the right way, but otherwise you can basically freelance.

Chris Murphy, who eventually won the seat Lieberman held, does good work on many important issues like gun safety, but does not involve himself in the day-today grind of running the state — nor should he. As a senator, he’s free to dip into whatever issue he likes, whether that’s utility regulation or the status of democracy in Tunisia.

A governor needs to be more focused. Connecticut could use someone like that.