Mayor Travels to Connecticut To Spread Maverick Message
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STAMFORD, Conn. — Mayor Bloomberg brought his gravitas as a maverick politician to Senator Lieberman’s home turf yesterday, saying that sending the Connecticut lawmaker back to Washington would help end the excessive partisanship that distracts from substantive work.
The mayor showered Mr. Lieberman with praise and said giving the Connecticut lawmaker another Senate term would send a message that there is room in both major parties for those who refuse to simply tow the line.
“Connecticut deserves someone that really has some beliefs and is willing to work for those beliefs even when they aren’t popular,” Mr. Bloomberg said after stumping with Mr. Lieberman at a Metro-North train station. “And that’s what America needs too.”
The trip — which also included a breakfast fund-raiser for Mr. Lieberman — is part of the last-minute push Mr. Bloomberg is making on behalf of the senator and about a half dozen other candidates.
Mr. Bloomberg also headlined a fund-raiser for Mr. Lieberman in Chicago last week, is hosting another for him at his Upper East Side townhouse tomorrow night, and has taken the unusual step of dispatching several of his campaign staffers to Connecticut to work for the Lieberman campaign.
Yesterday, after the two worked the train station, shaking hands with commuters, Mr. Lieberman was inaugurated into the club of leaders from across the country who have been asked whether Mr. Bloomberg should run for president.
Like others before him, Mr. Lieberman said he couldn’t give the mayor advice on whether to run, but said the country was “yearning for problem-solvers” in his mold. Mr. Bloomberg denied again that he would run, and said there probably wouldn’t be room for an “independent candidacy” if the two major parties put up worthy candidates.
Mr. Lieberman — a Democrat who lost to anti-war upstart Ned Lamont in the primary and is now running as an Independent — has taken more conservative positions than Mr. Bloomberg, a Republican, on a number of issues, including death penalty and the Terri Schiavo case, which drew national attention last year.
Mr. Bloomberg has gone out of his way to say that he doesn’t agree with Mr. Lieberman on everything, but said he respects the senator for speaking his mind rather than following marching orders from party higher-ups.
Yesterday, a joke about the weather ended with a punch line about Mr. Lieberman’s “fair-weather friends,” a reference to the prominent Democrats who abandoned his campaign after he lost the primary
“Sometimes when people in politics say ‘I’ll be with you’ it’s a preface to a wave goodbye,” Mr. Lieberman said. “In this case it was not.”
Senators Clinton and Schumer are both backing Mr. Lamont, a self-made millionaire who has won over those who believe Mr. Lieberman is too cozy with President Bush and other Washington Republicans. Mr. Lieberman said yesterday he was still backing Mrs. Clinton’s re-election bid.
Several Lamont supporters at the train station criticized Mr. Bloomberg for backing a commuter tax that would apply to Connecticut residents. One of them, Edward Anderson, said Mr. Bloomberg had “a lot of nerve” showing up. Another, Nate Gordon, told the political pair that his mother, who is in a nursing home, voted for Mr. Lieberman via absentee ballot but that he was voting for Mr. Lamont. Mr. Bloomberg joked about that, but said Mr. Lieberman would need more than a 50-50 split.
The most recent polls show Mr. Lieberman leading Mr. Lamont by a double-digit margin.