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Are those "rules" moral/ethical or strictly political, Nancy? Is there a law against running on conscience rather than party line?

I am an old CT Yankee myself. Lieberman was an Eliot Spitzer-like attorney general when I lived there. He is in a long line of maverick New England independent thinkers like Lowell Weicker, Paul Tsongas and Warren Rudman. Most of the rest of the nation seems to require one side or the other on every single issue from their congressmen and senators.

The point of this being on "The Front Pew", I imagine, is to question whether Lieberman's avowed sense of duty and loyalty to the country is actually a morally repugnant cover for his own ambitions, which would call into question his strong public stances toward religion as the bulwark of our democracy. Yet, he is not anti-gay or anti-abortion in his voting, so he cannot be co-opted by some conservative agenda.

I'm asking as an ethical issue: if you lose, don't you concede and move on? How fair is that to his competitor?

Fair as in "moral/ethical", or fair as in politics? And if Lieberman is honest in his proclamation that he is running for an intellectual and moral cause "greater than" one-party loyalty, can't one say his ethics are actually more admirable than someone who sticks by a committee-hashed-out platform? Besides, Lieberman does, I assume, admit he lost the run-off primary, thereby "conceding" the Democratic nomination; what he doesn't concede is the overall election, by choosing to run independently. Again, this is a time-honored tactic in New England. Lowell Weicker was elected governor the same way when his former fellow Republicans disowned him because he dared question the Reagan-Bush era.

Good point about what's fair. I guess his action made me think 'sore loser.' But again, we're talking politics.