ON DEADLINE: Lieberman facing payback from Dems

Joe Lieberman might have trouble getting a Senate parking pass next year.

The Senate Democrats who control perks and, more importantly, committee chairmanships won't need his tie-breaking vote any longer. Democrats are on track to win a solid majority in the Nov. 4 elections, so time is running out on Lieberman's power as the senator whose vote kept them in control of a split Senate.

Since Lieberman's re-election in Connecticut two years ago, when he ran as an independent and beat the Democratic nominee, they've had to tolerate his dissent from the party and now from its presidential ticket because his vote was crucial.

That won't be so next year, and that's when the bill will come due for his effusive embrace of John McCain and his attacks on Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama.

Lieberman was not in attack mode in his prime-time performance at the Republican National Convention on Tuesday, chiding Obama but concentrating on praise of McCain in terms the Arizona senator likes to hear: independent, maverick, bipartisan.

He called Obama "a gifted and eloquent young man" with a promising future. "But eloquence is no substitute for a record - not in these tough times," Lieberman said. He pitched a special appeal for McCain votes to independents and Democrats, saying his is "the real ticket for change this year."

"I'm here, as a Democrat myself, to tell you: Don't be fooled," Lieberman said.

While Lieberman has angered Democratic leaders, they haven't been able to do anything about it.

Lieberman, who describes himself as an Independent Democrat, endorsed McCain for president on Dec. 17, 2007, when his friend was struggling for a comeback in the campaign for the Republican nomination. McCain called it "a courageous act."

At the time, Lieberman was asked whether he was concerned about Democratic punishment for his defection to the GOP candidate. "I'm the 51st vote," he said, smiling. In a tied Senate, Democrats would have been the minority because Vice President Dick Cheney would have had the decisive vote.

Now, 35 Senate seats are up for election, 23 of them currently held by Republicans. The Democrats are defending 12 seats. What's more, six Republican senators are retiring, leaving open seats that include prime targets for Democratic takeovers.

So the odds are that the Democrats will gain a clear, perhaps commanding majority.

After they do, it will be payback time for Lieberman unless McCain becomes president and he gets a Cabinet appointment. That would seem a likely reward from his old friend.

Jim Manley, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Tuesday: "Sen. Reid was very disappointed in Sen. Lieberman's speech tonight, especially when he appeared to go out of his way to distort Sen. Obama's record of bipartisan achievements in the Senate.

"He can give all the partisan speeches he wants, but as the American people have made very clear, the last thing this country needs is another four years of the same old failed Bush-McCain policies of the past."

Lieberman, the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 2000, sought the party's presidential nomination in 2004 but got nowhere. So he went back to the Senate, where his backing for President Bush's Iraq war policy made him enemies at home.

Challenged by an anti-war candidate, Lieberman sought help from national Democrats, and one who delivered it was Obama, then an emerging political star. Obama told Connecticut Democrats on March 31, 2006, that he knew Lieberman's coziness with the Bush administration was "the elephant in the room," but that they should nominate him for a fourth term anyhow, for his character, qualifications and abilities. He said Connecticut should "have the good sense to send Joe Lieberman back to the U.S. Senate."

That's what happened, but only after Lieberman was defeated in the primary and ran as an independent candidate. Obama endorsed the Democratic nominee, Ned Lamont, in the general election.

When the Illinois senator went to Connecticut to help him in the primary campaign, Lieberman called Obama a blessing for the Senate and for America. "I look forward to helping him reach to the stars and realize not just the dreams he has for himself, but the dreams we all have for him and our blessed country."

That was then; 2008 is now.

Campaigning with McCain, Lieberman knocked Obama's lack of military experience - Lieberman didn't serve in the military, either - and said the election is "between one candidate, John McCain, who has always put his country first, worked across party lines to get things done, and one candidate that has not."

Lieberman appeared on a conservative talk radio show in April and was asked whether Obama sounded like a Marxist. "I must say, that's a good question," Lieberman said. "During this campaign I've learned some things about him, about the kind of environment from which he came ideologically. ... He's got some positions that are far to the left of me and, I think, mainstream America."

Lieberman is 29th in seniority in the Senate, 17th among Democrats, rank that made him chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. He's also chairman of an Armed Services subcommittee. Chairmen get more than titles and authority; they get extra staff members.

But what seniority gives, the majority party can take away. And the Democrats almost surely will take it away from Lieberman.

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EDITOR'S NOTE - Walter R. Mears has reported on national politics for The Associated Press for more than 40 years.