Sen. Kyrsten Sinema once ripped then-Democratic senator from Connecticut, Joe Lieberman for trying to win over Republican voters.
In 2003, Sinema, a social worker at the time, organized an anti-war protest outside of a meeting for Lieberman who was in Tucson to rally support for his 2004 presidential bid.
At the protest, Sinema slammed Lieberman’s position on the Iraq war and his strategy to appeal to Republican voters, the Hartford Courant reported at the time.
“He’s a shame to Democrats,” said Sinema. “I don’t even know why he’s running. He seems to want to get Republicans voting for him — what kind of strategy is that?”
Lieberman did not win the Democratic Party nomination for president in 2004. He left the party to become an Independent two years later.
“I’m doing it, also, frankly, because I’m fed up with the partisanship in Washington and the way in which primaries have skewered our whole political system, where people on either end of the spectrum tend to dominate primaries and it leaves out all the people in the middle” Lieberman said at the time. “I want to offer a choice to all of the people in the middle in November.”
In a similar move, Sinema announced Friday that she is leaving the Democratic Party to become an Independent.
“I’ve never fit neatly into any party box. I’ve never really tried. I don’t want to,” she told CNN. “Removing myself from the partisan structure – not only is it true to who I am and how I operate, I also think it’ll provide a place of belonging for many folks across the state and the country, who also are tired of the partisanship.”
Sinema, who is up for re-election in 2024, spent much of the last two years stalling President Joe Biden’s and Democrats agenda in the Senate, raising questions about whether she could win a Democratic primary.
While Sinema did not say whether she plans to caucus with Democrats, she told CNN that she expects to keep her committee assignments.
“When I come to work each day, it’ll be the same,” Sinema said. “I’m going to still come to work and hopefully serve on the same committees I’ve been serving on and continue to work well with my colleagues at both political parties.”
