For 2 Senators, Similar Paths Up and Down

By PETER APPLEBOME
NYT

You can begin the list of similarities with the way that both men achieved the kind of longevity that approximated those long-tenured Southern senators of old — Christopher J. Dodd, the longest-serving senator in Connecticut history, first elected in 1980, Joseph I. Lieberman in 1988.

Mr. Lieberman was a few hanging chads away from being elected vice president in 2000 and then began the presidential campaign as a strong candidate four years later. Mr. Dodd moved his family to Iowa for his disastrous bid for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, yet remained one of the most powerful figures in the Senate.

At their peaks, both seemed likely to be senators for life of the most personal sort: Mr. Dodd, the soul of Irish charm, and Mr. Lieberman, even some of his enemies concede, a mensch.

And just as Mr. Dodd did a year ago, Mr. Lieberman on Wednesday announced the end of his Senate career in a situation that once would have seemed impossible to imagine — declining to run for re-election in a race certain to be brutal and with a good chance of being unsuccessful.

(More here.)