The editorial page of The Hartford Courant, Connecticut’s largest-circulation newspaper, is generally liberal in its positions on issues and candidates. For this election the Courant has endorsed: (a) the progressive Democratic challengers for Governor & Lt. Gov. over Republican incumbent Jodi Rell and her runningmate; (b) the incumbent Democrats for the four other statewide executive-branch elective offices; and (c) surprisingly, all 5 Democratic candidates for the U.S. House, 3 of whom are challenging incumbent moderate Republicans whom the Courant has often supported and/or praised in the past.

And, for the United States Senate, the Constitution State’s left-leaning newspaper-of-record today urges the re-election of yet another good progressive Democrat: Joe Lieberman.

…This election is not solely about a war gone sour. There are critical domestic matters long simmering - the solvency of Social Security, health care access, huge budget deficits and more. For the most part, bitter partisanship rules. It will take more members of Mr. Lieberman’s ilk to restrain a free-spending, scandal-plagued Congress and an increasingly powerful president, or to turn attention to other urgent matters such as the environment and energy independence.

…Mr. Lieberman is cast by some as a Republican in disguise, enabling the GOP in its wild spending sprees and ethical lapses. The record shows Mr. Lieberman to have a moderate-to- liberal voting record much on the order of Democratic colleague Sen. Christopher Dodd. This session alone, Mr. Lieberman voted for stem cell research funding, against the Bush tax cuts, for guest-worker programs, and against federal cuts in welfare, child support and student loan programs.

To be sure, Mr. Lieberman has long challenged Democratic orthodoxy, especially on security and moral matters. That’s fine. His challenges have often nudged Democrats to the middle…

…In 1991, Mr. Lieberman told a conference organized by the Heritage Foundation and the Progressive Foundation that “the old assumptions of the left and right are no longer working” and that the political system needed to embrace “a new consensus that drops ideology and replaces it with rationality.” He has been true to this vision for the past 18 years, earning bipartisan political capital that will be needed in the difficult six years ahead.

Read the whole thing.

(Their thoughtful & spot-on gubernatorial endorsement of John DeStefano is worth a Re-link & a Read, too, especially since it’s the second Courant editorial published today which mirrors My opinions exactly. :)