Secret CUNA Roll Cited in Historic Senate Race

WASHINGTON – Now it can be told. Senator Joe Lieberman said CUNA’s behind the scenes roll in his Senate campaign may have been responsible for his come-from-behind win. Lieberman, the first candidate ever elected to the Senate after losing his party’s primary, said it was a broad mailing campaign on his behalf secretly conducted by CUNA that may have pushed him over the top. The four-term Democrat was referring to almost $250,000 independent expenditures by CUNA in the final days of the Democratic primary, then again in the general election, when Lieberman ran as an independent, to blanket the state with pro-Lieberman mailings. As Lieberman noted during a speech at CUNA’s Governmental Affairs Conference, neither he or his staff knew of the CUNA mailing campaign and were barred from knowing under federal elections laws. “I will say I owe you for your support,” said Lieberman, who only learned CUNA’s roll after the elections. “Without that support I wouldn’t be here.”