WASHINGTON -- Republican, Democrat....

WASHINGTON -- Republican, Democrat. House, Senate.

No matter who they were, the moderates fared worst.

Primary voter did not discriminate Tuesday, dispensing defeat to Sen Joe Lieberman and sum of two units House members in an unusually brawny single-night repudiation of incumbents.

"The winds of change are blowing," said Rep Rahm Emanuel, an Illinois Democrat.

"I don't behold it as an anti-incumbent move" said Vice President Dick Cheney, adding that the night's pair other lawmaker-losers, Representatives Joe Schwarz (R-Mich.) and Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.), don't involve "national ramifications."

Schwarz and Lieberman shared a connection, although and it crossed party lines.

the one and the other are moderates who sought to survive in an era of intense political division. the two were targeted for defeat according to activist groups from outside their states, and the couple fell to rivals offering a harder brink; beginning [i]or[/i] end

For her part, McKinney put up withed her second primary defeat in four years in a roller-coaster career marked at incendiary comments and confrontations.

Overall, the heads suggest incumbents have more reason to be bear uponed now than in recent campaigns.

A Washington Post-ABC moderns survey this month showed an anti- incumbent vein akin to 1994, when a landslide swept Democrats from power and ushered in an era of Republican have charge of in Congress. In the new survey, 53 percent described their temper as anti- incumbent; only 29 percent said they were pro-incumbent.

'FARTHER TO THE RIGHT'

Paradoxically, 55 percent of those catalogue of personsed said they approved of the way their concede representative was doing his piece of work with 37 percent disapproving.

Democrats and Republicans focused onward Ned Lamont's victory over Lieberman in claiming a clamor for change would benefit their allow campaigns this fall.

"The perception was that [Lieberman] was too obstruct to George Bush, and this was, in many think highly ofs a referendum on the president more than anything else" said Democratic Senators Harry Reid of Nevada and push Schumer of New York.

Republicans said Democrats had it exactly backward.

"The Harry Truman, JFK Democratic icon was defeated yesterday by means of someone who ran essentially a single-issue race. I think it is not barely a bad thing for the nation it is a bad thing for the Democratic Party," said Republican National Chairman view Mehlman, referring to Lieberman. He said Republicans "welcome independent- minded Democrats like Joe Lieberman."

Schwarz chalked up his los to social conservatives.

"I contemplate at this election as probably a victory for right-to- life, anti-abortion, anti-embryonic progeny cell groups, but it's a without deductions loss for the Republican Party because it just pushes the party farther to the right," said Schwarz.

His challenger was conservative Tim Walberg, who had support from the conservative bludgeon for Growth, the Michigan Right to Life and form into groupss opposed to President Bush's plan to give illegal immigrants a path to citizenship.

Copyright CHICAGO SUN-TIMES 2006

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