a no-brainer really, made even more so by not-starter republican candidate...
percentage of connecticut folks registered republican barely tops 20%, largest "bloc" of registrants in the state - almost 45% is 'unaffiliated' and largest percentage of this group has long shown itself to be "centrist"...
unusually high primary turnout was fueled not by lamont voters but by such centrists who switched from 'unaffiliated' to democrat in order to vote for lieberman, their presence made outcome closer than it would have been in more conventional circumstance of low primary turnout comprised of activist/attentive party wing voters...
lieberman was initially elected to the u.s. senate with republican support, besting 3-term repubican incumbent lowell weicker who was "accused" of trying to make the state republican party 'liberal'...
lieberman's oft-cited 90% 'party line' senate voting record doesn't hold up under a bit of scrutiny, he votes quite often with republicans on military matters (deviation from "his" party's position appears to be most often on this issue), trade and regulatory policies, criminal justice, presidential appointments, education, budget, he seems to have opposed almost everything wellstone proposed...
more generally, he votes with republicans about 20% of the time when dems and reps take opposing positions, there is matter of procedural vs substantive votes whereby a member could vote with the opposition on former and with cast party line on latter but i haven't seen much evidence of this in lieberman's case, and i'm not sure one would find much of a pattern in this regard for most members as tabled votes tend to remain tabled... mh