When party bosses “chairmen” pick a liberal Republican for a fairly conservative congressional district that hadn't elected a democrat in AGES; something simply MUST be done to show them that someone like Scuzzyfava is simply unpalatable to conservatives (i.e. the Republican base).
It worked there because the Republican candidate was a throw-away candidate, since we assumed Lieberman would be the Democrat and would be unbeatable.
If the republicans had had a credible candidate (like the Governor), Lieberman’s move would likely have given the republicans the seat.
Instead, the republican party pretty much abandoned THEIR candidate and threw their support to Lieberman, since we actually respected our troops and wanted to protect them MORE than we wanted to try to win an election.