R.I.P. Joseph Lieberman

[Sabin]

Mister Tee wrote
I know I'm several days late on this, but in case Sabin still wants an answer to his question re: Gore choosing a different VP...

Bob Graham would have been a far more neutral way to boost himself there. Which was important, because Lieberman singularly antagonized significant portions of the would-be Democratic coalition. Gore was already viewed with suspicion by leftier portions of the Dem party, but he might have won them over with a Kerry or (then un-scandaled) Edwards

This is what I'm looking for. The more I read about Al Gore's 2000 campaign, I feel pain for the years of chaos that followed but it's hard to think the guy was robbed when he did everything he could to fuck up his chances. Too much Beltway think.

I've since watched a few clips of Bob Graham and I still feel like I have no idea what he looks or sounds like. Seems smart but one of the few people who makes Al Gore look like an alpha dog. Honestly, real Tim Kaine vibes. Which means he was probably the perfect choice. It's hard for me to look at John Kerry and think that any Democratic ticket needs this man... although you're right about New Hampshire. The biggest problem that I see with John Kerry is that Al Gore was clearly trying to paint himself as not a liberal (it was still that era) and Kerry makes that harder. As for Edwards, there's no way he could've been an option. He'd only been in the Senate for a little over a year by the time of the convention. Also, I know Clinton and Gore were two southerners on the same ticket, but they had very different energies. Gore and Edwards sort of looked and sounded the same. That would've been very weird. On the other hand, a running mate needs to be able to boost the candidate and attack the opponent. Edwards was useless for Kerry in 2004 (at least, so I've heard). Maybe he'd be a better fit for Gore and the issues of Gore's election?

Mister Tee wrote
It's not so much any of the other veep possibilities would have electrified the ticket; it's that Gore violated Nixon's dictum, choosing the running mate who DID hurt him.

Tell me if I'm wrong here. My thinking over the years has become if a candidate can't find a veep that actually helps the ticket, there's something wrong with the candidate. I don't think any of us at the time thought that Pence was a significantly stronger running mate selection than Tim Kaine but in hindsight Pence married then-skeptical evangelical support to Trump in a way that has yet to wane while Tim Kaine did little to bleed "progressive" support (in 2000, they were liberals). But it's hard to say who Hilary Clinton could've chosen that wouldn't have done her some harm.

A rambling point but the fact that I don't see any option that electrifies Gore's candidacy says more about Gore than them. I didn't see that at the time. I was so in the tank for this guy in 2000...

[Mister Tee]

I know I'm several days late on this, but in case Sabin still wants an answer to his question re: Gore choosing a different VP...

Richard Nixon had polling that showed he ran stronger solo than with any possible running mate, since any choice would antagonize someone. The trick became to choose the least damaging prospect (which Nixon thought he had in Agnew, but...well, that's another story).

My story about Gore picking Lieberman: I woke up that day and turned on my computer. I had AOL at the time, which opened with a box displaying the top headline of the day. It also had a pop-up window (Friends/Contacts etc.), which obscured part of that headline. So, what I saw on my screen was:
Gore Picks (OBSCURED BY POPUP)
As Vice President
My mental prayer was "Anybody but Lieberman; anybody but Lieberman"...so, when I closed the popup and saw the grim truth, I let out as pained a groan as you can imagine. It showed me that Gore had totally bought into the "You must dissociate yourself from Clinton" line the press was peddling -- CIinton, whose approval rating was near 60! Nobody confused choirboy Al Gore with the randy Clinton; he didn't need to waste his taste telling people he didn't approve of Oval Office blow jobs. His pick of Lieberman -- who'd given a public scolding of Bill from the Senate floor, to the delight of the DC press -- showed that he didn't understand that; that he thought he needed to placate the Beltway pundits, who'd been haranguing Clinton from Gennifer Flowers on.

I think it was a huge mistake. If he thought Lieberman's ethnicity would help swing Florida -- well, he didn't carry the state (yes, another long story, but, in the end, bald fact); Bob Graham would have been a far more neutral way to boost himself there. Which was important, because Lieberman singularly antagonized significant portions of the would-be Democratic coalition. Gore was already viewed with suspicion by leftier portions of the Dem party, but he might have won them over with a Kerry or (then un-scandaled) Edwards. Lieberman, the prissy scold, couldn't have been a more direct spit in the eye to those voters. I will always believe having Lieberman on the ticket pushed crucial voters into voting Nader rather than Gore in the end (and Nader voters cost Gore NH as well as FL). (I also think his being Jewish cost votes in some places -- WV, a state even Dukakis carried, fell to the GOP, and anti-Semitism I'm certain played a role...having some knowledge of the state from being born there.) It's not so much any of the other veep possibilities would have electrified the ticket; it's that Gore violated Nixon's dictum, choosing the running mate who DID hurt him.

Before that, I didn't think much about Lieberman. His presence as a Democrat did help in Dems' control of the Senate -- though, in retrospect, his election over liberal Republican Lowell Weicker might have been the last instance where a Dem replacing a Republican made the chamber more conservative.

Nearly everyone speaks of him as a good human being, but I can't attest to that. I only know that, post-2000, he was an abomination in policy terms...even unto his dying day, pushing the let's-elect-Trump-by-sneaky-means No Labels agenda. I feel no need to say nice things about the guy just because he's dead.

[Sonic Youth]

After retirement he lived for several years in same apartment building as my mother. She said she would get off the elevator every time he entered it so as not to ride with him.

Sabin asked if there's anything of value to his career. Yes. He was a very good local/state politician. When Lieberman became an independent to run against Ned Lamont that year, I knew Lieberman was going to win. I had told this story before. Back in 2003 when I worked at Yale, there was a huge workers strike. Many political luminaries visited us and held rallies: Jesse Jackson, John Sweeney, Howard Dean. But Joe Lieberman was the only one whose speech didn't sound like pre-packaged boilerplate. IOW, he actually read about the latest developments, knew the public figures involved, knew the union identification numbers, knew about other related local events, etc, which I very much appreciated. And there were other things I remember, like when a New London submarine base was targeted by the Pentagon for closure and he used his muscle to save it along with 5,000 jobs. Connecticut eventually got tired of him along with the rest of the country. But because of things like these, it took them a bit longer to catch up.

[Sabin]

I want to correct something and add something. I've already posted enough on this but...

I referred to Joe Lieberman as a bought-and-paid-for right-winger in the Democratic Party. I have no idea if his political beliefs are a product of his worldview or his donors. Something I'm increasingly interested in is who these people are when they start out and how successfully they rebrand themselves to the times. The more I read about Lieberman, he really seemed like a Reagan-era Democrat concerned about moral panics of the times. I can see how that would've been appealing for Gore in 2000. By the end of his time in Congress, all he did was complain about how the tone of the place had changed from when he first came into it. I don't know if he was attempting to rebrand himself as the conscience of his party but ... man, it was unappealing and unpersuasive.

The other thing worth noting about Lieberman is that he was denied possibly the biggest moment of impact of his career, when he was almost chosen as John McCain's running mate. According to Steve Schmidt, John McCain wanted to pick Lieberman as his running mate, pledge to serve one term, and campaign on bipartisan solutions, but the plan to do so got screwed up. I have no doubt that had this occurred in 2008, my response would've been (as anything with Joe Lieberman) "Oh, fuck that guy!" but also it probably wouldn't have worked. 2008 was a Democratic year, the pro-life crowd would've stayed home, maybe a right-winger runs third party... I don't know. But what I do know is if John McCain chose Lieberman as a running mate, my God that would be one million times more preferable to the bullshit that he unleashed upon the world instead.

[Sabin]

Greg wrote
If Gore had any idea that Florida would have been as close as it was, he probably would have chosen Bob Graham.

I really don't know much about Bob Graham. I've looked his wikipedia over a few times. He seems smart and competent.

According to wikipedia, Gore's short list was apparently Bayh, Harkin, Edwards, Gephardt, Kerry, Lieberman, and Shaheen. I mean... none of them leap out to me as "Yes, that's your Vice President" although if Jeanne Shaheen could've swung New Hampshire than Florida is irrelevant.

[Greg]

I'll ask this board the one thing I have of interest. Seriously, was there anyone else Gore could've chosen?

If Gore had any idea that Florida would have been as close as it was, he probably would have chosen Bob Graham.

[Big Magilla]

Saw him in the Phoenix Airport in the early 2000s, no doubt coming from or going to a visit with his buddy McCain. He seemed very unassuming.

[Sabin]

For a good portion of my adult life, my politics were defined by "None of this would be happening if Gore won," which I recognize now is -- while maybe not incorrect -- not very mature. I was excited about Al Gore in 2000, I was excited at the idea of a Jewish running mate, and yet somehow none of that translated in my mind to Joe Lieberman. Beyond being incredibly boring, there was just something about him that I didn't like. I couldn't put my finger on it.

Lieberman spent the next ten years demonstrating that feeling for me. Beyond his support for the Iraq War, his lame 2004 run (forget Howard Dean's yell, "Joementum!"), and endorsing John McCain in 2008, he was as cynical a politician as any in my life. He was basically a bought and paid for right-winger in the Democratic Party who spent the bulk of his career as an obstructionist, embodying politics nobody supports or everybody regrets all while decrying a lack of civility. And when voters in Connecticut turned against him in the primary, he rejected cries to drop out and ran third party. Why? So he could stop a public option? I'd like to give him credit for at least having the common sense to stop endorsing Republicans at a certain point and thank God his stupid No Labels project seems to be dead in its tracks. If there's something I'm missing of value from his career pre-2000, please inform me. Whenever he did anything worth printing in the news, my invariable response was "Oh, fuck that guy!"

We shouldn't speak ill of the dead. Lieberman is too irrelevant to deserve the scorn one holds for the likes of Cheney, Kissinger, and Trump. Everything about him seems destined to be a footnote in the history books.

I'll ask this board the one thing I have of interest. Seriously, was there anyone else Gore could've chosen? I've read a lot of articles that cite Lieberman as one of the worst running mates in history. I'm not quite sold on that, but he is one of the weirdest. I know Gore was trying to distance himself from Clinton and Florida was a swing state so courting the Jewish community there probably made sense on paper. But seriously, was Lieberman the best he could do? I read somewhere that the first act one makes as a President is in choosing their running mate. That's quite a disqualifying argument against Gore's presidency. Unfortunately, Bush gets a worse one.

EDIT: I was going to end this post by saying "Now do Cheney." It's never a good thing to root for someone's death but Cheney is a special MF-er. And yet as I wrote that, I thought to myself what have these two running mates in 2000 been up to for the last few years. Cheney is spending every minute he has on Earth speaking out against Trump while Lieberman was out there shilling his No Labels party bullshit. In this moment in the hour of his death, Joe Lieberman is the only person who got me thinking "Maybe Dick Cheney isn't so bad."

[Sabin]

The senator died due to complications from a fall, his family said.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/former- ... =108568720