I was sorry to learn of the sudden death of 2000 Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Lieberman. But his long and stormy career did offer some important lessons about party loyalty, which I wrote about at New York:
Joe Lieberman was active in politics right up to the end. The former senator was the founding co-chair of the nonpartisan group No Labels, which is laying the groundwork for a presidential campaign on behalf of a yet-to-be-identified bipartisan “unity ticket.” Lieberman did not live to see whether No Labels will run a candidate. He died on Wednesday at 82 due to complications from a fall. But this last political venture was entirely in keeping with his long career as a self-styled politician of the pragmatic center, which often took him across party boundaries.
Lieberman’s first years in Connecticut Democratic politics as a state legislator and then state attorney general were reasonably conventional. He was known for a particular interest in civil rights and environmental protection, and his identity as an observant Orthodox Jew also drew attention. But in 1988, the Democrat used unconventional tactics in his challenge to Republican U.S. senator Lowell Weicker. Lieberman positioned himself to the incumbent’s right on selected issues, like Ronald Reagan’s military operations against Libya and Grenada. He also capitalized on longtime conservative resentment of his moderate opponent, winning prized endorsements from William F. and James Buckley, icons of the right. Lieberman won the race narrowly in an upset.
Almost immediately, Senator Lieberman became closely associated with the Democratic Leadership Council. The group of mostly moderate elected officials focused on restoring the national political viability of a party that had lost five of the six previous presidential elections; it soon produced a president in Bill Clinton. Lieberman became probably the most systematically pro-Clinton (or in the parlance of the time, “New Democrat”) member of Congress. This gave his 1998 Senate speech condemning the then-president’s behavior in the Monica Lewinsky scandal as “immoral” and “harmful” a special bite. He probably did Clinton a favor by setting the table for a reprimand that fell short of impeachment and removal, but without question, the narrative was born of Lieberman being disloyal to his party.
Perhaps it was his public scolding of Clinton that convinced Al Gore, who was struggling to separate himself from his boss’s misconduct, to lift Lieberman to the summit of his career. Gore tapped the senator to be his running mate in the 2000 election, making him the first Jewish vice-presidential candidate of a major party. He was by all accounts a disciplined and loyal running mate, at least until that moment during the Florida recount saga when he publicly disclaimed interest in challenging late-arriving overseas military ballots against the advice of the Gore campaign. You could argue plausibly that the ticket would have never been in a position to potentially win the state without Lieberman’s appeal in South Florida to Jewish voters thrilled by his nomination to become vice-president. But many Democrats bitter about the loss blamed Lieberman.
As one of the leaders of the “Clintonian” wing of his party, Lieberman was an early front-runner for the 2004 presidential nomination. A longtime supporter of efforts to topple Saddam Hussein, Lieberman had voted to authorize the 2003 invasion of Iraq, like his campaign rivals John Kerry and John Edwards and other notable senators including Hillary Clinton. Unlike most other Democrats, though, Lieberman did not back off this position when the Iraq War became a deadly quagmire. Ill-aligned with his party to an extent he did not seem to perceive, his presidential campaign quickly flamed out, but not before he gained enduring mockery for claiming “Joe-mentum” from a fifth-place finish in New Hampshire.
Returning to the Senate, Lieberman continued his increasingly lonely support for the Iraq War (alongside other heresies to liberalism, such as his support for private-school education vouchers in the District of Columbia). In 2006, Lieberman drew a wealthy primary challenger, Ned Lamont, who soon had a large antiwar following in Connecticut and nationally. As the campaign grew heated, President George W. Bush gave his Democratic war ally a deadly gift by embracing him and kissing his cheek after the State of the Union Address. This moment, memorialized as “The Kiss,” became central to the Lamont campaign’s claim that Lieberman had left his party behind, and the challenger narrowly won the primary. However, Lieberman ran against him in the general election as an independent, with significant back-channel encouragement from the Bush White House (which helped prevent any strong Republican candidacy). Lieberman won a fourth and final term in the Senate with mostly GOP and independent votes. He was publicly endorsed by Newt Gingrich and Rudy Giuliani, among others from what had been the enemy camp.
The 2006 repudiation by his party appeared to break something in Lieberman. This once-happiest of happy political warriors, incapable of holding a grudge, seemed bitter, or at the very least gravely offended, even as he remained in the Senate Democratic Caucus (albeit as formally independent). When his old friend and Iraq War ally John McCain ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, Lieberman committed a partisan sin by endorsing him. His positioning between the two parties, however, still cost him dearly: McCain wanted to choose him as his running mate, before the Arizonan’s staff convinced him that Lieberman’s longtime pro-choice views and support for LGBTQ rights would lead to a convention revolt. The GOP nominee instead went with a different “high-risk, high-reward” choice: Sarah Palin.
After Barack Obama’s victory over Lieberman’s candidate, the new Democratic president needed every Democratic senator to enact the centerpiece of his agenda, the Affordable Care Act. He got Lieberman’s vote — but only after the senator, who represented many of the country’s major private-insurance companies, forced the elimination of the “public option” in the new system. It was a bitter pill for many progressives, who favored a more robust government role in health insurance than Obama had proposed.
By the time Lieberman chose to retire from the Senate in 2012, he was very near to being a man without a party, and he reflected that status by refusing to endorse either Obama or Mitt Romney that year. By then, he was already involved in the last great project of his political career, No Labels. He did, with some hesitation, endorse Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump in 2016. But his long odyssey away from the yoke of the Democratic Party had largely landed him in a nonpartisan limbo. Right up until his death, he was often the public face of No Labels, particularly after the group’s decision to sponsor a presidential ticket alienated many early supporters of its more quotidian efforts to encourage bipartisan “problem-solving” in Congress.
Some will view Lieberman as a victim of partisan polarization, and others as an anachronistic member of a pro-corporate, pro-war bipartisan elite who made polarization necessary. Personally, I will remember him as a politician who followed — sometimes courageously, sometimes foolishly — a path that made him blind to the singular extremism that one party has exhibited throughout the 21st century, a development he tried to ignore to his eventual marginalization. But for all his flaws, I have no doubt Joe Lieberman remained until his last breath committed to the task he often cited via the Hebrew term tikkun olam: repairing a broken world.
Would you please inform the national media of this, particularly ABC Radio News and its Bus girlfried, Ann Compton?
Chandler won because of name value, not because he’s a Democrat. And he is in for a far tougher fight this summer and fall.
I haven’t seen any discontent towards the GOP in my state, not in anywhere besides the metro areas. To most Americans, GOP = heroes on terror and purveyors who keep the homosexuals and liberals in line. Sad but true.
I’m in North Carolina (granted, the most solidly Democratic part of it, but still…) and I sense a shift. The small-L libertarians I know are peeling off in droves and I’ve heard several Republicans I know state that they were considering staying home on Election Day because they just don’t like Bush. He still has a good-sized number of partisans – particularly in the churches – but I think an Edwards candidacy would actually put North Carolina in play. Hard to tell whether Kerry would have the same effect, but if the military is becoming disillusioned with their state under GWB (I’m pretty far from the military bases, but the NG families I know are mighty unhappy), I wouldn’t be surprised to see them vote Kerry in larger-than-usual numbers.
For what it’s worth, by 2008 I fully expect both NC and Virginia to be legitimate Democratic targets.
Hi everyone, i live in the upper left too in a heavily democraic area but my brother lives in Wisconsin and he keeps me posted about attitudes and values out there amongst the new barbarians. he isn’t seeing a shift at all except a vague sense that the rebubs might favor the rich… his coworkers and neighbors, if they discuss politics at all, still express a sense of pride in what they see as a successful war against terrorism. i know the polls say people don’t care about the war but that might be because of the widespread misperseption that the war is over and we won. Democrats need a coherent principled foreign policy. right now we are allowing the Bush administration to put forth the idea of a war against terrorism. Our politicians aren’t attacking this concept or exposing Bush’s real agenda ( eventual domination of Syria, Libya, Iran etc.) No one would vote Republican if they new they were voting for Perle’s fifty years of war aginst Islamic oil-producing nations.
perhaps our alternative could be a foriegn policy of global co-operation to achieve environmental goals .This would include energy independence as well as humanitarian assistance to impoverished nations
I have been scaring and deptressing myself with kaplan’s book The Ends of the Earth, the journal of his travels through the chaotic and socially psychotic nations of west Africa, the middle east and indochina. We are in real danger from the religious fanaticism which is growing out of the poverty and cultural dislocations caused by overpopulation, deforestation, and over-rapid urbanization. Also a recently published pentagon study defined global warming as a national security issue. We need to provide leadership in building sustainable communities as the cornerstone of our foreign policy becasue this is the only effective way to decrease trerroism and prevent wars for resources.
Especially after the Chandler victory in a Repub district in the Repub south of KY.
Not so sure about Partnership for America. Might not resonate. Sounds to much like domestic partnerships which leads to civil unions to gay marriages. But on the right track.
It is a great idea of running against Reaganomics when Reagan even rasied taxes three times. Bush is putting forth these same failed voodoo trickle down theories that where debunked by Clinton when he rasied taxes on the top 2%. This will resonate with the people. It wasn’t that long ago that everyone had jobs and were getting better jobs than they had. Must also point out that the Repubs at the time were against it and it worked and they are against it again becuase it will work. The Repubs don’t want to see this policy enacted and work a second time. Because the public will see that supply side economics doesn’t work. We must start attacking this.
Agree completely with the transit idea. Our governements(state, local, and federal) should also have fleet services that use alternative fuel vehicles/renewable means of energy. Some municipalites have done this. They ordered a fleet of some type of hybrid car in CA somewhere I believe. One step would be to move all the transit systems towards hybird/alternative/renewable energy. Should be a major push towards these environmentally safe and terrosim safe technology.
chris-
nice set of ideas, especially on the support of transit.
I don’t have any of the math worked out, but some of these can be encompassed in the “Green Tax Shift” idea promoted by some environmentalists.
Simply put, we try to move the burden of taxation off things that are good for people to produce (i.e. income) and towards things we do not want them to produce. (i.e. pollutants)
It is time to raise the gas tax, and it is time to require superior fuel economy among ALL vehicles (not just cars, SUVs are currently exempt). Much of the increased revenue from new gas tax revenue would fund better public transport throughout the country.
Indeed, this is one of the major sticking points of the ongoing debate over the re-authorization of the TEA-21 transport bill before Congress.
See more here:
http://www.transact.org/transfer/trans04/1_26.asp
I agree completely about broadening the goal, and I see a potential added benefit of doing so. It has seemed, and I’m not certain if there’s any actual data to support or refute this, that there has been the beginnings of a re-enfranchisement of disillusioned voters getting worked up enough to come back into the system to vote, contribute, or even campaign. The major turnout in primaries and caucuses thus far would seem to support this. I think a lot of credit needs to go to Howard Dean’s campaign for bringing these folks out of the woodwork into the fold, and I think that’s something that we need to acknowledge and embrace going forward.
My point is that to continue this, fostering an optimism for the Congressional seats as well as the White House could add a greater sense of personal empowerment in races where individual votes carry even greater weight. It could also add the psychological incentive to previously disenfranchised voters (or non-voters) that their efforts can have an impact on more than just the one front.
It’s an uphill climb, what with the DeLay redistricting machine and all, but if the tide indeed is changing, perhaps it can wash a few more away…
Agree completely that offering a complete, easy-to-understand set of principles would do wonders to both nationalize the Congressional elections and allow D’s to demonstrate vision. Rather than debating names, what should those principles be?
My offerings:
1. Tax policy should reward work, not wealth;
2. Rebuild our tradional alliances (stolen from W ’00);
3. Use environmental laws to both protect the environment and stimulate business regulation;
4. Spend the Highway Trust Fund to build effective mass-transit systems;
Thoughts?
DR has a link, in the Political Strategy section, to a new Greenburg atricle titled “Contesting Values.” I think it is outstanding. It definitely ties into the discussions we have been having about themes and values.
I love the idea of running against Reagan and Reaganomics. I also agree with his idea that Democtats need to stand up for our values. We have let Repubs be the party of values. Dem have values too: democracy, equality, diversity, and protection of the minority from the tyranny of the majority.
We will never win back Congress and have a mandate for change unless we tell the voters what we stand for. The Repubs have stood for tax cuts, limited government, and strong defense. Dems need to stand for restored democracy, equality of opportunity, support for families, and strong world leadership through international cooperation.
I agree with franklyO about the desirability of an overarching theme for Congressional Dems. In a couple of posts I suggested “American Values, American Dreams,” but I never got any feedback.
Regarding, the suggestion for a “New American Covenant,” Didn’t Clinton already use something like that? I personally find that sort of overtly Judeo-Christian reference discomforting given the post 9/11 environment. It sounds too much like Bush’s “crusade” comment. The last thing we need to do is suggest to the Muslim world that we think God is on our side. However, I am a raging secularist, and I am sure things look a bit different in Texas.
FranklyO stated, “there is a wave of disgust …” I certainly sense something like that here in my little, upper-left, corner of the universe: Portland, Oregon. However, Portland is not by any means a representative sample of the country. This is an overwhelmingly Democratic city. I am curious about the impressions of others around the country?
New American Covenant?
–morris
Morris Meyer
Democratic Congressional Candidate
Texas 6th District
http://www.meyer04.us
Frankly0, I completely agree. As a suggested theme, why not “Partnership with America”? It sets up a nice contrast with “Contract for America”, which always sounded like a business contract to me. Conversely, “partnership” implies more of a community sense, of working together to solve the nation’s problems. In other words, more in line with Democratic policies.
Just to follow up: in 1994, the Republicans came up with the infamous “Contract for America.” The Dems need a like theme and gimmick.
Given the numbers, and the way this election is likely to play out, I think there is a very good prospect that Bush can be ousted by a relatively sizable margin.
What I wonder is whether the Democrats might not try to do think even larger and do something even larger: take back the Congress.
In many ways, it seems that there is a tide of anger and disgust sweeping much of the nation over the policies and actions not only of Bush, but of the entire Republican party, which is at base so little different from Bush himself.
In many ways, 2004 could be the obverse of 1994, when a large part of the public decided to throw the bums out — though back then they were the Democratic bums. I see no reason that the Republicans in Congress are not susceptible to the same kind of revulsion, in no small part due to their own abuse of power, and their smug expectation that that power can never be taken away from them.
But if the Dems are going to make that happen, it is time to sound that theme, and get the voters themselves thinking about how they can decimate the Republicans, one Congressman at a time.