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.
Does anyone have information on the demographic makeup of those who participate in the Iowa Electronic Markets?
If participants in the IEM are disproportionately upscale, and if you believe, as I do, that the wealthiest people in this country are both increasingly out of touch with how those with ordinary means live, and less bound to the well being of citizens of ordinary means, that would be a reason not to give decisive weight to what the IEM says.
Ruy’s posts on the real health of the economy vs. how the WashPost sees it are a good example of how conservative business and economics coverage has become over the past two or three decades. It is overly focused on the stock market as an indicator of the health of the economy and it does not look beneath the surface when looking at issues such as the employment picture. This correlates with huge increases in pay and status for reporters for the elite print and television outlets which other media outlets feed off of. The folks doing the reporting are not middle class themselves. They are upper middle class and up, with incomes far higher than the median for the country as a whole. And their reporting reflects a mindset that is out of touch with how ordinary folks live in this country.
An acquaintance of mine is an investment advisor for a big firm. He’s a very nice guy, mild mannered, thoughtful, who has no use for the fundamentalists or foreign policy adventurism. He’s a blue-blooded Repub who voted for Bush and now knows W is incompetent. He also tells me a guy in the business he knows who has never voted Dem–and didn’t think it was possible he ever would–told him with great anguish that he’s voting for Kerry this time.
Anyway, I ask my acquaintance six weeks ago if the stock market analysts in his shop are weighing in yet on who they think will win the election. He says to me, very matter of factly, “Oh, yeah, yeah. Bush.”
I say “Oh?” He says “Oh, yeah. Easily.” I raise my eyebrows again.
No data offered, nothing. (I suspect he and his firm’s analysts were relying on the IEM data.)
He even tells me that historically the stock markets tail off in the first year of a presidency–unless it’s a Democrat who wins, in which case the markets go up. (! I think there was a big study by MetLife or some other insurance company on that.) Kerry, of course, would “tax the hell out of people.” (meaning wealthy people, of course–I rather doubt he knows the top marginal federal income tax rate under Eisenhower was 90%)
Go figure. But that’s his world–the markets start to turn up, the profit picture starts to look up…things are looking up from where he sits.
I just think he–and a whole lot of other folks up there in the economic stratosphere–are out of touch.
http://128.255.244.60/graphs/graph_Pres04_WTA.cfm
> Iowa Electronic Markets winner take all
> presidential future
> Shows Bush has regained his lead.
> IEM has one of the best records of predicting
> elections outcomes, I believe, better than opinion
> polls.
If I am not mistaken, it predicted Gore would win the 2000 elections though.
MARCU$
Tch, that one vote will be MINE. I call Japanese ambassador… even with Krazy Kim across the pond.
I do see your point, Mimiru. I predicted the rise in gas prices before the 2000 election. I told my friends, and especially the Bush supporters, that if Bush got in, watch the price of gas jump up like crazy. At the time we were paying $1.139 per gallon around here, and had been for several years. Sure enough, within six months, the price was close to $1.70. So I mentioned it to one of my friends and he said “At least Bush isn’t cheating on his wife.”
Some people you can’t pursuade, but for the rest, you do what you can, you use what you can. If it does turn out to be a close election, I won’t have to think that I didn’t do everything I could to pursuade the people I know to vote for Kerry. I don’t think a day goes by that I don’t talk up a Kerry proposal or point out a Bush failure to someone.
If we win by one vote, I want to be ambassador to Ireland. I really liked Ireland when I was there on vacation.
Those damn Iowans, first they rob me of my Dean (whose children I would have gladly borne) and now this.
Seriously though, just means we all have to work harder and that Kerry needs to start closing (which apparently he’s good at) as soon as the convention ends and keep right on closing until November.
http://128.255.244.60/graphs/graph_Pres04_WTA.cfm
Iowa Electronic Markets winner take all presidential future
Shows Bush has regained his lead. The Kerry campaign does not appear to be able to catch up and hold the ground (I suspect the difference is the Nader vote).
IEM has one of the best records of predicting elections outcomes, I believe, better than opinion polls.
My gut reaction is this election is still Bush by a squeaker. Most voters have already made up their minds, those who have not see Bush as a stronger leader than Kerry, in a time when ‘strength’ is the buzzword of the day.
The War on Terror and the Situation in Iraq favour a president: you don’t change horses in midstream.
Maybe not what people want to hear, but my bet is when that curtain closes, a lot of the doubters will opt for the guy they think is more forthright, more determined, more focused aka GW Bush.
> what it means, and what I certainly will
> say, is that bin Laden could have been captured
> two years ago if they had cared to find him, but
> they let him go and ignored him until it was
> useful to them.
Also, there are the reports that an Al Qaeda camp was operational in northern Iraq (Kurdistan) in late 2002. Saddam had no control over this area, so it wasn’t his fault. But some reports claim Al Zarqawi and possibly other AQ bigwigs were there. You’d think the Bushies would have jumped at the opportunity to bomb the “evil guys”, right? Wrongggg… They dithered and dallied, ostensibly because they were “not sure” about the validity. But some government officials reportedly suspected that the hesitance was due to fears that it might complicate the ongoing effort to attack Saddam.
—
Iran could be another possible attack opportunity for Kerry in the “War on Terror” debates. Here is a nation that, unlike Iraq, has a real and undisputed track record in the business of supporting Islamic fanatics across the globe. They seem to have a more advanced nuclear program too, and the IAEA is worried about it. The latest news is Iran may have sheltered some Al Qaeda operatives — including ten of the 9/11 terrorists had crossed Iran from Saudi Arabia the year before the WTC attacks. “War on Terror” hawks such as Michael Ledeen (who, to be sure, is a fairly obnoxious guy) are furious about the Bush Administration’s incoherent response to all of this during the past three years.
—
Kerry could boost his hawkish credentials by promising to divert more attention to Iran, while at the same time reiterating his criticism that the invasion of Iraq was a mistake.
MARCU$
Because the constant redistricting battles I’ve read that it won’t translate into more than perhaps 5 seats changing either way.
Any historical perspective on the generic congressional choice advantage for D’s this year that Rasmussen seems to be measuring consistantly at 5-8 points? Is is more or less than previous years? How many seats gain might it be likely to translate to?
I can’t really think of any other administration that would pull this kind of shit and do it so badly, and for those not up on the pervasive incompetence and process of the administation, this claim is so substantively crazy that for the average person the claim will be too outrageous to be believed.
I’d also like to see Ruy’s comment on the Rasmussen poll’s shrinking Dem advantange when it comes to congress.
Mimiru, what it means, and what I certainly will say, is that bin Laden could have been captured two years ago if they had cared to find him, but they let him go and ignored him until it was useful to them. Otherwise he would have wandered around free forever. And that is the point of what I was saying. These “good things” meant nothing to them until it became campaign fodder, and then it was very important indeed. Predicting it enforces the notion that it was political and lends credibility to those who claim the “surprise” was entirely political.
What do you think explains the trend in the Rasmussen tracking poll? http://www.rasmussenreports.com/Presidential_Tracking_Poll.htm I’m not so much interested in today’s point-estimate (Bush 47; Kerry 45) as in the trend–Kerrey got about a 3-point bounce from Edwards’ selection, but then Bush gradually but inexorably took the lead back. This is the only daily tracking poll that’s publicly available, to my knowledge.
Who cares if it was predicted? What kind of rebuttal is that? I can tell you what the response of the average person would be to THAT claim:
“They’ll do anything they can to win won’t they? Why aren’t you celebrating his capture?”
Inre: October Surprise. Already pre-empted, it is easily countered by pointing out that it was predicted and that the Bushies only did it to win the election, not because of a commitment to justice.
Inre: Oil price crash. Same as above. Clearly a cynical move to win the election. Point out that prices will go higher than they were before once he wins.
On the rest of Allen’s points, the answer is yes. However, making a lot of noise about how the deficit is financed by Central Bank of China and therefore puts us at the mercy of the Chinese can help.
Ohio governor rejects Diebold electronic voting machines because of security risks. I believe that cheating at the polls will lose Florida for us in November. However, Ohio comes back into play because the cheating machines are no longer on the table. Look for more about this in the weeks and months to come as the Republicans won’t let this go away. They will fight to the death for those machines. The machines make winning easy for the Republicans.
10. The highest number ever (60 percent) think the US should not attack another country unless the US is attacked first.
— I wonder if John Kerry is reading this…..
Colin
Sherman in Atlanta was a neccessary thing though.
What can the Democrats do about an October Surprise????? What should the Democrats do about an October Surprise????
Reliable reports say that the Pakistanis have been told to produce a major Al Qaeda event — a supposedly successful, large-scale attack or, better, a major capture — during the Democratic National Convention. How should Democrats respond?
How should Democrats respond to a Bush “achievement” prior to the September convention?
How should Democrats respond to a terrorist event in October?
[Not since the 1864 Democratic Convention have the Republicans needed “Sherman in Atlanta” more. And, these bastards are ruthless enough to stage it, for dramtic effect.]
What will Bush/Rove/Cheney do to win? This includes their “supporters” like Jeb and Grover.
Will they let a terrorist attack happen somewhere that is on a big enough scale to frighten people enough to flock to the incumbent?
Will they pull in markers from the oil industry to crash gas prices down to $1.20/gallon for the month before the election?
Will they work to disenfranchise voters for Kerry in key states and counties?
Will they flood the media with ads equating Kerryand Edwards with everything from homo sex fiends to the Blob? (from the 1950s movie).
Will they spend deficit financed pork-barrel money like there is no tomorrow but mostly in Republican districts to energize the base all the while preaching about “smaller government” and “this is the people’s money not the government’s money?” (huh?)
POP QUIZ: How many of these things have the actually done already? Add your own. It’s fun!
Next week’s Dem party convention in Boston will be crucial. A lot of voters disgruntled with “Shrub” will be paying close attention to Kerry / Edwards for the first time. *If* these voters like what they see and hear (=credible, alternative policies for 2005-08 presented by a credible presidential candidate), it ought to translate into a healthy “bounce” in the polls for John/John.
Unfortunately, the stakes are quite high. If Kerry is perceived to be a weak candidate, he won’t get another shot before the TV debates in September. And if that happens, I worry that Kerry will rapidly lose support much as Dukakis did in 1988. “Shrub” is also expected to unveil his plans for a second term around the time of the GOP convention in New York.
This could go either way, and nobody knows what the news from Iraq/Pakistan/Afghanistan will be. More Abu Ghraib-type blunders certainly will further erode the President’s ratings, but good news (capture Bin Laden and/or Zarqawi, for example) might yet restore some confidence in his “War on Terror”.
MARCU$
Bad news for BUSH that is!
Here’s some more bad news. A number of hunters in Florida–a traditionally Republican group–are disgusted with Bush’s envrionmental record and plan to vote against him And we all know how importaNT FLORIDA is! See this article on the issue in today’s Gainesville Sun: http://www.gainesvillesun.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040718/LOCAL/207180317
Desperate people do desperate things. Millions of us are concerned that the voting process will be corrupted by the republicans to their advantage especially with the electronic voting machines and the optical scanning machines. It has happened in the past and the 2000 election shows that they will do anything to win. I’m so disappointed that the DNC isn’t taking a a more vocal stand because no matter what the polls say what are you going to do the day after the election when the Republicans still control the White Hous, the House and the Senate? I am beginning to wonder if there are Republican moles in the DLC controlling the Democratic party?
We cannot stop working no matter what the polls say. This is a refforandum on the most far right president in our history.