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.
“Hillary is a member of the generation born between 1939 and1956 with Pluto in Leo. Leo is ruled by the Sun, conveying a “center of the universe” perspective on its progeny. Like her husband and George W., our two ‘Boomer’ presidents, she is run by personal ambition and entitlement. Boomer leadership has advanced the elite in America at the expense of just about everyone else. Hillary’s chart has strong karmic imprints that are all male energies—a stellium (4 planets) in Scorpio in the karmic12th house and a conjunction of Pluto, Saturn, and Mars in Leo–indicating many former lives of power, which she regards as her birthright. Her husband’s sex scandals are one of her Scorpion projections. Fiercely competitive, when backed against a wall her Scorpion stinger comes out. If elected she could create many enemies. However, I think she will fall through the cracks due to irrelevance, because the Saturn/Uranus Election Day standoff is between the very old and the new and unknown.
The Generation Who’s Time Has Come
Barack Obama belongs to the Pluto in Virgo generation, those born between 1957 and 1972 and currently ages 36-51. Members of this generation are slated for a rendezvous with destiny, an opportunity to step into their power, over the next two years, as transiting Saturn conjuncts their natal Pluto placement. Virgos, the cosmic cleanup and repair crew, view service as a sacred trust. True to form, Obama is heavily invested in public service. How fitting it would be for this generation to give us our next president, turning the page on Kennedy’s declaration. “It is time to pass the torch to a new generation of Americans”.
Elements of Obama’s message resonate particularly well with younger voters. Two newly energized groups could have the decisive impact on the election. The Pluto in Libra generation, born between 1973 and 1983 and now ages 25 to 35, are passionately anti-war –or should I say, pro-peace? Obama’s theme of national unity appeals to their “Can’t we all just get along?” sensibilities. The 17-25 year old Pluto in Scorpios would relish any firestorm of change to burn away the old ways. The mantra, “Change We Can Believe In” perfectly encapsulates Uranus (change) in Pisces (faith).
Shifting Paradigms
Personal Karma
Barack Obama is a man on a karmic mission. A prominent psychic recently surmised that he is a reincarnated Abe Lincoln. Although an improvable assertion, a strong resonance exists between the two men. Surely, Obama inherited Lincoln’s gift for inspiring oratory, and he is literally following in Lincoln’s footsteps. Obama announced his candidacy on the steps of the Illinois State Capital in Springfield, site of Lincoln’s famous “house divided” speech. He invoked the beloved former president numerous times. Obama also recently spoke in the Great Hall at Cooper Union. Lincoln delivered an anti-slavery speech in that venue in 1860 that is said to have won him the presidency. Lincoln, a lawyer from Illinois who served in the State Legislature before being elected to the Senate, was in Congress only two years before occupying the While House.
Lincoln was assassinated one week after the Civil War ended; before he could reunite the country. Famous or humble, individuals reincarnate to complete unfinished business from the past–a pattern I have observed over the twenty years I have been practicing karmic astrology and past life regression—and one which leads me to believe Obama will not meet the same fate. Indeed, many of the deep divisions that persist today are the legacy of a Reconstruction gone awry. Red and blue states are nearly identical to slave and free states. Obama’s call for unity, “I see the United States” is reminiscent of Lincoln’s vow “to bind up the nation’s wounds”. Perhaps we are finally ready.
Considering the number of historical events in the Saturn/Uranus cycle that revolve around issues of slavery and civil rights, the presidential candidacy of an African American demands special attention. Obama’s campaign is a catalyst, re-opening many of the still festering wounds of racism. His election could begin a great karmic healing.
New Leadership
Archetypally, Obama is a strong Aquarian (his South Node and Jupiter and Lincoln’s Sun), as demonstrated by his grassroots orientation, message of inclusiveness and his own mixed race background. He recognizes that America’s diversity is her strength. Since the turn of the millennium, many astrologers have been waiting for an Aquarian leader to step forward. The American collective (unconscious) shares this messianic quest, a factor that could explain the momentum behind Obama’s campaign. Some folks doubtless also recognize (unconsciously) his energetic overlay with Lincoln.”
Excerpt from Judith Goldberg; a Karmic Astrologer and Past Life Regressionist
Contact Judith at judith.goldberg@verizon.net