The Question is Even More Pressing Now Than in 2000, As Lieberman Considers Becoming a Republican and Gore Again Covets the Oval Office
In 2006, with Al Gore campaigning nationally against global warming and a significant number of Democratic leftists and progressives eagerly wishing that Gore would run for the Democratic Presidential nomination in 2008, one question remains from the 2000 elections that is, now more than ever, of much more than academic interest: Why did Al Gore choose Joe Lieberman as his running mate in the 2000 elections? It is precisely because the answer is such a mystery that the question deserves thorough discussion and analysis. Why did Al Gore nominate Joe Lieberman in 2000?
It has been well said that those who disregard history may be condemned to relive it. So we simply must know the answer: What, in Al Gore's eyes, made Joe Lieberman the best man for the job of Democratic Vice President of the United States?
In September 2000, in the run-up to the presidential election, the latest CNN USA Today Gallup tracking poll indicated that 58 percent of Americans approved of the job Clinton was doing as president. Still, many self-serving Republicans argued, the mainstream media opined, and many Democrats feared, that the public would reject Gore in light of the tenuous association between Gore's official acts and Bill Clinton's relational infidelities. Of course, no such association existed. This was always a case of Republican fear-mongering masquerading as fact. Because as CNN and other news outlets had consistently reported since the Clinton sex issues emerged,
In the wake of the House of Representatives' approval of two articles of impeachment, Bill Clinton's approval rating has jumped 10 points to 73 percent, the latest CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll shows.
That's not only an all-time high for Clinton, it also beats the highest approval rating President Ronald Reagan ever had.
At the same time, the number of Americans with an unfavorable view of the Republican Party has jumped 10 points; less than a third of the country now has a favorable view of the GOP.
Despite concerns that public calls for Clinton's resignation would rise after his impeachment, the number of Americans who want Clinton to resign has remained statistically unchanged. Only 30 percent want Clinton to resign; only 29 percent want the Senate to convict Clinton and remove him from office.
But the mainstream media's focus on Clinton's infidelities - rather than on his record of reducing the deficit, growing the economy and promoting peace internationally - presented Gore with a fundamental question of leadership: Would Al Gore run on what voters perceived as the strengths of the Clinton presidency - economy, peace, reduced deficit, balanced budget - or would Al Gore capitulate to the media and Republican storyline, holding that vacuous sex-related preoccupations would trump substance in 2000, that America would choose its president based on infidelity rather than based on the objectively improved overall condition of the country, nationally and internationally?
In choosing Joe Lieberman as his running mate, Al Gore capitulated to the media/Republican story. In spite of the many and substantial successes of the Clinton Administration, Gore believed Americans would use their votes to penalize Al Gore for Clinton's infidelity. There were no facts to support this contention, and polls indicated the exactly the contrary, but Gore seems to have been profoundly influenced (scared and intimidated) by the media Republican hype nonetheless. While this is supposition, the evidence is public: the nomination of Joe Lieberman.
In 2000 the public rated President Clinton favorably on various measures of presidential performance. Vice President Gore was positioned to win the party nomination and the presidency if only he could sustain the coalition that had twice elected the Clinton-Gore team. The main problem for Vice President Gore was the fact that the public also gave President Clinton very unfavorable personal ratings. (19) Did this personal aspect affect the choices of primary voters and general-election voters? [ http://findarticles.com/... ]
Gore effectively bet that Clinton's personal negatives were more important and would prevent his election is not negated, with reliance on the self-righteously pious Senator Joe Lieberman. (Meanwhile, in New York, Hillary Clinton bet that she could be elected to the US Senate while running
on the Clinton record, despite the supposed "Clinton fatigue" that Republicans (and some Democrats) self-servingly touted. Gore chose to run
from Bill Clinton's record instead of running
on the record.
Several signs indicate that Gore campaigned against the Clinton record instead of on it.
Gore distanced himself from the administration's policy toward Elian Gonzalez. (64) He moved the campaign headquarters from Washington, D.C., to Nashville, Tennessee, making him a Washington outsider. (65) His announcement speech repeatedly emphasized "family," creating a stark contrast to the Clinton family. (66) His acceptance speech contained a politically significant line: "This election is not a reward for past performance." (67) Two of his resume advertisements omitted his eight years as Vice President. (68) He selected Joseph Lieberman, a Clinton administration critic, as his vice-presidential running mate. With few exceptions (e.g., a New York fundraiser), Gore and President Clinton never campaigned together, a clear break from their teamwork in 1992 and 1996. In keeping with the maxim, "actions speak louder than words," recall how passionately the Gores kissed before the Democratic nominee delivered his acceptance speech. Was this a sign that their marriage was a different kind of relationship than what the country had observed in the Clintons the previous eight years? Finally, as Tseng (2002, 206) has noted, "Gore did not mention Clinton's name on the campaign trail or even in the debates." (69)[ http://findarticles.com/... ]
In 2000, Joe Lieberman was known, above all else, for his September 3, 1998 speech on the floor of the US Senate arguing, essentially, for the impeachment of President Clinton, because Clinton lied about his adult, consensual and private sex-life. When one reads the Lieberman speech itself, it becomes clear that in nominating Lieberman for the Vice Presidency two years later, Gore was effectively endorsing a proposition that most of America had already rejected - the proposition that Bill Clinton's sex life was more important to the governance of this country than was balancing the budget, reducing the deficit and maintaining international peace.
In Lieberman's Senate speech, Lieberman chose, with the Republicans and the media, to exalt sex over substance, arguing for Bill Clinton's impeachment, even before the Independent Counsel had issued a report. Joe Lieberman said:
Mr. President, I rise today to make a most difficult and distasteful statement, for me probably the most difficult statement I have made on this floor in my ten years in the Senate . . . I was disappointed because the President of the United States had just confessed to engaging in an extramarital affair with a young woman in his employ and to willfully deceiving the nation about his conduct . . .
But the truth is, after much reflection, my feelings of disappointment and anger have not dissipated. Except now these feelings have gone beyond my personal dismay to a larger, graver sense of loss for our country, a reckoning of the damage that the President's conduct has done to the proud legacy of his presidency, and ultimately an accounting of the impact of his actions on our democracy and its moral foundations.
The implications for our country are so serious that I feel a responsibility to my constituents in Connecticut, as well as to my conscience, to voice my concerns forthrightly and publicly, and I can think of no more appropriate place to do so than the floor of this great body. I have chosen to speak particularly at this time, before the Independent Counsel files his report, because while we do not know enough to answer the question of whether there are legal consequences from the President's conduct, we do know enough to answer a separate and distinct set of questions about the moral consequences for our country.
. . . it is hard to ignore the impact of the misconduct the President has admitted to on our children, our culture and our national character.
To begin with, I must respectfully disagree with the President's contention that his relationship with Monica Lewinsky and the way in which he misled us about it is "nobody's business but" his family's . . .
[ http://www.australianpolitics.com/... ]
From a Democratic perspective and in retrospect, and in light of all that has happened since, it seems ironic that Joe Lieberman claimed to have a "conscience" back in 1998.
No one runs for vice president so much as making oneself strategically available for the selection. [ http://www.senate.gov/... ]
During the Republicans' Clinton sex-scandal hype, Joe Lieberman opportunistically used the debate over Clinton's sex-life as a way to increase his own public profile and appeal to Republican "values" memes.
In his 1998 Senate speech Joe Lieberman made it clear that - in spite of a good economy, a decreasing deficit and international peace - Lieberman believed the US Congress should proceed with the
impeachment of President Bill Clinton because of matters originating entirely in his adult, lawful and consensual sex life. Lieberman attacked "the proud legacy of [Clinton's] presidency", and Gore effectively endorsed Lieberman's view of things by nominating Lieberman for Vice President. [
http://www.australianpolitics.com/... ]
Gore also endorsed a number of other Republican memes by nominating Lieberman. In his Clinton impeachment speech, Lieberman also denounced,
today's anything-goes culture, where sexual promiscuity is too often treated as just another lifestyle choice with little risk of adverse consequences. It is this mindset that has helped to threaten the stability and integrity of the family . . . [ http://www.australianpolitics.com/... ]
In the Lieberman/Republican world view that Gore implicitly endorsed in 2000, it is not joblessness, lack of health insurance, environmental degradation and war that threaten most threaten America's families. America's families are threatened by "lifestyle choices" and "sexual promiscuity".
Presumably, Clinton's Vice President, Al Gore, would not have agreed that Bill Clinton should be impeached, particularly in light of his otherwise successful record. But, by selecting Joe Lieberman as his running mate, Gore effectively endorsed not only the impeachment of Bill Clinton, but also the much-more- troubling proposition that private sex is more important than public peace and prosperity. It was that decision, in my opinion, that prevented Al Gore from being sworn in as President of the United States in January 2001.
Joe Lieberman said in his Bill Clinton impeachment speech,
The President's relationship with Miss Lewinsky not only contradicted the values he has publicly embraced over the past six years. It has compromised his moral authority at a time when Americans of every political persuasion agree that the decline of the family is one of the most pressing problems we as a nation are facing. [ http://www.australianpolitics.com/... ]
The Republicans couldn't have said it better. By agreeing with this formulation, and nominating Joe Lieberman, Al Gore conceded that Democrats lacked the "moral authority" to lead the nation and stop the "decline of the family". Nominating Joe Lieberman was Al Gore's answer to the alleged moral decline of the Bill Clinton Democratic Party.
Public opinion polls showed the public disagreed with Republicans about the importance of Clinton's sex life.
Economy Sustains Clinton's Popularity
Christian Science Monitor - October 9, 1998
Poll shows while most disapprove of Clinton's moral leadership, they trust him to keep creating new jobs
President Clinton's problems are piled sky high - yet his public- opinion ratings remain favorable. Why?
A new nationwide poll this week may help unravel the mystery.
One key appears to be the American economy. As stocks tumble in the United States and foreign economies falter, Americans trust Mr. Clinton to do the right thing to protect their jobs and their pocketbooks.
Despite the president's problems on the moral front, the Clinton years have been the most prosperous in modern American history. That has made a sharp impression on voters.
A nationwide survey conducted this week for The Christian Science Monitor found that most Americans think that removing the president from office at this time would damage the US economy.
The poll, conducted by TechnoMetrica Institute of Policy and Politics (TIPP), discovered that an underlying fear of an economic downturn could be a major factor sustaining Clinton's popular support.
Confidence in Clinton remains high, even though the public feels by a wide margin that he has done a poor job of providing moral leadership for the country.
The Monitor/TIPP poll found that Clinton's overall approval rating stands at 57 percent, while 40 percent disapprove of the job he is doing. Three percent were undecided.
What has the economy to do with these ratings?
Of those who approve of Clinton's job performance, 2 out of 3 say they fear the economy would be hurt if he were thrown out of office. [ http://www.tipponline.com/... ]
So, instead of running on the strengths of the Clinton presidency and asserting his role in those accomplishments, Gore acceded and surrendered to the Republican meme that we should all be ashamed of what happened during the Clinton Presidency and we make change our principal goal. Once having drunk this Republican Kool-Aid, many additional strategic decisions flowed from the fruit of this poisonous vine. Gore could not invite Clinton to campaign for Gore's election because the Republicans claimed Clinton was "radioactive" and Joe Lieberman said Clinton was immoral.
Even if Clinton had made a serious mistake, couldn't we just "move on" to more serious business, as so many members of the American public were increasingly anxious to do? Joe Lieberman said, "No".
Because the conduct the President has admitted to was so serious and his assumption of responsibility on August 17th so inadequate . . . Appealing as the latter option ["moving on"] may be to many people who are understandably weary of this crisis, the transgressions the President has admitted to are too consequential for us to walk away . . . With so much at stake, we now work together to resolve this serious challenge to our democracy. [ http://www.australianpolitics.com/... ]
The New Yorker has said,
The speech also earned Lieberman his place on the 2000 ticket, as a way for Al Gore to distance himself from Clinton's squalor.
[
http://www.newyorker.com/... ] [emphasis added] [
http://topics.nytimes.com/... ]
Lieberman's haughty piousness of 1998 would seem laughable in retrospect, had it not contributed to the election of George W. Bush in 2000. Even in 1998, Joe Lieberman was a zealous advocate of Republican memes.
By nominating Lieberman in 2000, Gore endorsed the "don't move on" school of impeachment, holding that prolonging and escalating the Clinton sex prosecution was really more important than the rest of the country's business, just like prolonging Terri Schiavo's life would later be more important to Lieberman than bringing US troops home from Iraq. [ http://en.wikipedia.org/... ]
Once Gore accepted the Republican view of the importance of the Clinton sex scandal, Gore could not accept help from Bill or Hillary Clinton, because that, Gore believed, would remind America not of our roaring economy, of peace in Ireland victory in the Balkans and peace agreements between Israel and the Palestinians. Instead, in spite of all of the eight years of Clinton's successes economically and internationally, Bill Clinton's help, it was claimed, would only remind America only of sex.
The Free Press summarized this point succinctly on September 1, 2000:
Given this remarkably conservative record, for a Democrat, why did Gore select him as his running mate? I think there were several factors at work. Gore felt he had to distance himself from Clinton's sex scandal and impeachment fiasco. What better way to separate himself than by embracing Clinton's chief Democratic critic? . . . But the primary reason Gore selected Lieberman is because they basically agree on nearly all important issues. Both men are centrist, "New Democrats." Gore's 2000 party platform soundly rejected liberal positions on literally every major issue--including capital punishment, health care, military spending, and assistance for the poor. Under the so-called "party of the people," the Gore-Lieberman ticket supports globalization, the death penalty, limited expansion of health coverage, and the allocation of federal resources for debt reduction rather than to rebuild inner cities or reduce black infant mortality. [ http://www.freepress.org/... ]
At the Democratic Convention in 2000, Gore said:
I stand here tonight as my own man, and I want you to know me for who I truly am, [ http://archives.cnn.com/... ]
pointedly rejecting any possibility of running on his record as Bill Clinton's vice president.
Of course, history has proved the Gore/Lieberman view of the primacy of Clinton's sex life to be entirely wrong. In the same election in which Al Gore lost the Presidency by running from Bill Clinton, Bill Clinton's own wife was elected to the US Senate. It was always incorrect in this case to believe that America would exalt sex over demonstrable substance.
Once having accepted this highly-distorted and self-serving Republican view, Al Gore eventually became so convinced of his own tenuous grasp on the presidency that Gore believed that only by running with a conservative, bible-thumping, piously religious, holier-than-thou bombast like Joe Lieberman could Gore shore up his chances of winning the presidency. Unable to run on is contribution to the mostly successful record of the Clinton years (successful from a mainstream standpoint), Gore became divorced from his political center and conceded his political identity. Suddenly, the "earth tone" colors of Gore's clothing became more important to Gore and the media than the condition of the American Clinton/Gore economy. [ http://observer.guardian.co.uk/... ]
Of course, Republican Presidential candidate George W. Bush promptly took advantage of the identity confusion apparent and implicit in Gore's rejection of Clinton and simultaneous embrace of Joe Lieberman.
As CNN reported in an August 2004 article describing response:
And, taking aim at what appears to Bush to be calculated decisions by the Gore campaign, he told delegates, "I believe great decisions are made with care, made with conviction, not made with polls." "I do not need to take your pulse before I know my own mind. I do not reinvent myself at every turn. I am not running in borrowed clothes," he said, in a reference to Gore's revamped wardrobe filled with earth tones. "When I act, you will know my reasons. When I speak, you will know my heart." [ http://archives.cnn.com/... ]
Whether Gore lost his bearings in 2000 or followed them implicitly with the selection of Joe Lieberman, and all that that selection represents, this is one of the most consequential and damning decision that Al Gore has ever made. There have been many publicly pious politicians running about the country over the last decade, many of whom have been imprisoned or discredited since 2000. Although the choice of such a running-mate was urged upon Al Gore by the media and conservatives, the choice of Joe Lieberman in particular was ultimately Al Gore's choice alone, and he must forever answer for it.
The Republicans were certainly pleased with Al Gore's choice of Joe Lieberman; regardless of which Party won the election, there would be a Republicrat in the Oval Office:
In Austin, Bush offered a curt "no comment" when asked of the Lieberman choice. But his chief spokesman, Ari Fleischer, said Lieberman was "a good man," before getting a dig in at Gore.
"It's nice that the vice president picked someone who agreed with Governor Bush on so many issues," Fleischer said, in reference to Lieberman's philosophical breaks with the Democratic Party on issues such as school vouchers.
Another Bush aide heaped praise on Lieberman. "Part of changing the tone," the aide said, "is to honor a good man when a good man is selected." Bush and his running mate, Dick Cheney, the aide continued, "respect Lieberman highly. He is intelligent and has a lot of integrity." [ http://archives.cnn.com/... ]
And Gore heaped praise on Lieberman as well, as reported in the CNN archives:
Gore then set out to heap praise upon his new partner prior to Lieberman's first public address as the Democratic Party's No. 2 man.
"When I set out to choose a running mate," Gore said, "I wanted someone who could work with me as a partner, someone who shares my values and believes in the promise of America. I wanted someone who would fight right alongside me for the people and not the powerful.
"Joe Lieberman has the experience and the integrity, he has the courage and the commitment, and for all of his public life, Joe Lieberman has stood for working families," Gore said. "No one is better prepared to be vice president of the United States of America."
Of course, Gore heaped praise on Lieberman because Gore had chosen Lieberman as his running mate. But that brings us back to the essential question, Why did Gore ever nominate Lieberman in the first place?
The question seemed even more pressing after the pseudo-debate presidential between Joe Lieberman and Dick Cheney. Even at the time, the "debate" seemed suspiciously amicable, given all of the damning and prescient facts about Cheney's relationship to Halliburton that Lieberman failed to raise during the debate.
Both candidates told CNN they had prepared for much tougher rhetoric. Dick Cheney said he and Lieberman joked afterward that they could have set aside much of their preparation had they known the polite tenor of the sole vice presidential debate. [ http://archives.cnn.com/... ]
Even if Clinton's infidelity made it harder for Al Gore to win in 2000, was nominating Joe Lieberman the only way to confront that added difficulty? Did it really help Gore or anyone else, in retrospect? Wasn't Hillary Clinton right about the effect of Clinton's infidelity? She stayed with Bill Clinton anyway, ran for a US Senate seat and won. Wasn't Al Gore-Lieberman proved wrong, when Gore ran ran from Bill Clinton and thereby lost the presidency.
If Clinton-fatigue was anything more than a Republican meme, why didn't Hillary Clinton lose along with Al Gore?
If Gore were nominated again, would he be the 2000 Al Gore who nominated Joe Lieberman or the 2006 Al Gore who became an ardent environmental activist after he lost the 2000 election? Gore "reinvented" himself by nominating Lieberman and wearing earth tones in 2000, and then he reinvented himself again, by becoming an advocate for the earth after 2000. [ http://archives.cnn.com/... ]
Has Gore's "reinvention" been successful or will he again revert to the Gore who nominated Lieberman in 2000? David Sirota's not so sure. Sirota has said,
Optimistically, I'd like to believe he could continue to be the same person. But there's enormous pressure from inside the establishment for candidates to conform. So he would have to go in with the attitude that he understood that pressure and specifically and deliberately rejected it. [ http://observer.guardian.co.uk/... ]
Did the nomination of Joe Lieberman show "leadership" or was it symptomatic of a fear-based and misguided political expediency in the face of adverse Republican branding? If Gore were the Democrats' presidential candidate again, would he again run from the Clinton record, even in light of all that has happened since under President George W. Bush? Could Gore own being a Democrat and run unapologetically as one in 2008, or would he again feel the need for a Lieberman-type pious Republicrat to shore up Gore's pro-family credentials?
Just as we may never know precisely why Gore nominated Lieberman in 2000, it is impossible to know now what Gore would do in 2008 if he were again entrusted with this responsibility. What kind of person would Gore choose as his running mate in 2008? We can do nothing but speculate. Still, informed speculation - based on the candidates' public records - is a necessary part of choosing the next President of the United States. And when making such an important choice, reference to a candidate's past monumental mistakes is a legitimate and necessary aid for discerning the future.