Friday, Aug 29, 2008
Gore's vice-presidential pick, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, has a reputation as a centrist respected by all -- and that's an image he's worked hard to cultivate.
Aug 8, 2000 | On March 9, Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman -- Vice President Al Gore's pick for running mate, as of Monday -- stood at a press conference with his fellow members of the "Senate New Democrat Coalition" and offered up his group's first tangible legislative proposal.
It was a controversial education bill, offered as an amendment to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, and it was seen as a moderate, if not downright Republican, proposal for allowing greater flexibility in how local school districts can spend federal money.
"It was a great bill," says a Republican source familiar with the first draft, which Lieberman shared with Republican senators.
"It consolidated hundreds of federal programs into five. It created much more flexibility [for schools to use federal funds] than any of us had ever seen from a Democrat. It tied Title I monies to school performance, it had strenuous teacher testing."
"He showed us a little leg and we were drooling all over the place," the source says.
On the other hand, news of Lieberman's negotiations angered Democratic leaders like Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota and liberal stalwart Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, who reportedly resented not being consulted by Lieberman and his "New Democrat Coalition." In fact, Senate critics said, Lieberman kept the Democratic leadership out of the loop almost entirely.
"They said, 'Please work with us,'" reports a high-ranking Democratic Senate staffer. "But Joe just sort of stuck with his rhetoric. 'We're New Democrats. We favor a new approach. We're tired of the old policies.' And after all, this was a good, sexy political issue."
And it helped him continue a tradition, followed since he was elected to the Senate in 1988, of being a creature apart from the traditional divisions of the Senate.
In order to pull other centrist Democrats on board, Lieberman added funding for school construction to the bill -- with more spending restrictions (i.e., less "flexibility" in what the money could be spent on) than the Republicans wanted. "As he was negotiating with both sides, it began to break apart," reports the GOP source. "He couldn't give us enough, and he couldn't give his side enough."
When Lieberman's legislation came up for a vote as one of the first Democratic amendments in early May, "it was clear that he had acquiesced to the Democratic leadership to let the bill go down early, as a big defeat, to keep the troops in line," the source says.
In the end, Lieberman's bill failed miserably, 13 (all Democrats) to 84. Lieberman got not one Republican vote, and barely a fourth of the 45-member Senate Democratic caucus, to which he belongs.
Lieberman's loser of an amendment isn't atypical for the moderate Democrat seen by liberals in his party as all too eager to work with the GOP. Gore's selection of Lieberman can be seen as shrewd, because Lieberman's bipartisan magnanimity can, and has, prompted nothing but goodwill from Republicans.
"Lieberman is a clever choice for Gore," says Jim Nicholson, chairman of the Republican National Committee. "But it's also a curious choice because there are several key issues where the two men disagree." Nicholson cites Social Security reform, missile defense, school choice, parental notification on abortion, capital gains tax cuts, and tort reform among these. "So we look forward to their first debate," he quips.
So why is the choice "clever"? "Because it's an attempt to bring to the Democratic ticket the integrity, candor and bipartisanship that Gore so clearly lacks," Nicholson says.
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