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A Democrat who can red-bait Republicans

By Al Hart, Solidarity4Ever
7 August 2000

The news media is reporting that Al Gore will name Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman as his running mate. Lieberman is a member of the rightist Democratic Leadership Conference (DLC) and a consistent free trader. He has made a name for himself in the Senate as an Orthodox Jewish Democrat who likes to line up with Christian Conservative Republicans on so-called "moral issues."

I lived in Connecticut from 1987 to 1990, and 1988 was one of the few times in my life when I voted for a Republican. If I had the chance to vote in that election again, I'd mark my ballot the same way.

Incumbent Senator Lowell Weiker, a maverick liberal Republican, was up for reelection, and his Democratic challenger was State Attorney General Joe Lieberman. Lieberman ran against Weiker from the right. Conservative guru William F. Buckley (a Connecticut resident) endorsed Lieberman and enthusiastically stumped to get out the right wing vote for him. So did most of the Repubicans in the Connecticut legislature.

But for me the telling moment of the campaign was a televised debate, in which Lieberman attacked Weiker for the latter's support for lifting the embargo and reopening diplomatic relations with Cuba. Lieberman said to Weiker, "You're closer to Fidel Castro than you are to Ronald Reagan."

With the Reaganite vote and the votes of most Democrats, Lieberman easily won the election.

For progressives who were waiting to see who Gore's VP pick would be before deciding whether they should back Ralph Nader, or resign themselves to Gore in order to "stop the right", the choice should now be much easier. The lesser evil just got even lesser, and more evil.

Al Hart