Joe Lieberman was his running mate partly because of his finger wagging BAD BILL speech on the Senate floor.

Gore liked the Clintons, but his advisors told him to run from them.

You gave us Bush. She ran a horrible campaign.

We almost deserved to lose with him on the ticket.

But the horribly run campaign was a major factor in it being close enough to steal.

he was a fairly liberal, avuncular, understanding, and folksy kind of guy. He was religious, but not jerky about it, and he acknowledged that even his orthodoxy would go by the wayside should he be required for reasons of national security on the sabbath. He had an attractive and personable spouse who did good works, and he could tell a good story. People LIKED him. Everyone was kind of excited at the prospect of seeing the Jewish glass ceiling cracked in the Executive branch. The fact that he was observant was regarded as a plus by many.

He only got surly and angry when he lost "his" nomination to that irritating upstart who positioned himself to the left of him on the war. It infuriated him so much he pulled a sour grapes/sore loser stunt and ran as an "Independent Democrat" or something on those lines, and pulled it off, beating LaMont and the Republican whose name escapes me.

In retrospect, people also look at what changes could have changed the outcome. I think Lieberman did a terrible job in the VP debate where he actually humanized Cheney, rather than exposed how extreme Cheney was. But, especially in an election where Gore won the popular vote and should have won Florida, the question is whether a more energetic Democratic ticket could have made it too big a win to steal.

But, no one anticipates how an election will be stolen in the US. I suspect that it was perhaps for winning Florida, where Lieberman was treated as a rock star in areas around Palm Beach, that Lieberman was chosen. (no coincidence that this was the area with the troubled ballot ??) Had the election been fairly conducted, FL would have gone to Gore and Lieberman would have been credited. Had Gore won, there would have been no discussion of votes pulled away by Nader. No one would make a big deal of Gore losing TN or that winning NH would have been enough to win - even without Florida.

I suspect that Lieberman's surliness happened earlier. I think the roots were in his agreement on the need to attack Iraq and other middle eastern countries. I didn't see much anger ... or much Lieberman, for that matter, in 2004. He likely was shocked that he had almost no support. I remember that he briefly campaigned for Kerry in places like FL, but he was singularly unhelpful as he spent most of his time defending the Iraq war and Bush.

The first time I can date when he was surly and angry was his incredibly nasty obnoxious attacks on Kerry and Feingold when they defended their resolution. That was in summer 2006 and very likely the reason that Kerry and Feingold both refused to back Lieberman when Lamont ran against him - even though it is pretty customary for sitting Democrats to do so - as Clinton (and Bill Clinton) and Obama did in the primary.

for his sexual whatevers.... This was something the two of them agreed upon before the campaign started. Many people, for instance, in the Bible Belt would not be voting for Dems because of those episodes. My own step-mother, a life-long Democrat, changed her registration to Republican and remains so to this day. She lives in Tennessee, and Tennesseans do not get over these type of scandals. Corruption, yes - sex, never!

Once a semen-stained blue dress enters the picture, it stays in the political picture forever!

Sam

Sid

...question. As far as campaigning, I believe Gore wanted to "distance" himself from Clinton. I consider that a mistake by Gore and his advisors.

She was running for the Senate that year. Gore was advised to distance himself from the Clintons (the main reason he chose the dreadful Joe Lieberman as his running mate). So those are really kind of silly and irrelevant questions.

His campaign didn't want any help from Bill or Hillary. It wasn't even a question for her to answer.

That's a silly question.

Really doesn't seem worth a thread to me.

Al Gore over Bill Bradley in the Democratic primary.

And she was busy with her own campaign; they did appear at least twice together in NY though.

You have absolutely no evidence she didn't vote for Gore, other than a lazy "we all know she's really a Republican" attitude.