Mark Shields: If Al Gore Could Change One Thing
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By Mark Shields
What if he had picked Bob Graham instead of Joe Lieberman as his VP running mate?
Based only on a strong hunch, I’m willing to bet that if Al Gore could change one decision in his public life, it would be that, as the 2000 Democratic presidential nominee, he would have asked then-Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla. — not Joe Lieberman, D-Conn. — to be his vice presidential running mate.
Think about it: Gore lost the White House because, by the “official” count, he lost Florida by 537 votes out of nearly 6 million cast. Graham, who never lost a Florida election and was twice elected governor and three times U.S. senator (and who had the sense and strength in 2002 to oppose the United States going to war against Iraq), undoubtedly would have guaranteed Gore winning the Sunshine State’s 25 electoral votes and the White House.
A Gore-Graham 2000 ticket would have meant, simply, that there never would have been either a President George W. Bush or a Vice President Dick Cheney.
But Gore chose Lieberman in 2000, in large part because on Sept. 3, 1998, Lieberman had become the first Democratic senator to publicly chastise President Bill Clinton for Clinton’s “sordid’ and “immoral” misconduct with Monica Lewinsky. As Clinton’s White House spokesman, Joe Lockhart, explained to a resistant Clinton on the day Gore picked Lieberman, “I think this is saying ‘screw you’ to Bill Clinton.”
In 2004, as the Democratic Party’s most recent VP nominee, Lieberman was treated as a serious presidential candidate. That January in New Hampshire, I followed around Sen. Chris Dodd, who had put his own White House ambitions on hold to back his Connecticut colleague, as he campaigned long and hard in union meetings and social clubs in support of Lieberman, who ended up in fifth place with just 9 percent of the vote.
So it was a little surprising in 2007 when Dodd did launch his own long-shot presidential campaign that Lieberman didn’t even wait until the Iowa caucuses before breaking party ranks to endorse Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.
In defense of Lieberman’s scorning of Dodd, it was argued that Dodd — who had energetically backed Lieberman against a strong anti-Iraq war opponent in the 2006 Connecticut Senate primary — did endorse the primary winner, Ned Lamont, in the fall election.
Another Lieberman backer was the first-term Illinois senator who was recruited by Lieberman to be principal speaker at the pre-primary Democratic state dinner. At the event, Barack Obama, too, endorsed Lieberman.
Lieberman in 2008 was no sunshine soldier in the McCain army. He endorsed Sarah Palin, addressed the Republican convention and campaigned across the continent with high-minded words such as: “The fact that the spokesperson for Hamas would say they would welcome the election of Sen. Obama really raises the question why. And it suggests the difference between these two candidates.” Just a little guilt by association.
In 1964, John Bell Williams, then an 18-term Democratic House member from Mississippi, deserted his party and endorsed Republican Barry Goldwater for president. After that election, the House Democratic caucus stripped Williams of his seniority.
But after the 2008 election, the “Can’t We All Get Along?” spirit of Rodney King seized Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. For the very same act for which Williams had been punished with the loss of his considerable seniority 44 years earlier, Lieberman was “rewarded,” over the opposition of Sens. Pat Leahy, D-Vt., and Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, with the chairmanship of the Senate Homeland Security Committee. Boy, won’t that teach a tough lesson to anyone considering betraying his party?
To watch Senate Democrats and the White House fall over backward to accommodate the mood swings of Lieberman on health-care reform is to understand why MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough asked Vice President Joe Biden if Obama is liked, but not feared, in Congress. Biden insisted those who don’t fear Obama “are underestimating the steel in this guy’s spine.”
If you doubt it, just ask committee chairman Lieberman.
— Mark Shields is one of the most widely recognized political commentators in the United States. The former Washington Post editorial columnist appears regularly on CNN, on public television and on radio. Click here to contact him.
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