Going for the Fan - we are so "habit trained," aren't we?
Lieberman's positions veer from his party's
By Jill Lawrence, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON - Joe Lieberman is on the presidential campaign trail, embracing his inner centrist. Wherever he goes, he calls himself "an independent-minded Democrat." His rivals, he says, are big spenders, weak on defense, or both.
Since taking this new tack this month, the Connecticut senator and former candidate for vice president has been booed and hissed by liberals. He has watched his national poll standing erode, though he still leads the field. And he has left some Democrats wondering whether the strategy can possibly succeed.
"I'm the one candidate who can defeat George Bush," Lieberman tells Democratic audiences, trumpeting his support for "mainstream values" and the "just war" to oust Saddam Hussein.
Lieberman remains the best-known name in the nine-person Democratic field. But his prominence isn't helping him much in a year when many in his party want anything but an avuncular moderate who strongly supported the war in Iraq.
"This is me," Lieberman said in an interview Sunday, referring to his long record of moderate positions. He says his approach is similar to former president Bill Clinton's and now is "more right than ever."
Yet several Democratic strategists suggest Lieberman is following an outdated model. In 1992, after 12 years of a Republican White House, "Democratic voters were ready for a little pragmatism" in the form of centrist Clinton, says Democratic consultant Anita Dunn. But after losing ground in 2000 and 2002, she says, "It's breakout time."
The vehicle of that breakout is former Vermont governor Howard Dean, an outspoken war opponent. He is raising large amounts of money and polling well in the crucial first two contests, Jan. 19 in Iowa and Jan. 27 in New Hampshire. Lieberman is fourth in those states.
The Connecticut senator leads the Democratic field so far in South Carolina and Arizona, which will hold primaries Feb. 3. His lead in national polls reflects his high name recognition. But there are signs that advantage may be fading. Dean and Missouri Rep. Richard Gephardt are tied only 3 percentage points behind Lieberman in the latest national USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll.
Mark Penn, Lieberman's pollster, says his candidate has "a coalition of moderates and minorities that the other candidates don't really have and aren't building." His research shows only one-third of primary voters in most states are liberal. But Marc Landy, a political analyst at Boston College, says that may understate the percentage because "the word has slipped out of fashion, and therefore you don't want to call yourself liberal."
What's indisputable is that Lieberman is out of step with his party's growing discomfort with the war in Iraq. A USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll last month found 56% of Democrats did not think it was worth fighting, up from 40% who felt that way in April. Furthermore, says Democratic pollster Peter Hart, Lieberman lacks punch on the stump: "The challenge for Lieberman isn't ideology. It's electricity."
Lieberman's campaign began without the splash or assertiveness one might have expected from a veteran of a national ticket.
He was behind other candidates on fundraising, staffing and endorsements.
Lieberman's first-quarter fundraising was so weak ? he was fourth with $3 million ? that questions about his viability arose. He rebounded in the second quarter with $5.1 million, then shook up his staff and adopted his defiantly moderate persona. "He's growing as a candidate," says Tom Nides, who managed Lieberman's campaign in 2000.
Even so, a better campaign won't erase the disconnect between Lieberman and the liberal, anti-Bush core of the party. Donna Brazile, who managed nominee Al Gore's 2000 campaign, says Lieberman has "a great record of standing and fighting for issues that Democrats care about. That's what they want to hear. Not 'I stand with Bush.' "
Like the other eight Democrats running for president, Lieberman is supportive of the causes promoted by feminists, minorities, environmentalists, union members, gay men and lesbians and other party stalwarts.
Just Thursday, in San Francisco, he called Bush "the worst environmental president in the history of the nation." But Lieberman's positions sometimes are more nuanced than those of his rivals:
?He favors limited experiments with school vouchers, which offers public funds to pay private tuition. That stance drew boos at an AFL-CIO forum in Chicago last week.
?Several candidates say they would give the same legal rights to gay partners as married couples. Lieberman says he would "initiate a methodical review" of the rights and decide case by case which to grant. Most of the candidates oppose same-sex marriage, but only Lieberman was booed for that position Aug. 11 at a party forum at Oklahoma State University.
?Lieberman, who first proposed the new Department of Homeland Security, sided with labor unions when Bush wanted to reduce job protections in the fledgling agency. The price of the resulting impasse, some political analysts said, was Democratic losses in the 2002 congressional elections. Still, Lieberman is not a union favorite, largely because he favors free-trade agreements opposed by organized labor.
Few of those positions in themselves are enough to alienate potential backers. But Lieberman's gung-ho support of the war in Iraq, which also drew boos this week at the Stillwater forum, is often a deal-breaker. Some liberals are also put off by Lieberman's crusades against Hollywood sex and violence. And some of them don't like his overt religiosity; he is an Orthodox Jew who observes traditional rituals and talks easily about God.
His religion is "one of the reasons Lieberman may not be taking off," says Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a political analyst at the University of Southern California who is Jewish. "The fact that the Mideast is so volatile and so roiled may have hurt Lieberman just as it would an Arab-American" candidate for president, she says. "The voters would see each of them as coming from a perspective.
Some Democrats find elements of Lieberman's conservatism appealing. "I personally think it's a mistake to go into an election against the war," says Sandra Feldman, president of the American Federation of Teachers. Joe Erwin, chairman of the South Carolina Democratic Party, says voters appreciate Lieberman's challenges to Hollywood and his "free and open" talk about God. "He has a cultural bond" with the state, he says.
Nides says Lieberman's "distinguishing characteristics" can help him win the nomination and the White House. In 2000, those were his upright reputation and his early condemnation of Bill Clinton's behavior with Monica Lewinsky. Lieberman "restored a sense of integrity that had been lost around the Clinton scandals," says Gina Glantz, a union strategist who ran Gore rival Bill Bradley's 2000 campaign. But now, she says, "he has placed himself outside the Democratic mainstream."
Lieberman likes to talk about a Democrat in New Hampshire who gives out buttons that say "Liberals for Lieberman." As for the war, he says, "you hope that they'll respect you for your integrity."
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