Leiberman gets mad.
December 17, 2003
THE CONNECTICUT SENATOR
Gore Rejection Sends Jolt of Life Into Lieberman's Bid
By DIANE CARDWELL - New York Times
MANCHESTER, N.H., Dec. 16 — Ten days ago, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman was trying to rally his troops and win over voters here with sober policy discussions about families and values. "I'm presenting an agenda that values families and makes it easier for parents to give children the values they want to give them," he said at the time.
But in the span of a week, he has become a man transformed. He has made apparent his bitterness over his rejection by Al Gore, his 2000 running mate who endorsed Howard Dean, saying pointedly that he was unwilling to discuss his "sense of loyalty."
He has called for the death of Saddam Hussein, arguing that justice cries out for the "ultimate penalty" for the "evil man" who was captured in Iraq on Saturday.
And each day he issues a new snappy attack on Dr. Dean. On Monday, Dr. Dean was in "a spider hole of denial." On Tuesday, "Dr. Dean has become Dr. No."
The changes in Mr. Lieberman's once-sleepy campaign certainly have given his staff a much-needed jolt.
As he made his way, surrounded by a large, unwieldy pack of reporters on Tuesday, around a circuit-board manufacturer here, his campaign aides looked on in dazed glee. "It gets more interesting by the day around here," said one, grinning broadly and shaking his head at the sudden attention.
Moments later, Mr. Lieberman alluded to the changed atmosphere of his campaign, opening an economics and foreign policy speech by saying, "It's been quite a week, hasn't it?"
For months, Mr. Lieberman and his centrist campaign have been overshadowed by the antiwar excitement fueling Dr. Dean's popularity, and more than a few experts questioned his viability as he lagged in fund-raising and opinion polls. But with the capture of Mr. Hussein, Mr. Lieberman's steadfastly pro-war stance seems suddenly more popular.
"We feel something building here," Mr. Lieberman told reporters on Tuesday, adding that there had been an upswing in people clicking onto his Web site and that more people had been calling his headquarters. "Something's happening here."
Although Mr. Lieberman has shied away from predicting how the capture of Mr. Hussein will affect his campaign, that has not stopped him from seizing, and creating, every opportunity to hammer away at the differences between himself and the former Vermont governor.
Schedules reserved for private events have been suddenly packed with television appearances and conference calls to reporters, and the campaign is set to air new advertisements on Wednesday on some of his anti-Dean themes.
"It's dramatic how the campaign is fired up and Senator Lieberman is fired up," said Katrina Swett, a supporter who described the campaign before the Gore endorsement as just "soldiering on."
"We really sense that we have emerged as the alternative to Howard Dean," she said, adding, "This is something we've been saying all along, but now people seem to be listening."
Campaigning in Arizona and New Mexico, Dr. Dean brushed off criticism from Mr. Lieberman and Senator John Kerry, who also took Dr. Dean to task over Iraq. Dr. Dean labeled the attacks "silliness."
On Tuesday, Mr. Lieberman chose to talk about Dr. Dean's positions on everything from national security to tax cuts, trade policy and how to create jobs in his sharpest and most comprehensive attack yet. The speech, originally planned to focus only on economic policies, was so frantically reworked to include foreign policy that aides were still busy collating it moments before Mr. Lieberman's arrival at the Electropac plant.
"The fact is Governor Dean has made a series of dubious judgments and irresponsible statements in this campaign that altogether signal he would, in fact, take us back to the days when Democrats were not trusted to defend our security," Mr. Lieberman said, mentioning Dr. Dean about 20 times, nearly twice as many times as he mentioned President Bush. "Add it all up and here's the choice. Will we strengthen the American middle class and help business thrive again? Or will we compromise our security, shrink opportunity and sap our strength?"
Later, the campaign sent to reporters via e-mail a link to its Web site featuring a side-by-side comparison on where the two candidates stood on the issues.
One column was titled, "Joe Lieberman: Forward to Tomorrow's Fresh Start," while the other was labeled, "Howard Dean: Backward to Yesterday's Tired Ideas."
Mr. Lieberman argued that with his decade of service on the Senate Armed Services Committee and support for the military he would be more able to keep the country safe than Dr. Dean, who opposed the war and said that the United States should prepare for a day when it no longer had the strongest military.
He also said that Dr. Dean wanted to raise taxes, re-regulate business and impose new trade barriers.
"That would start a trade war and cost millions of Americans their jobs," Mr. Lieberman said. "The man who didn't want to fight a war we should have fought now wants to start a war we shouldn't start."
Dr. Dean ignored the specifics of his rivals' remarks on Tuesday, and when asked why he thought the capture would not make the country safer, he said, "Because the real enemy of America is Al Qaeda."
He disputed Mr. Lieberman's suggestion that Mr. Hussein would still be in power had he been president, saying that he would have continued to put "enormous pressure on him" through the United Nations on the issue of unconventional weapons.
But he dismissed questions about any timeline of how he would have handled the Iraq problem as "woulda-coulda-shoulda."
Mr. Lieberman has also been tossing grenades in the direction of Wesley K. Clark, who his aides believe poses a threat in New Hampshire and who is also hoping to break out on Feb. 3 when the primaries move to the South and the West.
He has lumped General Clark in with Dr. Dean for his opposition of the war, but has accused him of waffling.
"I respect Howard for the consistency of his position," Mr. Lieberman told reporters. "Wes Clark took several positions on the war but finally said that he would be opposed to it."
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