The
Vice Presidential candidate for the
U.S. Democratic Party in the
2000 election. Currently a two-term
Senator from
Connecticut, he served as Connecticut's
attorney general and then for ten years as a state Senator before moving to the United States
Congress.
Senator Lieberman is already attracting press attention because he's known as an orthodox Jew who will not campaign on the Sabbath, and is the first orthodox Jew to run for the office of Vice President in the United States. Thanks to Clinton's scandal/fiasco with Monica Lewinsky, the Democratic Party is in need of a major "family values" facelift, and Sen. Lieberman is clearly intended to help provide that. He was one of the first Senators to publicly criticize Clinton over his affair with Lewinsky. This is despite, or perhaps because of, the fact that Lieberman and Clinton are political friends; Clinton worked on Lieberman's state Senate campaign, and Lieberman was the first Northeast politician to endorse Clinton's presidential campaign in 1992.
Lieberman has been described as a "self-styled moral crusader", although his political history has shown him moving from a liberal perspective and voting record towards the middle ground; he has in recent years been outspoken about the excess of sex and violence on daytime television. Probably moreso than any other single event, his criticism of Clinton for lying about the Lewinsky affair solidified him publicly as an advocate for family values and the importance of moral propriety in the Presidential office. It's Al Gore's hope that this will help draw Republican votes to his bid for the Presidency.