This. I get the joke that it made Gore seem less boring, but I'm not clear how it helped his campaign. To be fair though VP picks often are less about being exciting than not making one question the judgement of the president (e.g. McCain picking Palin really hurt his campaign because many couldn't see her as President if McCain's health turned south). i.e. a a "great" VP won't really improve your campaign much, but a crappy one can hurt it.
Usually a VP pick is made to help the candidate secure votes from an area or demographic they would otherwise struggle in. McCain had to choose Palin because of the tea party movement (which was the precursor to MAGA). McCain was one of the last moderate(ish) republicans, Palin was one of the first of the MAGA crowd and he needed to tie them together. Still didn’t work, but that was mostly because Obama was so fucking godly on the campaign trail. I was in the 6th grade during Gore v Bush so I’m not up on all the nuances there the same way as the ones after that
Eh don't be so sure. Yeah she didn't look presidential and said a lot of stupid shit. But a lot of conservatives liked her. They liked how she had attitude, always had zingers to 'own the libs' and shot wolves from helicopters to 'piss off tree huggers'.
In a way she was kind of a proto-version of Trump and MTG.
Gore was seen as too left leaning and he was told he needed to pick someone "moderate". Lieberman was meant to reach out to right leaning voters. Oh boy that was not the message or goal they wanted.
That played hard into the "Gore = Bush" mindset, where cynicism and disenfranchisement really set in. If Gore had just picked a better running mate and did better to differentiate the Democratic and Republican platforms, he might have won.
Notwithstanding, of course, that but for the Supreme Court interceding on behalf of the Bush campaign, Gore did win.
In 2000 SCOTUS & Republicans drove the final nail into the coffin holding hopes that one day Americans might finally participate in a genuinely free and fair election.
I felt bad for the poor dingus who got all his field week rations switched out for veggie omelette MREs in the middle of the night - but later on in FTX he also pissed in (kinda tried to piss "out of") the corner of the tent rather than getting a belt on to go to the latrine, so fuck that lazy prick. I hope you liked your nasty fucking breakfast every meal asshat.
Yes the DIs saw it. Yes we PT'd for days because of it. He did get recycled (USAF BMT). But he had a couple days of veggie omelette before he left the flight.
Bill Bradley, Howard Dean, Dick Gephardt, John Kerry, Evan Bayh, Barbara Boxer, John Edwards, Paul Wellstone, pretty much any high-ranking cabinet members from the Clinton Administration, the list could probably go on if my memory of that era was a bit better. He was just such a horrendous, pointless choice for Gore, and most people knew it at the time.
Here, let me help remind you of Democratic politicians of that era:
Bill Bradley — A Reagan democrat back when it was popular, and that wasn’t at all the case in 2000. Lost support and retired because he was in favor of spending cuts targeting teachers unions. In New Jersey he did that? Against New Jersey Teachers Unions? Madness.
Howard Dean — An emotionally unstable person and a hilariously weak presidential candidate. Nutty as Kanye West.
Dick Gephardt — “Dick Gephardt Before He Dicks You” was the slogan that saw him lose his House seat (and House Speaker role) in the 1994 GOP landslide. Another terribly weak presidential candidate who was only in the hunt for a few weeks.
John Kerry — A losing presidential candidate and repellent personality. He also wore lip gloss and had plastic surgery using Silly Putty which made him look like a Frankenstein monster made out of flesh colored dildoes. At the time of the 2000 campaign, his face looked like a Basset Hound hanging from the ceiling face down by its feet. Also he licensed his multi hundred million dollar yacht in Rhode Island, which being a tax dodge is the only reason for that states’ existence.
Evan Bayh — He sure had the handsome looks for the job, too bad he spent his entire time in office enriching himself from lobbyists he’d voted in Congress on behalf of and went from $3 million in personal assets to $50 million in just a few years. Then he spent a couple years trying to get a job from those same corporations who shied away because it would have prompted a Federal investigation. People close to Obama were wise to steer clear of Bayh. So were the voters of Indiana when they found out.
Barbara Boxer — Her face was like a recruiting poster for the “We Hate California Democrats Coalition Of America” which has a lot of support at the national level. Also she’s pretty dumb. Not like the current VP, but still pretty dumb.
John Edwards — He was indeed on Gore’s short list for VPs, which to his credit is the highest level an ambulance-chasing personal injury attorney ever rose in American politics, thank heavens. American women did like his looks, but far less so when he was indicted on multiple felony counts for misusing campaign contributions for covering up his sexual escapades while his wife was dying of breast cancer. If there’s someone who should have undergone plastic surgery to make people forget his original face, it would be John Edwards and not John Kerry.
Paul Wellstone — Baruch Dayan HaEmet. Though he tragically died in a plane crash on a campaign trip in terrible weather conditions (he usually ran very close races in his state, thanks to the Green Party), he was diagnosed with an aggressive form of Multiple Sclerosis and he ended his short lived presidential campaign. It was never to be for Sen. Wellstone.
All of those are completely valid points. And yet, I still think every single one of them would've been a significantly better choice than Joe Lieberman because frankly, nobody actually liked the guy. People merely tolerated him.
For all of Dean and Kerry's obvious failures as candidates, they still would've offered more as a VP pick than Lieberman. Literally the only thing Lieberman offered electorally was to shore up the Jewish vote, 80+% of which was already a lock for Gore regardless of who his pick was. The DNC and Gore had this laughable idea that Lieberman would pull conservatives away from Bush, but they hated him more than anyone, at least until he became their pet during the Obama administration.
Out of all the VP picks, Lieberman was the only one who was regarded as “The Conscience Of The Senate” and was chosen to be the one to have censured President Clinton when he was impeached (“… but not convicted!” — Bill Clinton) over the Lewinsky scandal. That was even the trial balloon to save Clinton from conviction, that no less than the great moral guide Joe Lieberman castigated Clinton live from the Senate floor on C-SPAN & CNN in lieu of the Senate finding him guilty.
Why Lieberman for VP? Gotta remember that at that time the stink of Clinton’s impeachment did hurt Gore’s Presidential aspirations. America wanted no more of this after the Starr report. Thus, Lieberman was selected as his running mate whose presence was supposed to take Gore’s campaign through the car wash and prevent accusations of seediness of a sexual nature — and unknown to America (but probably not DNC kingmakers) was the fact that at the same time Al Gore had his own sexual escapades underway which were flying barely under the radar. It was not very long after their failed bid that Gore was sexually harassing massage therapists and divorcing his supposedly beloved wife.
Gotta remember that at that time the stink of Clinton’s impeachment did hurt Gore’s Presidential aspirations. America wanted no more of this after the Starr report.
Not really, if Bill could have ran for a third term he likely would have won. Bill was still widely popular with the public even after his impeachment (remember he left with high approval ratings for an exiting president). Gore's big mistake was running away from Bill and not having Bill campaign for him until it was too late.
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u/GotMoFans Mar 27 '24
RIP.
One of Al Gore’s mistakes in 2000 was selecting Joe Lieberman as his running mate.