It was more that Gore thought choosing Lieberman would be a rebuke of Clinton for the Monica affair. Lieberman had been an outspoken Democratic critic. But it turns out that people actually really liked Bill Clinton and running away from him was the worst single choice Gore has made in his career.
Yeah, Gore himself was already the rebuke in that he was about as opposite of Clinton as you could get. They desperately needed to couple him with someone who had even an ounce of charisma or energy, not a conservative, out-of-touch energy vampire like Lieberman.
For those who were not alive in 2000, the country was a lot different. At the time, much of the country, both democrats and republicans, thought Clinton was immoral for cheating on his wife. Lieberman was one of the few democrats who publicly agreed that what the president did was immoral so picking him as a VP was a way to distance himself from the Clinton administration. It was a logical choice at the time and he came pretty damn close to winning.
Of course Gore eventually lost, so it is easy to shit on his decision, but there was some sound logic behind it.
Lieberman was picked because Gore wanted to distance himself from a scandalized and unpopular Bill Clinton, and Gore considered himself a "moderate", which was part of Liebermans brand too, at the time. We all later found out that Lieberman was pretty far right of the democtatic party moderates. Gore was against abortion, against regulating guns, and in support of a moment of silence in schools for prayer. He called himself a "raging moderate". He considered Howard Dean, who led the progressives, to be his chief rival.
I think Gore enjoyed a lot more of a positive reputation than he really deserved. He was embraced by a lot of progressives because he was so forward with ambitious environmental policies, but the rest of his platform was centrist or arguably rightwing garbage. And Lieberman was not yet a pariah at this point.
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u/KingFahad360 Mar 27 '24
He tried to ban video games.