Joe Lieberman as the Democrats’ Sarah Palin?

I’ve never understood why Al Gore chose Joe Lieberman as his running mate in 2000.  Lieberman did nothing to balance the ticket.  Virtually nobody thought of Gore as a Southerner, including the people of Tennessee.  Choosing the Connecticut Yankee who had a solid reputation in Washington but was pretty much unknown outside the Beltway was a case of one Washington insider putting another on his ticket, one perceived Northeastern elitist running with another.

He was a poor campaigner, a smug, unctuous, uninspiring, sanctimonious smirker so eager to please other establishment types that he let himself get steamrolled in his debate with Dick Cheney and then sat there looking grateful for it.  And when push came to shove in the fight over the Florida recount he was a cheerful defeatist advocating surrender and giving aid and comfort to the Republicans every step of the way.

Looking back on it, you have to wonder if this was not so much gutlessness on his part but self-interest.  I think as soon as it looked as though Gore had lost Lieberman saw his own path to the White House open up and he decided to do nothing to help close it up.

Now we know that Joe Lieberman isn’t a loyal Democrat or an actual Independent.  He probably wouldn’t be a good Republican if and when he switches parties.  He’s a die-hard Libermantonian, a staunch Joe-ist, and nothing else, and it’s hard to believe that people in the position to know this about him, like Gore himself, missed this about him.

What Lierberman did do was signal Gore’s break with Bill Clinton, but breaking with Clinton made no sense since the main reason for voting for Gore was that he would continue the very popular President’s policies that had brought the country years of peace and prosperity. 

Sarah Palin is getting the celebrity treatment this weekend because, well, she is a celebrity.  And at this point it’s not that she’s an accidental celebrity, the way she was last fall. She is famous for being famous.  Trying to claim that she’s newsworthy because of her political importance is like trying to claim that we’re getting all those stories about Britney’s sex life because of she’s a great singer.

There’s no evidence that Palin is going to be anything other than a celebrity.  Polls show that lots of Republicans like her, but they also show that few actually take her seriously.  She is extremely popular with a relatively small cohort of hard-core Right Wing men of the type that have driven sensible men and women away from the Party.  So there’s no good reason to think she stands a chance of winning even the Republican nomination in 2012.  But that hasn’t stopped a whole slew of Beltway insiders from thinking it.

Which baffles Eric Boehlert.

In terms of larger context, I'm not aware of any polling data that indicates Palin has a prayer of being elected president. In fact, the latest CNN survey finds that a strong majority of Americans think she is singularly unqualified to run the country. (i.e. She's relegated to Dan Quayle territory.) And of course, she's coming off her stint as VP candidate on the GOP ticket that lost an electoral landslide last November.

So I guess my question is, besides the larger and authentic one (who, besides journalists and GOP partisans, cares about Sarah Palin?) is, has the press ever treated an election loser the way it now treats Sarah Palin? Has the Beltway press ever turned an election loser like Palin into a political rising star, even though there's no evidence to suggest her stature has changed since last November's embarrassing thumping? (i.e. What "magic" is Stephanopoulos  talking about?)

Atrios refines the question with an analogy:

There's never a proper left-right analogy, but imagine if John Kerry had put Dennis Kucinich on the Veep ticket and then lost. Kucinich would have increased stature in the Democratic party, and probably be quite popular with "the base," but the press would mostly ignore him other than to occasionally sneer. I'm not equating Palin and Kucinich, just trying to imagine who might occupy a similar space on the left.

As Atrios says, there’s never a perfect comparison between the left and the right.  His Kucinich what-if?  is pretty good mainly for illustrating the difference between the way the Insiders treat Republicans and the way they treat Democrats.  They’re eager to show how seriously they take even the craziest Republicans or Republican talking points.  Desperate to marginalize and trivialize Democrats and their concerns.

But I think there is an actual case that come close and this one is a case of the Insiders taking seriously and puffing a Democrat who should have been relegated to if not obscurity then at least to last few minutes of the lowest rated bobblehead shows and the op-ed pages of his state’s largest city’s newspaper.

Instead he is everywhere, whenever he likes.

Why is Joe Lieberman so important?

He was on the losing ticket.  He may not have dragged down Gore the way Palin did McCain but he didn’t help.  Palin at least bought McCain a bigger post-convention bounce than he would have gotten with Tim Pawlenty on his ticket and for a few weeks at least helped make it look as though McCain was on the rebound.  Lieberman may not have hurt Gore outright, but he didn’t help at all.

I really don’t remember what Lieberman was up to in the first few years of Bush’s presidency but when he decided to run for the Democratic nomination in 2004 a choir rose up among the congregation of Beltway pundits and analysts to sing his praises and to what effect?

He got trounced right out of the gate.

The question is why did those insiders think he had half a chance?

He lost and he lost big.  Big enough that he finally and surely deserved to have his name changed to Loserman.

And yet here he is, holding the fate of health care reform in his hands.

How did that happen?

Comments

[Bill Altreuter]

I'm not so sure Palin hurt McCain's campaign. McCain was pretty much doomed, stuck with the policies of Bush that he'd embraced because he wanted to be president more than he wanted to stand up against his party. That's why all that guff about what a patriot McCain is makes me so sick. Patriots stand up for what they believe in, even when it is unpopular. That's the American way, and as far as I can tell McCain has only ever done that once, when he was going down in flames against Bush in the South Carolina primary. And I mean once, for the record. His military service doesn't persuade me, frankly, and there is nothing in his legislative record that seems so wonderful either. Basically he has the reputation he does because he was once a marginal Republican character who didn't mind shooting his mouth off with reporters. When it has come down to making the tough calls McCain has always, always come up small. If we are to believe what we read, Palin wasn't even his call. He wanted Holy Joe, and was touted off it, just as he allowed his ambition to tout him off a spot on Kerry's ticket (something he lied about, btw).

Palin got him a bit of a bounce, but in the end the VP pick seldom makes much difference. Quayle didn't hurt Bush pere, after all.

[Rana]

a smug, unctuous, uninspiring, sanctimonious smirker

I think the answer to both the question of why Gore chose him, and why he's so popular with the Village set, are contained in that description.

Gore chose him because he was the anti-Clinton not in policy but in personality - a moralist scold who couldn't charm a friendly dog with a raw steak if he tried. And it is that very character that makes him appealing to the punditry who talk him up - they are just like him, opportunists who swing with the breeze of public opinion, who like to claim the high ground in order to sneer upon the commoners below, who think that being the center of attention is always good and that principles are something only prigs and fools have...

They talk up Palin because it allows them to feel superior - she's a rube trying to play with the big boys and that's always entertaining - and they give Lieberman air time because what he says echoes their own thoughts and mindset. And none of them are loyal to anything other than their own self-interest.

[CathiefromCanada]

Also, don't forget they have no political judgment at all -- these are people who actually thought the voters would find Fred Thompson and Rudy Guilliani sexy.

[H-Bob]

Lieberman probably helped Gore in Florida with the retiree set, who unfortunately couldn't figure out the butterfly ballot,

[Lance]

H-Bob, as much as he had any, Lieberman's appeal in Florida was to people who normally vote Democratic anyway. Bob Graham would have helped with Florida all around. As for the butterfly ballot and retirees: That was one county, where a lot more than just 2000 or so retirees live, and besides nobody knows who cast those ballots, so I think more blame should fall on the bureaucrat who approved the design, a Democrat, btw, and not on people who might very well have figured it out. That said, the majority of the blame for "losing" Florida and the election belongs to Gore himself.

[MBunge]

"the main reason for voting for Gore was that he would continue the very popular President’s policies"

Bill Clinton was not personally popular. If he was, he would have been able to win a majority of the vote running for re-election in 1996. If he couldn't even do that, before all the Monica mess, to think he would have been some huge boon to Al Gore in 2000 is wishful thinking.

Mike