Joe Lieberman
Joseph Isadore "Joe" Lieberman (born February 24, 1942) is the senior United States Senator from Connecticut. A former member of the Democratic Party, he was the party's nominee for Vice President in the 2000 election. Currently an independent, he remains closely affiliated with the party.
Born in Stamford, Connecticut, Lieberman is a graduate of Yale University and Yale Law School. He was elected as a "reform Democrat" in 1970 to the Connecticut Senate, where he served three terms as Majority Leader. After an unsuccessful bid for the U.S. House of Representatives in 1980, he served as state Attorney General from 1983 to 1989. Lieberman defeated moderate Republican Lowell Weicker in 1988 to win election to the Senate and was re-elected in 1994 and 2000. Lieberman was the Democratic nominee for Vice President in the 2000 United States presidential election, running with presidential nominee Al Gore, becoming the first Jewish candidate on a major American political party presidential ticket.
In the 2000 presidential election, Gore and Lieberman won the popular vote by a margin of more than 500,000 votes but lost the deciding Electoral College to the Republican George W. Bush / Dick Cheney ticket 271-267. The U.S. Supreme Court settled the legal controversy over the Florida vote recount by ruling 5-4 in favor of Bush. It was the only time in history that the Supreme Court has ruled on a case directly related to a presidential election. Lieberman also unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination in the 2004 presidential election.
During his re-election bid in 2006, he lost the Democratic Party primary election but won re-election in the general election as a third party candidate under the party label "Connecticut for Lieberman". Lieberman himself is not a member of the Connecticut for Lieberman party; he is a registered Democrat.
Lieberman was officially listed in Senate records for the 110th and 111th Congresses as an "Independent Democrat" and sits as part of the Senate Democratic Caucus. But since his speech at the 2008 Republican National Convention in which he endorsed John McCain for president, Lieberman no longer attends Democratic Caucus leadership strategy meetings or policy lunches. On November 5, 2008, Lieberman met with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to discuss his future role with the Democratic Party. Ultimately, the Senate Democratic Caucus voted to allow Lieberman to keep chairmanship of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. Subsequently, Lieberman announced that he will continue to caucus with the Democrats.
As Senator he introduced and championed the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010 and legislation that led to the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. Lieberman announced in January 2011 that he will retire from the Senate when his term ends in January 2013.
Read more about Joe Lieberman: Early Life, Personal Life, Early Political Career, Criticism, Political Positions, Published Works
Famous quotes containing the words joe and/or lieberman:
“This might be the end of the world. If Joe lost we were back in slavery and beyond help. It would all be true, the accusations that we were lower types of human beings. Only a little higher than apes. True that we were stupid and ugly and lazy and dirty and, unlucky and worst of all, that God Himself hated us and ordained us to be hewers of wood and drawers of water, forever and ever, world without end.”
—Maya Angelou (b. 1928)
“If the child-caregiver relationship is nurturing, reliable and often even joyous, the child’s confidence in human relationships as a source of comfort and reciprocity will be strengthened and expanded in spite of the parent’s absence. The child will learn that not only are the parents to be trusted but that other people are trustworthy as well.”
—Alicia F. Lieberman (20th century)