Posted by
Board Certified M.D. on Friday, May 23, 2008 2:54:20 AM
As McCain hopes to wage attractive independent-minded campaign,
Lieberman acts as symbolic right-hand-man to tighten the candidate's bipartisan approach.
Photo: AP
Jonathan Martin of Politico just this past March wrote "Lieberman is McCain's Wingman" Maybe there is more to this than meets the eye this McCain-Lieberman Maverick's Swan Song Fusion Huber-bipartisanTicket to the Oval?
McCain strategists see great value in the dissident Democrat and promise that Lieberman will play a key role in the general election. Though he had initially wanted to stay out of the 2008 presidential fray, Lieberman was swayed by a personal appeal from McCain, an aide to the Connecticut senator said. Shortly after returning from a trip to Iraq together over Thanksgiving, McCain asked for his colleague’s support, saying it would make the most difference before the New Hampshire primary, where independents and Democrats can participate.
While the two have served together for nearly 20 years in the clubby upper chamber, it wasn’t until the late-90s that they really bonded.
As members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, the pair grew close while traveling together on congressional trips much like the one they took to Europe and the Middle East last week. Their friendship took root as they became regulars at the Wehrkunde conference, a Munich confab held every February that draws military and security experts from around the world.
McCain and Lieberman also joined forces on the two preeminent foreign policy issues of the era: American intervention in the Balkans and the decision to launch air strikes against Iraq.
“The split of the two parties on foreign policy compared to the '90s is crucial to understanding Lieberman,” says Bill Kristol, The Weekly Standard editor and a friend of both men. “He hasn’t changed his mind.”
For his part, on domestic issues, McCain also has moved closer to Lieberman’s brand of DLC moderation.
Just as Lieberman is now liberated from following political orthodoxy, McCain went his own way after losing the primary to Bush in 2000. The two paired up to sponsor legislation, opposed by the administration and most Republicans, addressing global warming, and introduced the measure creating the 9/11 Commission over the initial opposition of the White House. They were also key players in the bipartisan Gang of 14.
Those close to Lieberman, however, say that his decision to so enthusiastically get behind McCain is borne in their shared experience as party loners, as much about persona as policy.
“First and foremost, it’s character,” says Dan Gerstein, a Democratic strategist who helped lead Lieberman’s 2006 campaign and previously worked in his Senate office. “This is purely a personal decision and is based on faith and belief in McCain.”
Gerstein, a Barack Obama supporter, shares the same concern of other Democrats: that Lieberman could serve as exactly the sort of validator for McCain’s independence that the Arizonan’s aides are counting on.
Lieberman could be especially helpful in Florida, with its heavy Jewish population, says Gerstein.
But even after the GOP contest moved to states where his influence was limited, Lieberman wasn’t sidelined. The senator whose party affiliation is now “Independent Democrat” appeared with McCain in conservative South Carolina and in some of the most heavily Republican parts of central Florida.