If Lieberman Had Become Vice President...

[liberalpragmatist]

... I could see him becoming a headache for the Gore Administration. While he might have been solid on a few key issues, I could see him undercutting at least a couple major domestic initiatives of a Gore Administration and being a major hawk. And if the 2004 Republican nominee were John McCain (very likely, given the GOP's tendency to nominate their previous runner-up), I could see Lieberman completely abdicating his role as an attack dog and undermining the Gore campaign. I doubt, however, that he would have been dropped from the ticket, as replacing him could have caused major divisions for the Gore campaign, as I imagine Lieberman would have had some intense support from some constituencies in the Democratic Party.

IF President Gore had managed to win reelection, I imagine that a Vice President Lieberman would have faced a significant challenge for the presidential nomination in 2008. It would have been a much stronger challenge than Bill Bradley's challenge to Gore, and it would have attracted a decent amount of establishment support from Democratic members of Congress, major strategists, and even figures within the Gore Administration. I could easily see Gore not endorsing Lieberman in the primaries, which would not have been unprecedented -- Ronald Reagan didn't endorse George H.W. Bush in the '88 Republican primaries.

So I could easily imagine Vice President Lieberman actually LOSING the nomination to, say, John Kerry.

And then, I think Lieberman might well have claimed the Democrats were lurching off to the radical left, prompting him to either...

(1) Launch an independent bid for a third-term, thereby bringing on a Democratic civil war and handing the election to, say, Mitt Romney.

(2) Or, actually endorsing the Republican nominee, claiming the Democrats had left him.

This does not seem implausible to me at all.

[JI7]

1. depends on 9/11

[zbdent]

8. I keep saying ... the attacks of 9/11 would not have happened ...

the media-fueled uprising would have been covering the plucky and valiant and patriotic Bush trying to get his office from the thief Al Gore, and the armed revolution would have been happening at the time, and Osama bin Laden would have been laughing his ass off watching the "liberal media" instead of watching America scream in horror as it did on 9/11/2001 ...

my evidence? Look at how there is now so much hatred directed at a, by today's standards, landslide victory by a guy with a funny name who "has to be a Muslim because only blacks can be Muslim!"

[davidinalameda]

2. if he had become VP, he would have been neutered

he's a follower, not a leader

Gore would have kept him in place

[pansypoo53219]

3. lieberfuckenputz

was the worst pic. feingold was a better clean jew, and the name fit better on signs.

[fujiyama]

4. Too many variables

The first of course would have been 9/11. Would Gore have prevented it? Would he have found a way to stop the attacks from being carried out?

Assuming he couldn't, Lieberman would have been a pain in the ass in many ways. He would have been lobbying Gore to attack Iraq. Gore wouldn't have given in. And maybe Lieberman would have been dropped in '04. And we can guess the republicans would have been really bitter after a close loss in '00, so they would have ran...maybe Bush...or maybe even McCain in '04 running on a platform of national security. Hell, it's possible that the RW would have tried to impeach Gore had 9/11 occurred under his watch. Maybe Lieberman would have been president after all. Maybe we still would be in Iraq. Or maybe Gore would have devoted the necessary resources to rebuild Afghanistan and the Taliban would be much weaker today. Maybe Bin Laden would have been killed. Maybe Gore would have been reelected in a landslide in '04.

All I know is that Tuesday the Dems determine what happens to Lieberman. I hope he's given the boot. I'm not expecting it though. It's too bad. He's an untrustworthy ass hole.

[ladjf]

5. Gore's fatal political flaw was the selection of Lieberman has his

running mate in 2000. He, along with the rest of us, has suffered severely from his bad judgment.

[DeeDeeNY]

6. And yet they still won.

The only bad judgment we suffered from was the Supreme Court's.
That being said, Lieberman was NOT a good choice for VP.

[ladjf]

7. I don't agree that the "only bad judgment" was that of the Supreme

Court. If fact, I don't even think that their move to "appoint" Bush was a matter of judgment. It was raw, criminal politics.

There was an array of contributing factors that resulted in the installation of Bush in 2000. Gore's errors in judgment were certainly the most innocent. We've all been over the causes way too many times.

In closing, I will say that Bill Clinton didn't help matters when he chose to commit sex acts while on the job in the White House.

[DeeDeeNY]

9. Agreed.