Joe Lieberman
Joseph Isadore "Joe" Lieberman (born February 24, 1942 in Stamford , Connecticut ) is an American politician . He represented from 1989 to 2013 the state of Connecticut in the Senate . In the 2004 presidential election , he was a Democratic candidate for President of the United States after running alongside Al Gore for vice president in the 2000 presidential election.
Political career
Joe Lieberman was a member of the Connecticut Senate from 1970 to 1980 , where he served as the majority leader of the Democratic majority from 1974 . In 1983 and from 1986 to 1988 he held the office of Attorney General of Connecticut.
In 1988 Lieberman won the election to US Senator against incumbent Lowell P. Weicker , whereupon he entered Congress on January 3, 1989 . As a US Senator, he was a member of the Armed Forces Committee . A significant highlight of his political career was the presidential election in 2000, when Al Gore, who was running for president, nominated him as his candidate for vice-presidency. Lieberman was the first Jewish candidate to run for one of the major parties in a presidential election. In the 2004 presidential election, he ran for the office of president, but failed in his party's primary elections. In the 2008 presidential election, he supported Republican candidate John McCain . The main reason he gave was McCain's support for the Iraq war .
In May 2012, despite the peace plan supported by former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan , he spoke out in favor of arming the Syrian insurgents and called for Syria to be bombed by the US and its partners in the region. Lieberman has been Executive Director of the Foreign Policy Initiative since early 2013 .
Senate election as a non-party candidate
In August 2006, Lieberman was defeated in the Democratic primaries for his re-election for the Senate to his previously largely unknown challenger Ned Lamont , who thus ran for the Democrats. This unexpected defeat Lieberman was seen as a consequence of his pro-Iraq war policies, with which he had distanced himself from the base of the Democratic Party. In this context, a hug with Republican President George W. Bush in January 2005, known as "The Kiss," caused a stir. After his internal party pre-election defeat for the Senate elections, he ran as a non-party candidate and managed to get back. Lieberman, who was still a member of the Democratic Party and in the Senate of the faction ("Caucus") of the Democratic Party, was able to win 50% of the votes. His challengers Ned Lamont and Alan Schlesinger (Republicans) got 40% and 10% percent of the vote, respectively. The poor performance of the Republican candidate Schlesinger is due to the fact that many supporters of the Republican Lieberman gave their vote. Lieberman were generally given greater chances than Schlesinger in beating Democrats Lamont. In addition, Lieberman is considered to be conservative in value and was therefore eligible for many Republican supporters.
In the following years, Lieberman played a decisive role in the Senate, because the Democrats had 50 out of 100 votes, the Republicans 49 out of 100. As an independent MP, he could support the Democrats (then 51 to 49 votes) or, so to speak, one Exercise veto power and join Republicans (then 50 to 50 votes, with Vice President Dick Cheney having a tie ). This “veto right” earned him the popular title “King Joe” (“King Joe”). With the Senate election in November 2008, the voting balance changed in favor of the Democrats, so that Lieberman's vote was no longer decisive. In mid-December 2009, Lieberman succeeded again in the referendum campaign over the health care reform to “tip the scales” and force the Democrats to drop essential points of this bill.
As of January 4, 2007, Lieberman served as the Senate Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee . He did not run for the 2012 election. The Democrat Chris Murphy and the Republican Linda McMahon ran for his successor . Murphy was able to prevail against McMahon.
Private life
Joe Lieberman graduated from Yale University in 1964 ; three years later he passed his law exam at the local law school . He is married for the second time and has three children. The Lieberman couple are devout Jews and well-known representatives of the modern Orthodox movement within Judaism.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Online News Hour Vote 2004 - PBS ( Memento from May 18, 2006 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ Joseph I. Lieberman: Turn the tide against Bashar al-Assad in the Washington Post on May 18, 2012.
- ↑ David M. Herszenhorn, David D. Kirkpatrick: Lieberman Flexes Muscle as Democrats Rethink Health Plan. New York Times , December 14, 2009.
- ↑ Chris Cillizza: Joe Lieberman to retire in 2012 , The Washington Post, January 18, 2011
Web links
- Joe Lieberman in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)
- Joe Lieberman in the nndb (English)
Class 1: Ellsworth | Hillhouse | Dana | Boardman | Edwards | Foot | N. Smith | Niles | Betts | Huntington's | RS Baldwin | Toucey | Dixon | Buckingham | Eaton | Hawley | Bulkeley | McLean | Walcott | Maloney | Hard | RE Baldwin | Benton | Purtell | T. Dodd | Weicker | Lieberman | Murphy
Class 3: Johnson | Sherman | Mitchell | Trumbull jr. | Tracy | Goodrich | Daggett | Lanman | Willey | Tomlinson | P. Smith | Niles | T. Smith | Gillette | Foster | Ferry | English | Barnum | Platt | Brandegee | Bingham | Lonergan | Danaher | McMahon | Purtell | Bush | Ribicoff | C. Dodd | Blumenthal
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Lieberman, Joe |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Lieberman, Joseph Isadore (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American politician |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 24, 1942 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Stamford , Connecticut |