Gregory D.

Lee

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August 25, 2008

Joe Lieberman? Say It Ain’t So, John

The wild rumor last week was that Republican Sen. John McCain has decided on tapping Independent-Democrat Sen. Joe Lieberman as his vice-presidential nominee. If so, that would mean that 3.5 out of four persons running for the top two political positions in our country are full-fledged Democrats. Most Republicans think McCain is half-Democrat, thus the .5 percentage point was added.

Just when McCain was beginning to lead in the polls against Barack Obama, the rumor mill started that Lieberman was his favorite pick for the presidential ticket. Hasn’t Lieberman been there and done that? Isn’t the fact he was the vice-presidential nominee for Al Gore disqualifying in and of itself?

Granted, Lieberman is a Democrat who has stood by McCain throughout the campaign, and I have to give him credit for his support, but not at the cost of him being McCain’s running mate.

If Lieberman wasn’t inclined to leave the Democratic Party after it did all it could to sabotage his re-election to the Senate, what makes us believe he would leave it now? I’m assuming, of course, that he would declare himself a Republican at its national convention. Why didn’t Lieberman switch parties so the Republicans would have a slim majority in the Senate and be rid of the likes of Majority Leader Harry “The War is Lost” Reid?

Personally, I like my Republican presidential and vice-presidential candidates to both be Republicans. Sen. McCain has nothing to gain by adding Sen. Lieberman to the ticket. In fact, he has everything to lose. He may be strong on national defense, but Lieberman is a northeastern liberal at heart with a liberal social ideology. The fact that he was Al Gore’s running mate speaks for itself.

When you consider all the outstanding vice-presidential candidates out there to choose from, it’s all the more absurd that McCain would even consider a pure-bred Democrat like Lieberman. How could McCain consider him to be more qualified than Mitt Romney, Bobby Jindal or even Lindsey Graham? What’s wrong with Fred Thompson or Tim Pawlenty? Heck, I’ll take the job if nobody else wants it.  

Sen. McCain has to take on a conservative vice-presidential nominee to appease his base. There are still strongholds of Republicans who don’t care for McCain, although the more they know about Barack Obama, the better McCain looks, even for the most diehard Republican. But picking a Democrat for his running mate will unravel any inroads he has made within the conservative Republican base.

Hopefully Sen. Lieberman will realize he will do more harm than good for his friend John McCain, and decline the offer for the number two spot on the Republican ticket. Lieberman would do the country a better service by abandoning his party, which tried to unseat him, and go to the opposite side of the aisle. That would earn him the admiration and respect of all Republicans, and teach the Democrats that it doesn’t pay to screw over members of its own party.

Sen. McCain has a well-deserved reputation for reaching across the aisle and making compromises with his political opponents, as evidenced by his being a member of the so-called Gang of Fourteen, which broke the Senate stalemate on judicial nominations. But he doesn’t need to further prove he is a “maverick” and go against the Republican grain. He’s done that many times already by opposing tax cuts and only recently calling for additional domestic drilling so this country can achieve energy independence.

I’m going out on a limb and predicting that Sen. McCain will recover from his brain freeze and pick Tom Ridge as his running mate. Gov. Ridge may not be pro-life, but he has executive, managerial and national security experience few others do. Picking a pro-choice candidate like Ridge will once again show that McCain is willing to buck some Republicans for the sake of finding someone he believes is truly qualified to be vice president and would appeal to independents and moderate Democrats.

As is usually the case, the more the media is sure that a particular person is going to be the vice-presidential nominee, the least likely it is to happen. I hope that is the case with Sen. Joe Lieberman.

Gregory D. Lee is a nationally syndicated columnist for North Star Writers Group and can be reached through his website: www.gregorydlee.com.

© 2008 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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