In my past two posts from my series Get To Know A Neoconservative, I offered the votes and quotes of Connecticut's newest self-identifying Democrat, Senator Joe Lieberman, with my commentary inserted along the way.
But with the primary almost upon us, I decided I would give the final say on his devotion to Democratic principles and progressivism to Joe himself. Take it away Joe:
He also pointed out that he is among the least liberal Northern Democratic senators. He cited a National Journal survey of 1992 votes that rated him one of only two non-Southern Democrats -- Nebraska's James Exon was the other -- whose record put him in the more conservative half of the Senate. (Hartford Courant, August 3, 1993)
As early as 1980, when he ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. House, he said Congress must consider a "supply-side" economic approach. He still favors cuts in the capital gains tax, another Republican mainstay. (Hartford Courant, August 8, 2000)
1993 -- One of the last Democrats to publicly back President Clinton's $496 billion deficit-reduction plan. In explaining his vote, he tells colleagues, "I hate to raise taxes, particularly when the economy is so fragile, and I wish we would cut even more spending." (Hartford Courant, May 15, 2001)
Lieberman likes to say that one thing making him a different Democrat is his pro-business stance. (Hartford Courant, August 3, 1993)
Tuesday, Lieberman joined Sen. Dan Coats, R-Ind., one of the Senate's more vocal conservatives, in a press conference to announce support for a "school choice" plan...Their plan, which they will offer as an amendment to a Senate education bill, would provide $ 30 million next year for an experimental program that would allow low-income parents vouchers they could use to pay for their child's public or private education. Lieberman has long been an "accommodationist" on church/state issues, said his press secretary James E. Kennedy. (Hartford Courant, February 5, 1994).
Lieberman, though, is pleased to have GOP friends. He noted that Rowland has been a friend "for some time." (Hartford Courant, February 5, 1994)
He insisted that faith has a role in American public life, and even took the argument to a constitutional level -- saying the document guarantees "freedom of religion, not freedom from religion."..."America today is living through a new spiritual awakening," he told the receptive crowd. He quoted George Washington as maintaining that morality cannot be sustained "without religion." (The Hartford Courant, April 28, 2000)
He called the add-ons "a shame and an embarrassment," yet when the homeland security bill passed, special interest provisions and all, Lieberman appeared with his rivals at a Capitol press conference and declared, "We're working together." (The Associated Press, December 27, 2002)
Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, whose vocal pro-war support for President Bush has rankled fellow Democrats, emerged from a White House meeting Friday saying the president has turned the corner on Iraq in recent weeks...Lieberman cited the substantial turnout in the Iraq elections this week and Bush's four major speeches on the war as key reasons for the turnaround..."I believe the president has begun a new conversation with the American people, looking back and talking again about why we went into Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein, why we remain there, why success in Iraq is so critical to America's national security, and how we intend to win," he said.
I reported, you decide.