Joe Lieberman made two bids for the vice-presidency of the United States, for two different parties, but came up short each time.
The Connecticut senator was a hanging chad away from the vice-presidency when running on the Democratic ticket with Al Gore in the disputed 2000 election.
His politics changed as he aged and eight years later as an independent he was seriously considered as Republican candidate John McCain’s running mate in his failed bid to defeat Barack Obama.
Lieberman’s individualism and especially his needling of Democratic presidential nominee Obama during the 2008 presidential contest rankled many Democrats, the party he aligned with in the Senate.
Yet his support for gay rights, civil rights, abortion rights and environmental causes at times won him the praise of many liberals over the years.
Lieberman defended his partisan switches as a matter of conscience, saying he always had the best interests of Connecticut voters at heart. Critics accused him of pursuing narrow self-interest and political expediency.
Lieberman was born in 1942 and grew up in Stamford, Connecticut, where his father ran a liquor store. Lieberman graduated from Yale University and Yale Law School in New Haven.
First elected to the Connecticut state senate in 1970, he was the state’s attorney-general from 1983-88. He was elected to the US senate in 1988, defeating moderate Republican incumbent Lowell Weicker by 10,000 votes, partly thanks to the votes of conservative Republicans dismayed with Weicker’s voting record.
The freshman senator was his own man though and that appealed to his constituents: in 1994 he was re-elected with a majority of more than 350,000.
Lieberman generated controversy in 1998 when he scolded President Bill Clinton, his friend of many years, for "disgraceful behaviour" in an explosive speech on the Senate floor during the height of the scandal over his relationship with Monica Lewinsky.
However, Lieberman later voted against the impeachment of Clinton.
Those harsh comments were perhaps one of the reasons why Al Gore added Lieberman to his ticket, to place distance between himself and President Clinton.
He was the first practising Jew to run for the vice-presidency, and only a lawsuit over the result in Florida kept Lieberman from making greater history. He briefly ran for the presidency in 2004 but quickly dropped out of the race.
In 2006 Lieberman lost a renomination bid for his senate seat to a more liberal Democrat, but retained his seat after running as an independent. While he continued to remain aligned to the Democrats, Lieberman was a strong supporter of the Iraq War and enthusiastically backed his friend John McCain’s doomed quest for the presidency.
In 2011 Lieberman announced he would retire from the Senate at the end of 2012 but continued to be involved in politics, championing third parties but also being interviewed by President Donald Trump for the position of FBI director in 2017.
Lieberman died in New York City on March 27 due to complications from a fall. He was 82. — Agencies
