Joe Lieberman, four-term U.S. Senator for Connecticut and Al Gore’s running mate in the 2000 presidential election, has died at the age of 82.
Lieberman’s family stated that he died “due to complications from a fall.”
“His beloved wife, Hadassah, and members of his family were with him as he passed,” the statement read.
At the midpoint of his 24-year tenure in the Senate, Lieberman was picked by Al Gore as his vice-presidential running mate in one of the closest elections in American history. The Democrat pair lost to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.
Late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) considered picking Lieberman as his running mate on the 2008 presidential ticket. In his 2018 memoir “The Restless Wave,” Mr. McCain said he regretted over being dissuaded by his advisors to not add Lieberman, a Democrat-turned-Independent, to his ticket.
“They were giving me their best counsel. It was sound advice that I could reason for myself,” Mr. McCain wrote. “But my gut told me to ignore it, and I wished I had.”
“And I still believe, whatever the effect it would have had in some quarters of the party, that a McCain-Lieberman ticket would have been received by most Americans as a genuine effort to pull the country together for a change,” he wrote.
Lieberman struck up a friendship with Mr. McCain and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), earning them the nickname “Three Amigos.” The three remained close friends after Lieberman retired from the Senate in 2013.
In a 2012 speech announcing that he would not be running for reelection, Lieberman reflected on being the first Jewish candidate on a major ticket, saying the legacy had a significant impact on the American-Jewish community.
“I can’t help but also think about my four grandparents and the journey they traveled more than a century ago. They came to America seeking freedom and they found it. They came to America hoping for opportunity and they got it,” he said at the time. “Even they could not have dreamed that their grandson would end up a U.S. senator and, incidentally, a barrier-breaking candidate for vice president.”
Following his retirement from the Senate, Lieberman returned to practicing law, and joined the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington-based conservative think tank, as co-chair of its American Internationalism Project. “There is an urgent need to rebuild a bipartisan—indeed non-political—consensus for American diplomatic, economic, and military leadership in the world,” he said at the time.
He also held the Lieberman Chair of Public Policy and Public Service at Yeshiva University, where he taught an undergraduate course and gave public lectures, on topics ranging from Judaism and public service to the Middle East.
In August 2015, Lieberman became chairman of United Against Nuclear Iran, a group advocating against the Obama administration’s efforts to negotiate a deal with Iran over its development of nuclear weapons.
“While Iran’s leaders may be prepared to make some tactical concessions on their nuclear activities, they would do so hoping that this would buy them the time and space needed to rebuild strength at home—freed from crippling sanctions—while consolidating and expanding the gains they are positioned to make in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and Afghanistan,” he wrote in an op-ed in 2013.
An orthodox Jew, Lieberman remained a firm supporter of Israel. Earlier this month, he penned a column in the Wall Street Journal criticizing Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) for saying Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has “lost his way” in handling the Gaza War and should be replaced.
“While Mr. Schumer’s statement undoubtedly pleased American critics of Israel,” he wrote, “for the Israelis, it was meaningless, gratuitous, and offensive.”
