WASHINGTON — For Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.), the irony must be excruciating.
Many experts and polls say he’s the Democrat with the best chance of beating President Bush in the November 2004 general election — but his campaign to win the party’s nomination is sputtering because he is falling flat with many of the party’s core voters and contributors.
The Jewish community figures into Joe’s woes, but not necessarily in the way many newspapers have reported recently.
By rights, the Democratic Party should be looking to Joe for political salvation.
His performance as Al Gore’s vice-presidential running mate in 2000 surprised most experts, who expected him to be a dull, distant candidate. Instead, Lieberman displayed a relaxed style that connected to voters. At the same time, his on-the-sleeve piety appealed to many in the wake of the Clinton-era scandals.
So did his centrism; the nation was at peace, the economy was still strong, and Lieberman struck just the right note of level-headed moderation.
But it’s a very different situation in the race for 2004.
The piety factor has been neutralized by an incumbent Republican who is seen as equally upright and who has gotten through the first three years of his term without a whiff of personal scandal.
And despite Bush’s popularity, his policies have antagonized the left, which is less likely to support a centrist like Lieberman in the Democratic primary.
The president’s poll numbers remain comparatively strong, but Democratic loyalists are incensed about his
highly conservative domestic policies including big tax cuts that they say favor the rich. But that’s nothing compared to their fury about the war in Iraq, and mounting evidence that at least some of the case for war was based on jiggered intelligence.
Domestically, Lieberman differs significantly from Bush, but the perception is still that he is the most conservative of the Democratic candidates.
And the Connecticut senator was the administration’s key Democratic supporter when Congress passed a resolution supporting the use of force in Iraq. No matter how much he criticizes Iraq policy today, he remains associated with a war that Democratic activists hope will emerge as the chink in the president’s political armor.
Seething Democrats want a candidate who offers a sharp contrast to the President; Lieberman’s sober demeanor and his image of centrism, which played so well in 2000, have little appeal to the progressive activists who play a disproportionate role in the nomination process.
There’s one surprising exception: a recent Gallup-Poll showed Lieberman running a strong second to the Rev. Al Sharpton among black voters, beating former Sen. Carol Moseley Braun — the first black woman elected to the Senate. That, the experts say, may be a function of both his high name recognition and his religious piety.
And last week, the Quinnipiac University national poll showed Lieberman had the most support from Democratic voters — unless Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) enters the race.
Most polls, however, show former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean in the lead.
Furthermore, to white liberals, Lieberman is too often seen as “Bush Lite.”
Thus Joe’s painful dilemma: He may be the most electable Democrat, but he’s not the most nominatable. And he can’t follow the traditional path of candidates in both parties — running to the ideological true believers to win the nomination, then to the center to win the election.
If Lieberman tries to recast himself as a liberal for the primaries, he risks his most important political asset — his reputation for consistency and integrity.
Several leading political scientists say the best Lieberman can hope for is that the frontrunners — Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), Rep. Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.) and Dean — wound each other badly in early primaries and produce a case of frontrunner gridlock. Then Lieberman, the experienced national politician and the middle-of-the-roader, might be seen by more Democrats as their only hope for unseating Bush.
The Jewish community is in a curious position as the political drama plays out.
Most Jews have reacted to Lieberman’s emergence with deep pride, but that doesn’t mean they’re ready to vote for him.
Jews comprise a big chunk of the party’s liberal core, and for many, Lieberman is simply too conservative for 2004, when they, like their non-Jewish counterparts, want a candidate who offers a stronger contrast with President Bush.
Ironically, his nomination would likely pull many Jewish “swing” voters back from the jaws of the GOP in November 2004 — but that won’t help him much in the primaries.
Lieberman, political insiders say, is doing well among Jewish donors, but so are several other candidates, including Dean, the emerging favorite of the progressive wing of the party.
A recent Washington Times story blamed Lieberman’s fund-raising woes on the fear among Jews that his candidacy could stir up anti-Semitism.
That may be a factor. But the real problem is that Jewish high-dollar donors are doing what they always do at this early stage in a campaign — spreading their contributions around, waiting for candidates to emerge from the pack.
And right now, Lieberman is just not looking like that kind of winner.