Lieberman Talks About McCain, Hamas, and the Democrats

Senator Joe Lieberman

You know as well as anyone how painful it can be to launch a failed presidential bid. How does Sen. Clinton exit gracefully from this great disappointment, and what will life be like for her after this?
A person comes to this with their own experience. And she comes to this with extraordinary, unique personal experiences, having been the deeply involved spouse of a president for eight years. Of course this will be a disappointment, and I hope she's comforted by two things. The first is that it's clear to me that Sen. Clinton would have defeated any of what I would call the more traditional candidates—senators [John] Edwards, [Joseph] Biden, [Christopher]Dodd, Gov. [Bill] Richardson. But she faced an unprecedented political phenomenon in Sen. Obama. She can feel some considerable pride about the campaign she waged. She really fought the good fight, and she refused to give up, and I admire that greatly. I had a high regard personally for Sen. Clinton, and I have higher regard after this campaign. From my own experience, it was very important to me when I lost the '04 campaign, that I was a senator, which is a pretty great thing to be able to be. Her life and the opportunities to serve the public go on if you're fortunate enough as she is to be a United States senator. I hope that she will, after taking a well-deserved rest, plunge back into the Senate with characteristic energy and purpose.

In 2006, you felt betrayed by many, including fellow Connecticut Sen. Dodd, who endorsed your opponent, Ned Lamont, after he won the party's primary. Have you and Sen. Dodd made peace? How do your former party members treat you here and in Connecticut?
Obviously, my colleagues here in the Senate Democratic caucus, a lot of them just don't agree with me on Iraq and foreign policy and, of course, with my support of Sen. McCain. I'm not kidding myself about how they feel about those other questions, but we work together quite well. And as to Sen. Dodd, look, we've been through some tough stuff, tough moments in our relationship over the last couple years, especially for me in '06. But life goes on, and we're both grownups. We've reached a point where we can sort of share good stories and laugh together. Maybe in some ways our relationship has changed, but we have a very good relationship still. Back home in Connecticut as senator, I meet a lot of Democrats and they're quite friendly, and I have a lot of friends in the party. But I'm more separated from the Democratic Party activists in Connecticut than I am with my fellow Democratic senators here in part because I understand they're upset about my McCain endorsement. And some just oppose me on policy grounds. So when I see people in the party, it's not uncordial. It's a mixed picture.

If Sen. McCain wins the White House, what will you do? What happens to your party affiliation under a new president, and when the Senate makeup changes, potentially making you not so invaluable to a Democratic voting majority?
I'm not thinking too much about the future. Right now I'm just focused on doing everything I can in the campaign for Sen. McCain, and obviously, doing everything I can to be a good senator. I really do consider myself an independent Democrat. I have no plans to change parties. I subscribe to the policies of the Democratic Party that I found when I joined the party in the early 1960s under President Kennedy. But on foreign and defense policy, unfortunately, I feel that I hold those views independently of the current Democratic Party. My view for now is to stay and hold that banner as high as I can, hoping that the party comes back to it. In 2000, when I ran, Gore was the internationalist, the strong military policy guy, and Bush was on the opposite side. It's quite remarkable how the parties have switched positions over the past eight years. I want to stay and fight. I think it's really important to the country to have the two major parties have strong foreign policy and national security wings.