Lieberman: ‘Moderately Liberal’?
By Jonathan Darman
Days before he takes the stage in St. Paul, Minn., at the GOP convention, independent Democrat Joe Lieberman’s being constantly rewritten on both the left and right. In a New York Times column last Monday, conservative commentator Bill Kristol floated the notion that Lieberman was still in the running to be John McCain’s running mate. Lieberman, Kristol said, could acclimate with the McCain era-GOP in spite of having a “moderately liberal voting record.”
But conservatives who care more about a candidate’s economic orthodoxy than his support of the war in Iraq might have a hard time seeing what’s so moderate about Lieberman. In Connecticut, Lieberman has long counted on strong ties to organized labor, the bête noir of movement conservatives. In 2007, according to the National Journal, he supported a liberal economic agenda 76 percent of the time. The National Education Association, the powerful teachers union, gave Lieberman an “A” for 2007, and he supported the interests of the AFL-CIO 84 percent of the time that year.
In 2006, Lieberman won re-election to the Senate after losing his party’s primary in part because lunch-pail Democrats in Connecticut’s cities stuck with him, even after the state’s Democratic Party did not. That year he voted with the interests of Americans for Tax Reform, the conservative tax-watchdog group, only 15 percent of the time. Grover Norquist, ATR’s president, has made no secret of his distaste for a McCain-Lieberman ticket and his contempt for Lieberman. After Lieberman spoke out against the Bush tax cuts in 2002, ATR released a press release titled “Joe Lieberman to Taxpayers: Drop Dead.”
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Jonathan Darman was named Senior Writer and Political Correspondent in October of 2006. He travels the country profiling candidates for elected office and covering breaking news in national politics.
Prior to his current assignment, Darman was a General Editor in Newsweek's New York headquarters. In that role, he authored or co-authored major profiles of newsmakers in politics and media ranging from former Vice Presidential candidate John Edwards to controversial New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin to 2008 presidential hopeful Gov. Mark Warner. His May 2006 cover story, "The Mystery of Mary Magdalene," separated fact from fiction in the life of Christianity's most fascinating woman. In September of 2005, he spent three weeks covering the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Darman contributed to three Newsweek cover packages on the storm, reporting from the decimated coastline of Biloxi, from an Air Force helicopter hovering over New Orleans and from the private office of Mississippi Governor Hailey Barbour.
Previously, Darman had been an associate editor. In May, 2004 he joined the Campaign 2004 Special Project team as a correspondent. In that position he followed the Kerry/Edwards campaign, reporting from behind-the-scenes for the special issue that Newsweek published two days after Election Day. The special issue won the 2005 National Magazine Award for Single Topic Issue. Public Affairs published "Election 2004: How Bush Won and What You Can Expect in the Future," an expanded version of the campaign narrative, in January 2005. It was a national bestseller.
From February to May 2004, Darman was an associate editor for Newsweek.com where he covered everything from the real estate bubble to reality TV. He also helped conceive and edit GenNext, Newsweek's coverage of youth voters in the 2004 election. Newsweek asked five college journalists to write essays during the campaign and polled voters 18-29 years old each month on campaign issues. Before joining Newsweek as a full-time staffer, Darman held internships in the magazine's Washington and Los Angeles Bureaus and at Newsweek.com.
Darman graduated magna cum laude from Harvard with an A.B. in history and literature. A native of McLean, Virginia, he lives in New York City.
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