From mom`s front yard, Lieberman goes for No. 3
Connecticut Post By KEN DIXON
STAMFORD - Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, D-Conn., returned Wednesday to the old neighborhood, gathering family and close friends as a backdrop to announce he'll seek a third term.
While his candidacy wasn't a surprise, Lieberman acknowledged that he's still in the pack of high-profile Democrats who are potential candidates for vice president.
And it wasn't a surprise he failed to mention the name of his little-known Republican opponent, Waterbury Mayor Phil Giordano.
"This is the only office I am seeking this year," said Lieberman, 58, on the front lawn of the modest home of his mother, Marcia.
"Obviously I'm honored to be mentioned for the vice presidency," he said. "It makes my mother proud to be mentioned, but I don't expect it. To me it's a nonevent."
Lieberman won't consider the job seriously until it actually materializes, he told reporters at a noontime campaign kick-off in front of the stucco home with a crooked gray shutter, where his family moved from downtown 50 years ago.
Lieberman, who has developed a reputation for being the moral conscience of Democrats in Washington, said he's proud to run on his 12-year Senate record. A 70 percent approval rating and more than $3 million in his campaign war chest don't hurt either.
The event in his 85-year-old mother's balloon-festooned yard, he said, was a link to his first successful Senate campaign almost 12 years ago.
"It was in this house that I learned the values that have defined who I am, that originally inspired me to commit my life to public service and that have sustained my faith in the necessity and honor of this calling even in some cynical and trying times," Lieberman said.
The Yale-educated lawmaker defended his recent letter to U.S. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt expressing concerns with the petition process for tribes seeking federal recognition. The tribes include the Golden Hill Paugussetts, which want to build a casino in Bridgeport.
"The recognition of tribal status used to be of historic responsibility that we wanted to carry out well, but it didn't have the enormous importance it has today for the neighbors of tribes because of the obvious advent of casino gambling," Lieberman said.
"I and my colleagues are not taking a stand one way or the other on any of these applications," he said. "We're just saying they're so important to people who live around the claimed tribal areas that we have an interest in making sure the application process is conducted in a manner that's fair and full of due process."
The senator also defended his highly publicized criticism of President Clinton's sexual affair with an intern and a subsequent vote against removing him from office. He said that while Clinton's actions were morally reprehensible, they did not justify removal from office.
Lieberman said one remaining goal is approval of a wide-ranging education reform policy proposed by Senate Democrats.
"Our future in the information age depends on how well our children are educated," Lieberman said. "A good education will deal with the problems of all segments of our society, including the group that continues to be left out of the economic boom because they're at the bottom of the income ladder."
Lieberman has lectured the nation on its bad taste in television and pushed for the V-chip to allow parents to censor unacceptable programming. He said shows like CBS' "Survivor" and its newer "Big Brother" are bizarre and "play to people's most voyeuristic instincts.
"The competition to the bottom in television ... is very serious competition," he said with a smile.
"In all honesty I've watched only a few minutes of one of those episodes, though I'm going to try to fulfill my public responsibility in time to watch the first episode of 'Big Brother' tonight," he said.
Later in the day, Lieberman joined other members of the state's congressional delegation at a Branford lobster company to publicize almost $14 million in federal aid the fishermen hit hard by a lobster die-off in Long Island Sound.
He finished the day by talking with people at the Athenian Diner III on the Boston Post Road in Milford to discuss their concerns.
Dawn Nickerson, 44, of West Haven, a secretary at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center who works part time at the diner, called Lieberman an unlikely politician.
"He seems like a nice guy, like he'll do what he promises," she said.
She did not know the name of Lieberman's fall opponent.
Ken Dixon, who covers the state Capitol, can be reached at (860) 549-4670.
Thursday, July 06, 2000
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