WASHINGTON — Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman, selected by Al Gore Monday as his vice presidential running mate, has the reputation of being politically independent, tough on defense and morally impeccable.
As the only orthodox Jew in the Senate, Lieberman, 58, observes the rigid dietary laws of Judaism. On the Sabbath, he will not travel, write, engage in political activities or use electricity. And he says he is deeply influenced in his political life by Jewish ethics and texts.
"It's a wonderful organizing principle of my life. It gives it order, a sense of purpose, but it also provides me, in terms of the Sabbath, with a sense of sanctuary in my week which has become more important to me as I've gone on in life and become busier," Lieberman told Reuters in an interview in 1997.
"There's no question that my religious upbringing and my religious education was a major contributor to who I am. And who I am determines how I vote on particular issues," he said.
One example is his commitment to a strong national defense policy, which has sometimes put him at odds with his fellow Democrats. He said that goes all the way back to when he was 13 and had his bar mitzvah—the Jewish ceremony that marks the passage from boyhood to manhood.
At the ceremony, he read a passage from the book of Exodus telling how the Amalekites attacked the Children of Israel from the rear, an act that the Bible says could neither be forgiven nor forgotten.
Lieberman backed the U.S. invasion of Panama in 1989 and was one of the leaders in the fight for a resolution backing the U.S.-led war to expel Iraq from Kuwait in 1991.
"Without his earnest and vehement support, it might not have passed," according to the 1996 edition of the Almanac of American Politics, a guide issued annually by the National Journal magazine.
Lieberman will break the Sabbath in cases of an emergency and has been known to walk from his Georgetown home to the Senate, several miles across Washington, D.C.
On another issue, abortion, Lieberman finds himself at odds with most conservative Christians.
"When I was in the state senate I would agonize and agonize over this. And I did occasionally consult rabbinical sources over the generations. Ultimately I decided that, after all my struggling with this question, we really had to respect the right of women to choose," he said.
In 1994, when Republicans swept to control of both houses of Congress and a Republican won election as governor of Connecticut, Lieberman won his own Senate re-election battle with 67 percent of the vote. He was seen as a shoo-in for re-election this November.
Lieberman's defining moment came Sept. 3, 1998 when he became the first Democratic senator to denounce Clinton for his behavior in conducting an affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
In a speech spiced with quotations from past presidents and delivered with quiet authority, Lieberman said Clinton's behavior was not just inappropriate.
"It is immoral. And it is harmful, for it sends a message of what is acceptable behavior to the larger American family, particularly to our children," he said.
Lieberman grew up in Stamford, Connecticut, the son of a liquor store owner. He went to Yale University where he first became involved in politics and helped found an anti-Vietnam War group. In 1970, he ran for the state Senate against the sitting majority leader and won. One of the volunteers in that campaign was the young Bill Clinton, then a Yale law student.
In 1980, Lieberman ran for an open seat in the House and lost. Two years later, he was elected state attorney general, where he took action against fake charities and crooked car dealers.
In 1988, Lieberman challenged sitting Republican Sen. Lowell Weicker and scored an upset victory. He favored the death penalty and a moment of silence in schools.
In his first Senate term, Lieberman exerted influence far out of proportion to his seniority, committee position or political clout. In his second, his influence only increased. He became chairman of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, a group Clinton helped found.
Lieberman worked with conservative Bill Bennett against excessive sex and violence in Hollywood and in rap music. He also forged a close relationship with Gore, especially on environmental issues.
"As a committed Jew, fundamental to our religious tradition is the notion that there is a God who created the world and everything on it," he said. "That really has contributed to the priority I've given to environmental protection as a matter related to our stewardship, our trusteeship over the Earth."
He married Hadassah Freilich, who is the child of Holocaust survivors. Lieberman has four children aged between 10 and 30.