
It sounds like the start to a bad joke: A Southern Baptist and a Jew walk onto the Democratic ticket. And sure, Joe Lieberman’s faith was played up heavily after Al Gore chose the Connecticut senator as his running mate, as he was the first Jewish candidate to join a major party’s presidential ticket. But Gore’s primary goal was to leave in the dust all tinges of the Clintonian era, pockmarked by the Monica Lewinsky scandal and ensuing impeachment trial. And as TIME’s cover story noted, Lieberman had been an outspoken critic of Clinton’s alleged wrongdoing, calling it the “most vivid example we have of the virus of lost standards.” It didn’t hurt that the Connecticut Senator’s high moral reputation helped defuse GOP attempts to paint Gore as just another vote-mongering pol, leaving opponents George W. Bush and Dick Cheney casting about for bad things to say about the pick. Ultimately, however, the campaign needed a vice president who could separate Gore from his past eight years as Clinton’s veep:
The choice of a Vice President is always most interesting for what it tells you about the man who made the pick. In this case, it tells you Gore knew he needed to make a choice that would invite voters to take another look at him–and that he had the nerve to pull it off. A source close to the selection process says Gore concluded, in defiance of his hired-gun consultants, that Lieberman’s observant faith could be a strength, not a weakness, because it trumped the Republicans on values and religion. Many of Gore’s advisers were worried that Lieberman’s religion would backfire–and even as the accolades were rolling in after Tuesday’s announcement, they stayed worried. “We still don’t know for sure,” said a top aide 15 hours after the big event. “It could still hurt us.”