Joe Lieberman, Senator and Vice Presidential Candidate, Dies at 82

Joe Lieberman, Connecticut’s four-term U.S. senator and Vice President Al Gore’s Democratic running mate in the 2000 presidential election won by George W. Bush and Dick Cheney when the Supreme Court halted a Florida ballot recount, died Wednesday in New York. He was 82.

His family, in a statement, said the cause was complications of a fall. His brother-in-law Ary Freilich said Lieberman died at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital in upper Manhattan.

At his political peak on the threshold of the vice presidency, Lieberman – a national voice of morality as the first major Democrat to rebuke President Bill Clinton for his sexual relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky – was named Gore’s running mate at the Democratic National Convention that August, and became the nation’s first Jewish candidate on a major-party presidential ticket.

In the ensuing campaign, the Gore-Lieberman team stressed themes of integrity to sidestep Clinton administration scandals. Lieberman also urged Americans to bring religion and faith more prominently into public life. They won a narrow plurality of the popular votes – a half-million more than the Bush-Cheney Republican ticket. But on the evening of Election Day, no clear winner had emerged in the Electoral College, and an intense legal battle took center stage.