This Shapiro Thing Within The Party... Has An Echo Of The Lieberman Thing Of 24 Years Ago...

[Rubyshoo]

Is it because he is Jewish, is it because hes a moderate ?

Please be careful here, the GOPSMAGAs would love to find a little crevice in which to plant their explosives, and blow our newly minted unity all to hell.

[ZZenith]

1. Not convinced this post isn't a little crevice.

[Rubyshoo]

2. Will Rogers

I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat.

Will Rogers

[elocs]

35. I've used that quote many times lately because it is spot on & I'v'e witnessed it in action too often for over 50 years.

[Rubyshoo]

45. You And Me Both

[Cha]

8. It is and more.. Why try to associate Gov Shapiro with

the turncoat Lieberman?

[JohnSJ]

19. Exactly. A not so subtle inference for sure.

[Cha]

27. Yeah, WTH! This isn't hurting Gov Shapiro.. guess who it

is hurting.

[wryter2000]

13. We are seeing a lot of these n/t

n/t

[Eliot Rosewater]

51. Shapiro? I thought they said DeNiro, either way, I will vote for Kamala because I am not an idiot.

(just for clarification, I am making a joke about not knowing the name of the potential VP because it does not matter who it is, it would not matter if it was a couch...Well sure, Vance would like to debate a couch....but)

[ZZenith]

61. Can we put this couch thing to bed already?

If it had any basis in fact it might have merit but it’s becoming childish at this point.

Thanks in advance.

[Eliot Rosewater]

63. No, it is not true, but it is funny...

[Oopsie Daisy]

71. Yes, we are. It seems very organized, methodical and intentional.

Definitely repetitive and predictable, isn't it?

[wryter2000]

73. I'm getting sick of it

For what it's worth, I don't really have a favorite. So many possibilities are fabulous. I'm just finding these cryptic attacks against Shapiro bothersome.

[Oopsie Daisy]

74. I'm with you! I have no favorite either.

Whoever she chooses will be perfect! --- I fear that some people get so heavily and emotionally invested in things like this that they'll want to dish out some sort of punishment (in the short term) by threatening to not vote, or by spreading doom and gloom and hopelessness... thus being the wet-blanket and discouraging others from voting.

Maybe I'm worrying over nothing. But considering the nature of these attacks, nothing would surprise me. I'm sure they have it in themselves to over-react in the most selfish ways. I'm human but with these Costco hearing aids, I can hear dog whistles clearly.

[Scrivener7]

23. One of many.

[ret5hd]

60. One of many. It's almost a constant.

[Prairie Gates]

72. The consistent lack of apostrophes and the extra space before punctuation is

...chefs kiss !!!

(And I do mean a French chef...)

[msfiddlestix]

3. I never viewed Lieberman as a moderate personally, and as time went on, he proved me correct.

[Rubyshoo]

6. Didnt He Make An Appearance At The Republican Convention ???

[msongs]

4. lieberman turned out to be a closet repub. nt

[hlthe2b]

5. I don't think anyone here would appreciate Shapiro being compared to Lieberman...

and it has nothing to do with the one or two things they might have in common. Just saying... Lieberman proved correct those who had concerns about many of his policy positions throughout his career. Not to mention his wife's big-time conflict of interest with BIG PHARMAX... I hold the opinion that he was always more R than D.

[Rubyshoo]

7. Whats That Saying... History Doesnt Repeat Itself, But It Sure Does Rhyme

[hlthe2b]

17. I'd advise you to proceed with caution, there Rubyshoo. Some of us were HERE after that stolen election

and the situations were very very different with respect to how Lieberman was perceived and received on the VP ticket and what you are implying.

[Rubyshoo]

24. I Will End It Like This...

Iḿ reading articles from the left that are advising Harris NOT to pick Shapiro.

Iḿ reading articles from the MSN and the Dem Establishment types that think he´d be a perfect fit.

All is normal so far.

Then I read that the people objecting might be anti-semetic...

And I swear on a stack, the first thing that popped into my head was, ¨Its the Lieberman thing again.¨

I dont give one shit about anybodys religion, and Ill be fine with, and supportive of, anybody Kamala Harris chooses to be her VP.

End of story.

(I was really asking if anybody here had that same reaction.)




Thanks for the caution.

[EarnestPutz]

54. Since you asked, yes. Yes, A comparison with Lieberman was the first thing that came to mind.

[Rubyshoo]

58. Thank You !!!

Im pretty sure most people here were around at the time.

All I was sayin, was that it rang a bell.

[SocialDemocrat61]

12. Lieberman makes Shapiro

look like Sanders

[mvd]

9. Well I prefer not to be talking about moderates

But I’m pragmatic. People think it sells. I personally think Shapiro may be right of Harris on a few things but by no means a conservative Dem. He continued the moratorium on the death penalty and has a budget that funds priorities. Harris I am sure has done the research on how much division he would cause. But his charisma would be a big plus for the ticket.

[lame54]

10. They are already whining...

Which tells me they don't want this guy

If they thought he was the worst choice they would want it to go through

[SocialDemocrat61]

11. I had no problem with Lieberman when Gore picked him

But grew to dislike him in the years following mainly because of his policy positions. His support of McCain in 08 was disgusting. There was no public option in the ACA because of Lieberman. There was no provision to protect reproductive rights either because of Lieberman.

[Tadpole Raisin]

14. I pretty much followed the same path you did back then.

It was such a disappointment!

[hlthe2b]

18. Exactly. What the OP is implying in terms of Lieberman's reception was simply not the case.

He showed his true self throughout his long time in the Senate--not prior to the 2000 election.

[Celerity]

34. Lieberman then served as chair of the Democratic Leadership Council from 1995 to 2001.

In 1998, Lieberman was the first prominent Democrat to publicly challenge Clinton for the judgment exercised in his affair with Monica Lewinsky.

https://prospect.org/features/dlc/

snip

A Business-Led Party

Freeing Democrats from being, well, Democrats has been the Democratic Leadership Council's mission since its founding 16 years ago by Al Gore, Chuck Robb, and a handful of other conservative, mostly southern Dems as a rump faction of disaffected elected officials and party activists. Producing and directing the DLC is Al From, its founder and CEO, who's been the leader, visionary, and energizing force behind the New Democrat movement since Day One. A veteran of the Carter White House and Capitol Hill, where he'd worked for Louisiana Representative Gillis Long and served as executive director of the House Democratic Caucus, From helped build the Committee on Party Effectiveness, a forerunner of the DLC, in the early 1980s. To From, a key rationale for establishing the DLC in those days was to protect the Democrats' eroding bastion in the South against mounting Republican gains, and indeed one of the DLC's chief projects in the 1980s was to create and promote the Super Tuesday primary across the South, aimed at enhancing the clout of southern Dems in selecting presidential candidates. Privately funded and operating as an extraparty organization without official Democratic sanction, and calling themselves "New Democrats," the DLC sought nothing less than the miraculous: the transubstantiation of America's oldest political party.

Though the DLC painted itself using the palette of the liberal left--as "an effort to revive the Democratic Party's progressive tradition," with New Democrats being the "trustees of the real tradition of the Democratic Party"--its mission was far more confrontational. With few resources, and taking heavy flak from the big guns of the Democratic left, the DLC proclaimed its intention, Mighty Mouse–style, to rescue the Democratic Party from the influence of 1960s-era activists and the AFL-CIO, to ease its identification with hot-button social issues, and, perhaps most centrally, to reinvent the party as one pledged to fiscal restraint, less government, and a probusiness, pro–free market outlook. It's hard to argue that they haven't succeeded. Today's is not your father's Democratic Party. Though the dwindling chorus of party progressives provides counterpoint, today's Democrats are proud to claim the mantle of budgetary moderation. They oppose President Bush's $2-trillion tax-cut plan not by arguing mainly for more spending on health, education, and welfare, but because it risks the new sacred cause of paying off the national debt. They are the party of increased military spending, the death penalty, the war on drugs, and partnership with religious faith. They are the party of Ending Welfare As We Know It, the party of The Era of Big Government Is Over.

snip

While the DLC will not formally disclose its sources of contributions and dues, the full array of its corporate supporters is contained in the program from its annual fall dinner last October, a gala salute to Lieberman that was held at the National Building Museum in Washington. Five tiers of donors are evident: the Board of Advisers, the Policy Roundtable, the Executive Council, the Board of Trustees, and an ad hoc group called the Event Committee--and companies are placed in each tier depending on the size of their check. For $5,000, 180 companies, lobbying firms, and individuals found themselves on the DLC's board of advisers, including British Petroleum, Boeing, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Coca-Cola, Dell, Eli Lilly, Federal Express, Glaxo Wellcome, Intel, Motorola, U.S. Tobacco, Union Carbide, and Xerox, along with trade associations ranging from the American Association of Health Plans to the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America. For $10,000, another 85 corporations signed on as the DLC's policy roundtable, including AOL, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Citigroup, Dow, GE, IBM, Oracle, UBS PacifiCare, PaineWebber, Pfizer, Pharmacia and Upjohn, and TRW.

And for $25,000, 28 giant companies found their way onto the DLC's executive council, including Aetna, AT&T, American Airlines, AIG, BellSouth, Chevron, DuPont, Enron, IBM, Merck and Company, Microsoft, Philip Morris, Texaco, and Verizon Communications. Few, if any, of these corporations would be seen as leaning Democratic, of course, but here and there are some real surprises. One member of the DLC's executive council is none other than Koch Industries, the privately held, Kansas-based oil company whose namesake family members are avatars of the far right, having helped to found archconservative institutions like the Cato Institute and Citizens for a Sound Economy. Not only that, but two Koch executives, Richard Fink and Robert P. Hall III, are listed as members of the board of trustees and the event committee, respectively--meaning that they gave significantly more than $25,000.

snip

[hlthe2b]

37. Yes. And Gore felt the need to distance himself from Clinton somewhat in 2000 election--

(a mistake in many of our opinions then and now, but I digress) that was part of his choice for Lieberman. But, I certainly do not recall major backlash in that decision and certainly none concentrated on his being Jewish, which is the implication of the OP. VP decisions were considered pragmatic and as others have pointed out, Lieberman had major support in the all-important battleground state of Florida.

To the extent Dems expressed qualms it was over his moderate (and for some, DINO) reputation--and for some because he did go after Clinton. But, not to any major degree because of his being Jewish.

[Celerity]

41. I should've said why I posted that reply. I posted it to show that Lieberman was long known to be a centrist/Third Way,

business/corporate-oriented Democrat with well-documented history of antagonism to the liberal/progressive wing of the Democratic Party and the old school labour union/FDR coalition. It was not something that was being hidden, not something that only became know post 2000 election.

I was not at all commenting on Shapiro whatsoever. I have removed myself from the VP debate and will fully support the person Harris chooses no matter who it is.

[hlthe2b]

42. True.. But I think, like me, most voters were pragmatic enough to look past that as Gore's choice...

I didn't harbor strong feelings at the time. I certainly developed them later on as he played sycophant/enabler to Bush* and R's in the Senate.

[Celerity]

46. I was 3 years old for most of 2000, lol, BUT I've deeply (at a proper academic level) studied American political history

for ages now. I am pretty sure, given my overall political ideological make-up, I would have (if I was of voting age back then) not have been very happy with Lieberman, BUT would have been a good soldier and tried my best to help us win versus that fucker Bush, via whatever means I had at hand.

[hlthe2b]

49. Looking through your lens now (and how intensely important every election has become since 2000)

I'm glad that younger voters are looking at it as such. Those of us voting for the first time when we were not at war and it seemed the worst thing happening was from Newt Gingrich et al in Congress (disgusting though he/they were), I'm not sure most were looking at it that way. 'Not like 1968 or 1972 certainly (and no, I was not voting then...LOL). 'Seems my generation got to ease into the whole "live v death" potential consequences of one's vote at the end of the last century. I see it quite differently today...

So, that is why I think the choice of VP has become so seemingly "high-stakes" and everyone politically aware is tuning in. And, of course, the public's response to current world events do play into the issue--whether we'd like them to or not. In that (and of course the determined lies from our opponents), it is very much like 1968/1972, in my assessment. Not so much 2000 (from the standpoint of the campaign--only).

[Demsrule86]

15. Once Harris makes her decision, there will be unity.

Your concern is duly noted...this is not a primary. Harris makes the decision...and I have criticized no one...Those who have attacked Shapiro should be ashamed. He is a great Democrat and his views are the same as the other VP candidates.

[wryter2000]

16. What Shapiro thing?

Inquiring minds want to know.

[elocs]

36. You know, the one that some are trying to conjure up, but only to help us don't you know. n/t

[AZSkiffyGeek]

67. I have an (((idea)))

[Nanjeanne]

20. Oh dear God. Lieberman was a disgrace. Says this Connecticutter. And Jew.

[Cosmocat]

21. Year, Leiberman was a worm, Shapiro isn't

nm

[karynnj]

22. Gore was happy it made history as the first Jewish VP, but it also was to win a state

Florida, with the huge Jewish retiree population was winnable with Lieberman. I remember NYT articles about how he was a rock star in Palm Beach etc. Even in a reconstructionist synagogue that I belonged to at the time there was genuine excitement. Without the butterfly ballot in several palm beach area districts, Gore would have easily won. ( remember that is what the exit polls showed, which made sense as people said who they thought they had voted for ... and it was not Pat Buchanan.)

But he managed to make Cheney look like a nice grandfather in the debates. Other possible VPs would have shown how conservative Cheney was and many might have won NH even with Nader. Winning NH would have been enough.

As to Shapiro, I seriously could see him destroying Vance AND winning PA.

[LexVegas]

25. No it doesnt. nt

[Think. Again.]

26. I strongly suspect the whole thing has been a rightwing psy-op....

...that a few true Dems have got caught up in.

But anyway, Go Kamala! GO!!! 🌊 !!!

[quaint]

28. My smallish concern is his gubernatorial turn to supporting school vouchers.

Since taking office last year, Shapiro has become the most prominent Democratic voice in the state for such a program. Last summer, he backed a controversial Republican voucher proposal to the chagrin of longtime party allies and influential unions that supported his candidacy — though he ultimately vetoed the language after facing opposition from fellow Democrats.

Despite his high-profile public backing, Shapiro’s embrace of vouchers appears to be a relatively new conviction, according to political insiders and others who have worked with and followed the governor in his two-decade political career. As a state lawmaker in the 2000s, he didn’t advocate for the issue, they recalled, let alone push legislation.

Shapiro’s thinking on the issue can be understood in part through his relationship with at least one prominent school choice advocate, sources told Spotlight PA.

[lamp_shade]

29. Um... no

[surfered]

30. And Russian bots.

[Cha]

31. No There's NO GD "Echo".. What are you on about.. "Jewish thing"..

Telling us to "be careful".. you need to be "careful".

[LuvLoogie]

48. But they've been making 50 posts a day

since they joined 2 weeks ago!

[Cha]

53. And? lol

That as you know doesn't give license" to ********!

[LuvLoogie]

59. Oh, just sometimes we get chummed

as elections approach.

[Cha]

66. Funny the Clock Work.

[Abolishinist]

68. It's a good thing DU recently upgraded to a bigger boat!

[FrankBooth]

32. Uhh, right.

Your concern is duly noted.

[Kali999]

33. Lieberman

Lieberman was Joe Manchin and Sinema before they're time. Always stuck a knife in the democratic party.
And what Jarod Golden aspires too. I don't care who she picks.

[Sky Jewels]

62. I fucking hated that backstabbing, sanctimonious asshole.

So glad his Joementum took him into the dirt.

[H2O Man]

38. Recommended.

I disagree that it is like with Joe L, but I thank you for raising an important issue. Lieberman had been the first Demoicrat of stature to speak out against President Clinton, and when Gore picked him, it appeared to be an attempt by Gore to separate himself from Clinton. Lieberman was a self-righteous neoconservative Democrat, with little appeal to the party's base outside of his home state. The failure of the Gore campaign to use Clinton set the stage for an erlection so close that the USSC could select Bush for president. The rest of Lieberman's career was not a bonus for our party. People tended to dislike him for who he was, an obnoxious politician. That's not to say he wasn't talented.

I was not fully aware of the circumstances with Gov Shapiro, and had viewed his potential for becoming VP entirely on his political stances. But then I've read things by forum members here -- including many that I have great respect for -- that suggersted his being Jewish was the source of the disagreements on if he is the best choice. I did respond, including in a highly detailed bit about why he isn't likely to excite the youth vote. Yet, because of what others were saying, I knew I had better take a closer look.

In doing so, I found that there is a lot of antisemitic attacks on him. I had not been aware of the extent of this before. I think it is primarily coming from those outside our pasrty, who would never vote for VP Harris. But it is indeed toxic, and threatens to poison the social-poltical environment even more than it already is. At this point, it looks as if VP Harris will pick Shapiro, and I'm good with that. It will provide our party to confront one of the ugliest features of American society head on. To expose the disgraceful reality that antisemitism not only still exists, but is considered by the opposition to be something near and dear to them.

[hlthe2b]

50. Thoughtful, as always..

[emulatorloo]

55. Well said. A relevant article if you haven't already seen it...

Who’s Afraid of Josh Shapiro?
The Pennsylvania governor called Benjamin Netanyahu “one of the worst leaders of all time.” But anti-Israel activists don’t want him on the Democratic ticket.

By Yair Rosenberg

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/07/josh-shapiro-netanyahu-jewish-vp/679300/
https://archive.is/XQXcM

[elleng]

56. Thank you.

[Baitball Blogger]

39. Er...if you like Shapiro, why would you bring up Lieberman?

Lieberman was a huge mistake for the party.

[getagrip_already]

40. If you are equating the two based on their religion, that is disgusting

Is manchin the same as kelly?

Really, equating the rwo because they are both jewish is gobsmacking.

Find something else to wade in.

If i misunerstood, i apologize, but im shaking my head in dissapointment here. Even as a 66 year old non jew who can very well remember the history of his political activities.

[Rubyshoo]

44. YOUR Words, Not Mine - See Post #24

[Autumn]

43. Not even close to Lieberman.

He was a snake from the get go.

[gainesvillenole]

47. Lieberman Was A HUGE Mistake

Not because he was Jewish but a terrible campaigner and a Republican in Democratic clothing. Made even clearer when he spoke against Obama at the Republican convention….🤦🏻‍♂️
If Gore had done the smart thing he’d have picked Bob Graham as VP. He would have won easily…..

[elleng]

52. Not similar to Lieberman, imo.

[JCMach1]

57. Lieberman in retrospect was a pretty bad candidate

And democrat for that matter...

[Oak2004]

64. There is a difference

Lieberman was a closet Republican.

Shapiro is a real Democrat.

For a real analogy here, it would be as if Harris picked Manchin or Sinema, which fortunately will not occur.

[marybourg]

65. No it does not. Lieberman was a Republican in Democratic

clothing and I considered it a disqualifying choice on Gore’s part. I voted Green, rather than have Lieberman’s foot in the White House door. And I don’t regret it. If we had had Gore, we wouldn’t have had Obama next.

[wildflowergardener]

69. Lieberman

My dislike for Lieberman had nothing to do with his religion. As others have said he was more like a republican than a democrat in what he supported.

[Drum]

70. OP Poster:

You oughtta simmer down.