Seven years ago, Joe Lieberman, hungry for the vice presidency and determined to remove any roadblocks to his nomination as Al Gore's running mate, renounced his past opposition to affirmative action.
"I have supported affirmative action, I do support affirmative action and I will support affirmative action," he pledged to African American delegates at the 2000 Democratic convention.
The statement, Lieberman knew, was not true. In 1995, the Connecticut senator had declared his support for a California referendum banning affirmative action policies based on racial preferences:
"You can't defend policies that are based on group preferences as opposed to individual opportunities, which is what America has always been about.... They're patently unfair.... Not only should we not discriminate against somebody, we shouldn't discriminate in favor of somebody based on the group they represent."
Lieberman's bid for the vice presidency failed in 2000. In 2004, he ran for the Democratic presidential nomination only to be rejected decisively. In 2006, Democratic primary voters in Connecticut refused to renominate Lieberman, a firm backer of the Iraq war, for his Senate seat, although he won the general election running as an independent with solid Republican support.
Connecticut voters in 2006 opposed the war by a 2-1 margin, according to network exit polls, but Lieberman won by carrying three quarters of the pro-war electorate and nearly 40 percent of those against the war. Democratic voters were against Lieberman by a 2-1 margin, but he received 70 percent of Republican votes and 54 percent of independent votes.
Now, Senate Democrats hold a slim 51-49 majority and Lieberman's continued membership in the Democratic caucus is crucial - all the more so because South Dakota's Democratic Senator, Tim Johnson -- disabled by a stroke -- has been unable to participate in proceedings because of a stroke, and the deciding vote in a tie is cast by Vice President Cheney.
Suddenly in the catbird seat, the 65-year-old Connecticut senator is thriving on thumbing his nose at the party that over the past three years has caused him such anguish.
Democratic Party leaders now go out of their way to speak kindly of him, but Lieberman appears to revel in his taunts.
Asked by the Hill about the possibility of switching parties Lieberman replied, "I have no interest or desire in doing that. I wouldn't foreclose it as a possibility, but I hope that I don't reach that point." What would it take? "Well, I guess I'd know it. It's like Justice [Potter] Stewart and his definition of obscenity: he couldn't define it but he'd know when he saw it. I think I'll know it when I feel it, but I hope I never get to that point." Lieberman refused to answer questions from the Huffington Post about his party-switching potential.
In June, the maverick Democrat co-hosted a fundraiser for a Republican senator, Maine's Susan Collins, who faces a challenge from Democratic Congressman Tom Allen. "Susan Collins is a great senator and deserves to be re-elected," Lieberman told the Hartford Courant. "Why wouldn't I co-host a fundraiser for her? If I'm for her, I'm going to be for her. I'm not going to play the political game."
He was the only member of the Democratic caucus to oppose the motion to end debate and to force a vote on a declaration of no confidence in Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez.
Lieberman's harshest criticism of his fellow Democrats has been on the issue of the war in Iraq. On June 17, just before the start of an all-night debate on a proposal to pull troops out of Iraq, Lieberman attended a press conference with Republican minority leader Mitch McConnell:
"If you'll allow me to say so, to me, the sad truth is that too many of our [Democratic] colleagues in the chamber are already asleep when it comes to Iraq. They're already asleep about the stakes America faces in Iraq....They're already effectively asleep, a kind of self-induced sleep, about the totally different strategy that General Petraeus and his troops are implementing now and the real progress they're achieving."
Democrats, he told The Hill, "are, in my opinion, respectfully, naïve in thinking we can somehow defeat this enemy with talk, or they're simply hesitant to use American power, including military power....There is a very strong group within the party that I think doesn't take the threat of Islamist terrorism seriously enough."
Lieberman has just over 14 more months to enjoy the power he holds and his immunity from retribution as the 51st member of the Democratic majority. All current predictions call for the party to increase its majority on November 4, 2008, making Lieberman's allegiance less crucial.
At the moment, Lieberman holds the chairmanship of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and senior positions on three other panels, including Armed Services, and two additional subcommittee chairs.
He is now holding out the possibility of endorsing a Republican presidential candidate. It is very unlikely that Democrats would eject him from the caucus after the 2008 election, but it remains to be seen how far Lieberman can push the partisan envelope and retain the key committee positions he now holds.
Although there is a major disparity between Lieberman's views on the Iraq war and those of his Connecticut constituents, he does not face re-election to his Senate seat until 2012.