JOSEPH LIEBERMAN
The son of a liquor store owner, Joseph Lieberman was born in Stamford, Connecticut in 1942. He graduated from Yale College - where he helped found an anti-Vietnam War group - and then Yale Law School. He was elected to the Connecticut state senate in 1970 and served ten years. One of the volunteers in his first campaign was a young Bill Clinton, then a Yale law student. In 1980, Lieberman ran for an open seat in the U.S. House and lost. Two years later, he was elected state attorney general, a position he held for five years. In 1988, Lieberman unseated Republican Lowell Weicker in a tight race for the U.S. Senate, and won re-election six years later. He and his wife, Hadassah, have one daughter together; he has a son and daughter from a previous marriage, and she has a son from a previous marriage. Lieberman was tapped to be Al Gore's running mate, becoming the first Jew to run on a major party ticket.