Dems' Dynamic Duo
Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Lieberman and Democratic Senate candidate Hillary Clinton campaigned Friday in front of 40 to 50 seventh and eighth graders, and about as many grownups, at a Brooklyn public school.
Lieberman had the same effect on Hillary that he seems to have on Al Gore: he loosened her up.
The Democratic duo appeared in the library of a Coney Island junior high to spread the Democratic gospel of targeted middle-class tax cuts, but students’ questions took them off message and down Memory Lane, as both candidates waxed nostalgic about their childhood ambitions, school sports and favorite teachers.
Clinton, coming off a solid performance in her first campaign debate this week, was buoyant and spontaneous – for her.
Wearing an unseasonably "happy" color – lighter than lime but darker than chartreuse – the first lady glowed, smiling through an introduction by Lieberman that recalled a 30-year friendship and remembered a younger Hillary as (surprise) a conscientious student who logged more hours in the Yale library than husband Bill.
For Lieberman, the Brooklyn campaign stop was not just a nostalgia trip. He took care of some business too.
In New York, where 12 percent of voters are Jewish, Hillary’s taken some hits over a controversial air kiss she shared with the wife of Yasser Arafat, and a dubious allegation that she used an anti-Jewish slur in anger when her husband lost one of his first runs for office back in Arkansas.
Lieberman called Clinton a “woman of principle” and “faith” who will be a “strong, strong supporter of the state of Israel” in the Senate.
“The word ‘tolerance’ doesn’t do it justice,” said the senator of the senator-in-waiting. “She’s a woman without a bias in her being.”
Last week before the first debate, 55 percent of New York Jews were supporting Hillary in the independent Marist College poll. Poll director Lee Miringhoff says Hillary needs between 65 and 70 percent of New York Jews in her winning coalition.
Hillary introduced the Connecticut senator as “Joe Lieberman, the chairman of the board,” in honor of his Thursday night performance of My Way on Conan O’Brien’s late-night talk show. Shakily, Lieberman warbled, “I did it myyyyy way,” then stopped himself.
For the formal part of the program, Lieberman dutifully made the Gore-Lieberman argument in favor of targeted tax cuts and debt reduction (Reader’s Digest version). Clinton talked about Democratic plans for improving public education, and called for a uniform ratings system for movies, video games and music.
But we’ve heard all that stuff before.
Things didn’t get interesting until the candidates faced the teenyboppers of Mark Twain Intermediate School for the Gifted and Talented.
Lieberman reveale that by the time he was in junior high school, he already understood the “painful reality“ that he would never realize his dream of being a centerfielder on a major league baseball team. “My little league career was not a smashing success,” Lieberman said, before confessing that a woman lost a dollar once betting he would strike out. (He doubled!)
Clearly, the dream lives. Lieberman said one of the biggest thrills of the campaign thus far came not on a stage in Nashville or Los Angeles, but at a Toledo Mud Hens game, when minor league fans asked him to autograph some baseballs.
Lieberman’s suggestion that he might like to come back in another life as Joe DiMaggio prompted Clinton to tell a stream-of-consciousness tale of her only encounter with DiMaggio, in a Charleston, West Virginia airport.
More than ten years ago, when a man’s voice offered to help Clinton with her bags, she looked up and saw DiMaggio. “Dumbstruck,” Clinton couldn’t get it together to introduce herself. “What a gentleman,” she mused. “But back to reality.”
The students wanted to know about Lieberman and Clinton’s goals, heroes and hobbies, when they were the kids’ ages.
Clinton named Eleanor Roosevelt, and seconded Lieberman’s advice that kids interested in public service read history and biography. The feminist who strikes fear in the hearts of Promise Keepers everywhere recalled playing half-court basketball back in the olden days when girls wore bloomers to gym and kept their shirts on in victory.
Finally, Clinton provided conclusive evidence that she has a sense of humor.
When a 13-year-old boy asked her to greet his mother on TV, volunteering that Mom “likes Bill too, but she likes you better,” Hillary looked into the cameras and said, sweetly, “Hello, Katherine, you have a very handsome and very smart son.”