Edwards and the ‘Lieberman Pledge’
On several recent occasions, John Edwards has been asked if he’ll follow Joe Lieberman’s example when deciding whether or not to run for president in 2008. The analogy, however, lacks a certain continuity.
Former vice presidential candidate John Edwards will not talk about whether he plans to run for the White House in 2008, but he is not pledging to stand aside if running mate John Kerry tries again.
Edwards said in an interview aired Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that he and Kerry have talked often since they lost in November to President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.
He would not say if he’ll follow the example set by Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, who was chosen by Al Gore as the Democratic candidate for vice president in 2000. Lieberman said he would not run in 2004 if Gore wanted to seek the presidency again. Gore did not, and Lieberman campaigned for the Democratic nomination.
“Not only are John Kerry and I friends, our families are close,” Edwards said. “I have enormous respect for him. But I’ll decide what’s the right thing to do based on what’s going on with my own family.”
The “Lieberman Pledge” seems to come up quite a bit because of the similarites of the circumstances. As the National Journal’s Chuck Todd argued recently, it’s a scenario that puts Edwards in a tough spot.
Should Edwards refuse to take the Lieberman route, he could come across as an ingrate. But if he does take the pledge, he risks wasting a lot of time between now and 2008 if Kerry decides on another run.
I can appreciate the similarities — both Lieberman and Edwards were running mates on unsuccessful tickets with plans to run in the following cycle — but holding Edwards to the Lieberman standard shortchanges him. Lieberman was plucked from relative obscurity; Edwards was a top-tier presidential candidate.
When Lieberman started weighing a presidential run, before Al Gore had decided to skip the race, there was a sense that Lieberman “owed” Gore something. It wasn’t an unreasonable conclusion — before Gore tapped Lieberman for the 2000 ticket, Lieberman had no national profile. No one could reasonably argue that Lieberman would have been a top-tier presidential candidate in ’04 were it not for Gore’s assistance. If Gore wanted to run, it made sense that Lieberman should step aside out of a sense of loyalty.
The same cannot be said of Edwards. He was a very strong candidate on his own, one of only three Dems to win a primary, and someone whose following grew significantly over time — even before getting tapped for Kerry’s ticket. If Edwards wants to run in ’08, he’s under no obligation to wait and see what Kerry does.
That said, no matter what Gore, Kerry, or Edwards decide to do in the future, let’s hope Lieberman never considers running for president ever again. I don’t know if he still owes Gore for 2000, but he owes it to the rest of us to stay away from the primaries.