As long as we’re dredging up 2000 election history, I just ran across a couple of transcripts that made my point in another conversation.
FORMER SEN. DAN COATS [R-IN]: First of all, Joe Lieberman’s a terrific fellow, and I’m a good friend. It’s hard to say anything negative about him, but I do think it raises the question about Al Gore, why he chose Joe Lieberman, because their positions on some of the key issues in this campaign, Social Security reform, education, national defense — Joe Lieberman’s much closer to George Bush than he is to Al Gore and how he’s going to finesse that or answer that I’m not exactly sure. And how Al Gore’s going to explain that, whether it’s another attempt to reinvent Al Gore or another attempt to cover both sides of the issue, I think is going to be a question, because there are very fundamental issues where Al Gore has attacked Governor Bush for taking that position, and yet it’s exactly the same position or very close to what Joe Lieberman has done and said on the Senate floor.
KING: Governor Dukakis, Ari Fleischer, spokesman for the Bush campaign, said: “Al Gore has chosen a man whose positions are more similar to Governor Bush’s than his own. The fact that Al Gore is willing to select a running mate whose positions he attacked throughout the campaign will cause many to question Al Gore’s commitment to the position he takes.” What’s your response?
Now, the Republicans were going to attack Gore’s VP choice no matter who it was, but the fact that they were attacking him for being too much like their own candidate? It may have been the last thing they told the truth about.