page_title: Joe Lieberman
section_title: Early political career
hierarchical_section_title: Joe Lieberman / Early political career
caption_attribution_description: English: President Ronald Reagan, Joe Lieberman, and John Ashcroft,
context_page_description: Joseph Isadore Lieberman is an American politician, lobbyist and attorney who served as a United States Senator from Connecticut from 1989 to 2013. A former member of the Democratic Party, he was its nominee for Vice President of the United States in the 2000 election. During his final term in office he was officially listed as an independent Democrat and caucused with and chaired committees for the Democratic Party.
  Lieberman was elected as a "Reform Democrat" in 1970 to the Connecticut Senate, where he served three terms as Majority Leader. After an unsuccessful bid for the U.S. House of Representatives in 1980, he served as state Attorney General from 1983 to 1989. He narrowly defeated Republican incumbent Lowell Weicker in 1988 to win election to the U.S. Senate, and was re-elected in 1994, 2000, and 2006. He was the Democratic nominee for Vice President in the 2000 United States presidential election, running with presidential nominee and then Vice President Al Gore, and becoming the first Jewish candidate on a major American political party presidential ticket.
context_section_description: Lieberman was elected as a "reform Democrat" to the Connecticut Senate in 1970, where he served for 10 years, including the last six as Majority Leader. He suffered his first defeat in Connecticut elections in the Reagan landslide year of 1980, losing the race for the Third District Congressional seat to Republican Lawrence Joseph DeNardis, a state senator from suburban Hamden with whom he had worked closely on bipartisan legislative efforts. In 1981 he wrote an admiring biography of long-time Connecticut and national Democratic leader John Moran Bailey, reviewing also in the book the previous 50 years of Connecticut political history. From 1983 to 1989, he served as Connecticut Attorney General. In the 1986 general election, Lieberman won more votes than any other Democrat on the statewide ticket, including Governor William O'Neill. As Attorney General, Lieberman emphasized consumer protection and environmental enforcement.
caption: Lieberman with President Ronald Reagan in 1984
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