Breaking at this hour, the longtime, former Connecticut senator and Democrat vice presidential nominee, Joe Lieberman, has passed away, according to numerous sources. He was 82 years old.
His family has released a statement:
Statement from the family of Senator Joseph I. Lieberman
— Mike Emanuel 🇺🇸 (@MikeEmanuelFox) March 27, 2024
Fox News’ Chad Pergram also confirmed the family’s account of Lieberman’s cause of death.
via the Washington Post:
Joseph I. Lieberman, the doggedly independent four-term U.S. senator from Connecticut who was the Democratic nominee for vice president in 2000, becoming the first Jewish candidate on the national ticket of a major party, died March 27 in New York City. He was 82.[…]
Mr. Lieberman viewed himself as a centrist Democrat, solidly in his party’s mainstream with his support of abortion rights, environmental protection, gay rights and gun control. But he was also unafraid to stray from Democratic orthodoxy, most notably in his consistently hawkish stands on foreign policy.
His full-throated support of the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the increasingly unpopular war that followed doomed Mr. Lieberman’s bid for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004 and led to his rejection by Connecticut Democrats when he sought his fourth Senate term in 2006. He kept his seat by running that November as an independent candidate and attracting substantial support from Republican and unaffiliated voters.
“I have not always fit comfortably into conventional political boxes,” Mr. Lieberman said near the end of his Senate career, an understatement that tiptoed around the anger his maverick ways stoked among many liberals.
….In retirement, Mr. Lieberman co-chaired No Labels, an organization founded to encourage bipartisanship, and he missed no opportunity to reiterate the plea he made in his 2012 farewell Senate speech.
This is a breaking story, and RedState will provide further details as they become available.
