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October 20, 2000/21 Tishri 5761, Vol. 53, No.4
On the road with Joe
HARRY KIRSBAUM
Detroit Jewish News
DETROIT - On a dreary October morning, factory workers are lining the aisles, smiling and hoping to get a handshake from a man who can't wait to meet them.
"I haven't seen the people here this excited since last year, when we got profit sharing," says a woman worker to no one in particular. She's wearing a Gore-Lieberman 2000 T-shirt, as are many in the plant.
Followed by a large entourage of staff members, union leaders and Secret Service agents, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, the first Jewish vice presidential candidate on a major party ticket, makes his entrance. He removes his suit coat, rolls up his sleeves and slowly makes his way around a prearranged path in the Visteon Automotive Systems plant in Romulus, Michigan.
Without the Secret Service helping him along, it seems he would still be meeting and greeting every union member who marched in Detroit's Laborfest Labor Day parade on Sept 4. He seems to relish the opportunity he has been given, and is as comfortable around these factory workers as he is around wealthy businessmen at a $5,000-a-plate fund-raiser.
Lieberman doesn't quite have rock-star qualities, but some people do seem to get star struck. A woman worker can only squeal in delight when he stops to ask her a question.
After donning his umpteenth union jacket, this one with his name embroidered on it, he launches into a short speech tailored to the workers. He talks earnestly of a thriving economy that has added jobs, reduced the crime rate, and taken people off welfare.
He tells the crowd that factories like theirs show "that the new economy has gone well beyond the Silicon Valley, where it supposedly started, and it's come right here to the heartland of Michigan."
The race is very close, he tells them, and Michigan is very important.
"If we can win it here, we'll win it everywhere." He'll say the same thing about Florida later in the day.
When Vice President Al Gore selected Lieberman as his running mate, he became "the great Jewish hope" among Jews who were so proud of his nomination.
As time passed, the country once again began to concentrate on the presidential candidates.
The breakdown of the Mideast peace process and the recurring violence in Israel, however, has drawn voters' attention back to Lieberman.
Will his Jewishness - played down by his staff in recent weeks - affect his judgment in the Mideast? Will voters expect him to side with Israel no matter what?
The candidate begins what his staff calls the "Lieberman Rolls Through Motor City" tour after a late flight from Washington, D.C., on Oct. 15. He waited until the second day of Sukkot ended before he and his wife, Hadassah, flew into Willow Run airport. They attended a Democratic fund-raiser in Southfield, where he drew warm applause from the mostly Jewish crowd.
According to Hannan Lis, one of the nearly 400 who attended, Lieberman's religion is not the point. America's relationship with the only true democracy in the Mideast is already very strong, and there have been Jews in high U.S. government positions for a long time.
"Yes, it's different, but not by that much," says Lis, who has dual citizenship with Israel and will vote in his first U.S. election in November.
He doesn't think that, if elected, Lieberman will be the person Jews will go to first when it comes to Mideast issues. Other politicians already have the ear of the Jewish community.
Right now, Lieberman is going to the Jews for something else. Lieberman raised about $425,000 that night for the Democratic party, a warm-up for the day ahead.
According to Joel Tauber, chairman of the executive committee of the United Jewish Communities, the Democrats are trying to raise $10 million from Jewish supporters. Not every stop in the next 24 hours will be for Jewish fund raising, but most of them will.
As the fund-raiser ends at around 11:30 p.m. Oct. 15, Lieberman and his wife get a few hours sleep, then leave the hotel room at 6:30 a.m. Oct. 16, for a day that will take him to five stops in four Florida cities, and end at 11:45 p.m. Hadassah will not be joining him on this trip.
"The Spirit," Lieberman's chartered DC-9, is a small, yet comfortable ride. Nineteen rows long, the 15 rows in coach have enough legroom to make a first-class commercial passenger insanely jealous.
Lieberman and his advisers occupy the first-class section, Secret Service and other staff members sit towards the front of coach. The back half is occupied by the press.
The first stop in Florida is Century Village in West Palm Beach, a community of some 15,000 retired people.
Lieberman is warmly received by the crowd of 1,000 who cheer at every mention of a prescription plan paid for by Medicare, with a ceiling of $4,000 per year for all.
"We believe in expanding the winner's circle, so every American benefits from the unprecedented prosperity that we enjoy this year. Expanding health care so every child has access to decent care," he says.
It is a message he will repeat in various forms as the day wears on.
He also mentions Israel.
"This has been a week of really mixed emotions for me, and I think for a lot of people," he said somberly. "Our hearts were really heavy as we watched the terrible conflict and bloodshed in the Middle East."
Wrapping things up on a good-natured note, he talks about paying down the national debt by 2012.
"I hope you're all there when we burn the mortgage," he says to a round of applause. "Next year, Mertz Hashem (God-willing), I'll come back here as the vice president of the United States."
Edythe Pekin, 77, a Century Village resident, said "I don't think it's important to have a Jewish vice president, it's certainly important to have a vice president who's pro-Israel."
Lieberman is modern Orthodox, but his staff says his Jewish observance is intensely personal and not subject to discussion. Yet his staff uses a monthly schedule that shows sundown times on Friday - probably a first for a national official. Journalists say his religious practice has never held up the schedule.
At 12:40 p.m. Lieberman leaves most of the press corps behind - except for one pool reporter who will take notes for the rest of the group. He heads for a private fund-raiser for 70 representatives of the Jewish community in Palm Beach, who have paid at least $5,000 for the pleasure of Lieberman's company. The meeting raises $500,000.
At 1:55 p.m. Monday, he returns to Century Village to talk to local press, and get some private time before leaving at 4:20 p.m. for a small gathering in nearby Villa Francisca to meet with African American community leaders.
At 5:20 p.m., he leaves for Boca Grove Country Club in Boca Raton to talk to a Democratic National Committee Reception for 250 people who paid $1,000 to be there. Many of the same local Democratic politicians who introduced him at Century Village take the stage. Their message - as well as Lieberman's - is repeated.
At 7:35 p.m. he leaves for a DNC dinner at a private residence for 100 people at $5,000 a head.
At 9 p.m. it's off for West Palm Beach Airport. An hour later it's wheels up, and he's on the way to Orlando International Airport.
At 10:50 p.m. Oct. 16, the plane touches down for the night, by 11:45 p.m., the motorcade pulls up to the Wyndham Palace Resort and Spa in Disneyworld, and the candidate heads to his room.
Including the fund-raiser in Detroit, this one 24-hour period nets Lieberman a grand total of $1.675 million for the Democratic party.
Tomorrow, Oct. 17, is supposed to be an easy day; two stops in three cities - no fund raising. He was to begin at 8:45 a.m. in Orlando, ending at 7:55 p.m. in Wausau, Wis., with a stop in Little Rock, Ark., for a large rally in between. But sometime during the next day, someone decides Lieberman should be in St. Louis for the final presidential debate. It's typical - adaptability is the norm.
At the end of this day, it will not be clear how many votes he has captured for the Gore-Lieberman ticket or whether the speeches have really helped promote a national platform.
But Joe will keep on working the crowds, shaking the hands, smiling his ebullient smile and hoping that, by the end of Nov. 7, he will have his place in history as the first Jew elected to national office.
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