"I feel I have a whole entourage," Rebecca Lieberman laughed as she stopped to chat with students in Collis.
Lieberman visited Dartmouth yesterday to campaign for her father, Senator Joseph Lieberman, one of the nine democratic candidates running for president.
Assisting with her father's campaign was an amazing opportunity that she could not pass up, according to Lieberman. She also campaigned for his vice-presidential bid during the 2000 election.
The first one was easier to transition into, Lieberman said. Al Gore selected her father as his running mate just three months before election day
"It was a whole machine, a whole system that was already set up. We got plugged in and went around the country," Lieberman said.
This time, Lieberman had to help build the campaign from the ground up, a task which she likened to developing a "multi-million-dollar corporation."
Reminiscing over the 2000 campaign, Lieberman recalled the frustration over the Florida episode. "The whole Florida thing was like a fever dream, it was just so disappointing. Disappointing because of the outcome, disappointing because of the Supreme Court decision, but we're here now," Lieberman said.
Her father had not decided to run for the 2004 election cycle until he announced it in January, according to Lieberman.
"He had said from the start that he would not run if Al Gore ran," Lieberman said.
The 2000 campaign was dramatically different from the present campaign in other ways too. "We're scrappy street fighters this time," Lieberman said.
When asked if she was worried about her father lagging in national polls, Lieberman displayed optimism and confidence that he would get the democratic nomination.
"To me, of course, he is the number one candidate," Lieberman said, "and after all, what matters is election day."
She acknowledged that he would have to be at the top of that pack in the primaries, but she was confident that he would do well in New Hampshire.
If they didn't think that they could win, they wouldn't go through all the hard work that it entailed, according to her. "We've got the best candidate, we've just got to get him out there," she said.
She described her campaigning as essentially "spreading the power of Joe. I want everyone to feel the power of Joe."
Lieberman was dismissive about her father being frequently called a conservative. She rejected the label and said that instead, he was "independent minded."
"When he looks at a problem he doesn't think about what solution's on the right or the left, what's moderate or what's liberal, he thinks what's going to work for America, what's going to work for the most Americans," she said.
Explaining how his positions transcend party lines, she talked about how he came up with the idea of the department of homeland defense and had to fight bush to get it, but at the same time is very progressive when it comes to issues like tax policy and health care and education funding.
When asked about her own plans on entering politics, she insisted that she was already involved enough. "I think it's a noble thing to do, but it's not for me."
Lieberman is part of her father's New York City campaign operation.
Growing up, Lieberman never realized how important her father was as a politician. At the time, her father was part of the state senate.
"People knew him around, but I never thought of him as a politician, it was just what he did...he drove us to school in the morning, he was really around to help us with homework," Lieberman said.
When Lieberman's father became a senator and entered the national scene, she was already in college.
Lieberman graduated from Barnard College in 1991 and the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1997. She is the founding President and CEO of Vote for America, an organization dedicated to advocating informed voting.
