BATON ROUGE, La. - As Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman plots what would be a trail-blazing run for president, a huge obstacle lies directly in his path: the man who put him in the history books two years ago.
Lieberman has campaigned in 21 states and raised $1.1 million since January. The first Jewish candidate on a major party ticket would like to become the first of his faith to make a serious try for the presidency.
"What I've seen so far would encourage me to go ahead," Lieberman said in a recent interview during a campaign-style trip through the early primary states of Louisiana and South Carolina.
But while his presidential effort gathers speed, there's a good chance it will never take off. Lieberman, 60, has pledged that he won't run if Al Gore, the man who picked him to be the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, enters the race.
Many Democrats are convinced that Gore will run, especially since President Bush seems more vulnerable than he did a few months ago. The former vice president has said that he hasn't decided and won't announce his plans until after the first of the year. But a former top official of his presidential campaign, who is in touch with him regularly, says Gore is "itching to run."
Lieberman, meanwhile, is receiving helpful suggestions on how he might wiggle out of his promise not to challenge Gore. He recently was handed a document, written by a rabbi, that offered Talmudic precedent for altering a pledge.
He insists he isn't looking for a loophole. "I think I did the right thing. It still feels right to me, and I'm not going to change my word," said the Connecticut senator, whose reputation for moral rectitude is central to his public image.
Last week, with no publicity, Lieberman and his wife, Hadassah, had dinner at the Gores' home in Virginia. Except for a brief chat over coffee in April at a Florida political event, it was the first time the two halves of the Democratic ticket had been together since the election and its contentious aftermath.
"Double-dating once again," Lieberman joked, in disclosing that the dinner took place. He said he has not had much contact with Gore, beyond an occasional e-mail exchange.
Over the Fourth of July congressional recess, Lieberman said, he received an e-mail message from Gore, saying, "How would you two like to come over?"
"That was it," he recalled.
According to Lieberman, Gore isn't promising Lieberman that he would be his running mate if Gore runs again. And recent remarks by Gore - that he would try to run a different kind of campaign next time - could mean he wouldn't want to resurrect the 2000 ticket.
'I'm going ahead'
Lieberman said he came away from last week's dinner convinced that Gore is genuinely "undecided. He's 50-50" about running again.
"So I'm going ahead," the senator said. "Part of it is that I'm quite serious about [wanting to run], and part of it is that I want to be ready."
Beyond his ambition and his growing stack of speeches and position papers, Lieberman's assets as a presidential contender include the celebrity he gained in the last election and an ability to tap the pockets of Jewish donors around the country.
Competing in what he calls the "ideas primary" for attention from reporters and politicians, before the actual fight for delegates, he's pressing his party on moral themes and demanding a renewed emphasis on such traditional values as "faith, family, patriotism, tolerance and hard work."
He's among the most hawkish Democrats on military issues. He was an early, vocal supporter of Bush's expressed desire to overthrow Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. He has also been the president's most prominent Democratic partner in advocating government funding for religious groups.
His centrist philosophy could be a potential help - if he makes it to the general election. In the primaries, where liberals have disproportionate influence, it might hurt.
With corporate misbehavior and falling stock prices rattling official Washington, he has had to defend his pro-business leanings and, in particular, his close relationship with the accounting industry, whose executives have been among his biggest campaign contributors. During the 1990s, he sided with business in successful Senate battles to let companies avoid treating stock options as a business expense in earnings reports and to restrict lawsuits against corporations and their accountants.
Lieberman agrees that he's more conservative than other Democratic hopefuls, who include Rep. Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri, Sens. John Kerry of Massachusetts and John Edwards of North Carolina, and Gov. Howard Dean of Vermont.
"There's nobody to the right of me" on foreign affairs and economic policy, he said. "On environment and consumer [issues] and things of that kind, I have a progressive record."
The religion question
If he runs, the biggest unknown is the possible impact of his religion. Lieberman says he encountered no anti-Semitic incidents in the last campaign, though there was an initial outpouring of hatred on the Internet. Democratic strategists play down the threat of an anti-Jewish backlash next time.
"I think we got over that in 2000," said Bobby Kahn, a top aide to Democratic Gov. Roy Barnes of Georgia and former party official.
Democrats sympathetic to Lieberman say his eagerness to talk openly about his faith could be an advantage, by broadening the party's appeal in areas such as the South with large numbers of social and religious conservatives.
"They asked me [in 2000] whether his being Jewish would be an impediment," said Louisiana Sen. John B. Breaux, who gave the speech nominating Lieberman at the convention. "I said, 'Look, Joe's faith and the way he talks about it gives him a leg up when he moves around the South, particularly in a lot of states where Democrats are not doing very well.'"
Some Democrats fear, though, that this could be the wrong moment for Lieberman. With anti-American sentiment raging in Arab countries and the rest of the world looking for American leadership in ending Middle East bloodshed, there may be doubts about whether a Jewish president could deal fairly and effectively with the problem.
"At this time of crisis, what's going on in the Middle East" could hinder a Lieberman candidacy, said Darren Mire, a city tax official in New Orleans.
Lieberman rebuts those arguments by noting that his pro-Israel politics are no different from those of most politicians in both parties. His religion would not complicate the search for peace, he adds, and contends that no other member of Congress has had more personal experience with Arab leaders.
"If I was ever fortunate enough to be elected president," he said, "I'd say, obviously, that my responsibility is to the Constitution and to the people of America." Arab leaders would be forced to deal with him, he added, by virtue of his office.
Jewish voters appear torn, as many were in 2000, about his taking the step up the ladder.
"A week before I got selected by Gore," Lieberman recalled, "I was at an event in Connecticut, and a woman I've known forever came over and said, 'Oh, I hope he doesn't offer it to you, and if he does, please don't accept it.'
"She was a Jewish woman, and I said, 'Why?' And she said, "I just don't think America is ready.' Well, of course, America was ready."
Now, after new waves of anti-Semitic violence in Europe and, according to a recent survey for the Anti-Defamation League, an upsurge in anti-Jewish attitudes in the United States, those doubts are back.
Paula Hoffman, who waited patiently to have her picture taken with Lieberman after he spoke to 1,000 people at a state party dinner here, says she worries about what might happen if he ran for president.
"I think he'll have a tough time," said Hoffman of Baton Rouge. "It will be difficult for him to win, because of the American public, especially because of the Middle East."
Lieberman, noting that Jews make up only about 3 percent of his home state's population, roughly the same as the rest of the nation, said he wouldn't run if he thought he couldn't win.
"My whole life speaks to opportunity and people not judging me based on my religion," he said. "Look," he added, "we'll only know if I do this."