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Joe Lieberman in Washington in January

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Jose Luis Magana / AP

In 2000, Joseph Lieberman was the Democratic nominee for US Vice President. Eight years later, he almost became the vice presidential candidate again - alongside Republican John McCain.

He has now died in New York City at the age of 82 as a result of a fall.

Lieberman has had one of the strangest careers in US politics. For a long time he remained on the right wing of the Democrats and was seen by many as a moralizer. He was the only Democrat to publicly criticize President Clinton's ethical lapses in the Lewinsky affair in the Senate, even though the Clintons had once helped him in the election campaign.

As an independent, he tipped the scales in the Senate

After September 11th, Lieberman became increasingly alienated from his party, especially on security issues - for example through his strict support of the Iraq invasion. In 2006, he lost the Democratic primary for his Senate seat to a challenger who vehemently opposed the invasion. But Lieberman ran as an independent – ​​and won. In the US Senate, he tipped the scales on many issues. No senator has more power than him, wrote SPIEGEL in 2006.

"In an era of political copies, Joe Lieberman was unique," said Chris Murphy, the current senator from Connecticut, Lieberman's hometown. »He fought and won for what he believed was right.«

When announcing his retirement from the Senate in 2013, Lieberman himself acknowledged that he had always felt his primary responsibility was to his constituents, his state and his country, not to his political party. In his final speech on the Senate floor, Lieberman called on Congress to look past party lines and partisan rancor to move the country forward.

Lieberman remained politically active even after leaving the Senate. He was a co-founder of "No Labels", an organization that sees itself as "non-partisan" and wants to put forward its own candidate for the presidential election in November.

However, Lieberman had always emphasized that he under no circumstances wanted to contribute to Donald Trump moving back into the White House through a third-party candidate: "Donald Trump must never become President of the USA again," said Lieberman.

vet/AP