Mr Al Gore's nomination of Senator Joseph Lieberman as his vice-presidential candidate is a smart move which helps to define Mr Gore more clearly as his own man rather than an associate of President Clinton. It should allow Mr Gore space to develop his policies as his party moves into a crucial phase at next week's Democratic convention in Los Angeles. By attracting fresh attention from voters, Mr Lieberman's nomination can perform a real service for Mr Gore, who currently stands well behind an effective Republican campaign in the opinion polls.
Mr Lieberman, an Orthodox Jew, is the first person of his faith to have been so nominated. It recalls that of John F. Kennedy as the first Roman Catholic presidential candidate 40 years ago and has been received with the same pride in the US Jewish community as Irish Catholics welcomed Kennedy's. Mr Lieberman's religion has been a consistent and credible feature of his distinguished political career, which has contributed to his reputation for rectitude and principle - most famously when he attacked Mr Clinton's record in the Lewinski affair as immoral and harmful. His nomination is calculated to lift whatever pall of turpitude is assumed by Mr Gore's Republican opponents to hang over the Clinton White House; it will certainly make it more difficult for them to attack Mr Gore's own character and integrity for being associated with it. In that way he believes it will free up his campaign to concentrate on real issues and differences between the two parties.
The Lieberman nomination has the additional advantage that he has some political differences with Mr Gore himself, on vouchers for private education, for example, and on social security, which are nearer to the compassionate conservatism espoused by Mr George W. Bush. This can usefully appropriate some of the policies the Republicans have tried to develop themselves, in an inversion of tactics brought to such a high art by Mr Clinton over the last eight years. But on most policies Mr Lieberman is in the pro-business Democratic mainstream which Mr Clinton made his own; and he demonstrated his loyalty to the party when he voted against impeaching Mr Clinton for the Lewinski affair, despite his denunciation of it.
The election will nonetheless be fought and won on Mr Gore's policies, not Mr Lieberman's. Commentators point out that Mr Gore has much ground to make up if he is to win, since he is further behind in the opinion polls at this stage of the presidential campaign than most post-war candidates who went on to win. Despite the strong economy and his carefully crafted policies on such core issues as health and education, he finds Mr Bush enjoying disquieting leads in perceptions of how well a Republican administration would handle them.
Mr Gore has a real challenge to make up that ground in the next few weeks. It is no harm to be going into a Democratic convention with such a task to face, since that will reveal the real mettle of his candidature just as public attention comes to concentrate on it more carefully. Conventions no longer contain the surprises and drama of policy debates, having succumbed to party and media managers. But Mr Lieberman's nomination should help ensure an extra boost of interest and sympathy for Mr Gore's message to US voters.