ARTHAGE, Tenn. - Meet Joe Lieberman.
He favors a parental consent law for minors seeking abortions. He supports vouchers, in some cases, for private school education. He sharply admonished President Clinton for his affair with Monica S. Lewinsky. And he's good friends with a prominent Republican morals monitor, Bill Bennett, the former education secretary.
The Connecticut senator's record, at least in part, might seem to support many things his running mate, Vice President Al Gore, has fought against.
And while the two men insisted again and again yesterday that they are closely aligned on most everything, the newly minted Democratic ticket was on the defensive when asked about the differing opinions on key campaign issues.
''I'm not afraid to have a vice president who disagrees with me on some issues,'' Gore said, putting a reassuring arm around Lieberman's shoulder as the two responded to questions at a ''town meeting'' in Gore's hometown.
Further, the vice president insisted, he would be the one to set the agenda in the White House - not Lieberman.
On their first full campaign day together, the Democratic duo made hometown visits to Gore's birthplace of Carthage, Tenn., where Gore showed Lieberman around his family's farm. Later, the two appeared at a rally in Lieberman's hometown of Stamford, Conn., where the senator received the warm welcome of a returning local hero.
In Carthage, a teacher asked Gore and Lieberman what they would do about education vouchers, a tax break that helps parents of private school students and that is strongly supported by George W. Bush, the Republican nominee. Lieberman has supported the plan in some cases.
Gore said: ''Our administration will be opposed to private school vouchers.''
''Al Gore and I stand shoulder to shoulder,'' Lieberman piped in.
While the two men may disagree in private, ''when President Gore decides, believe me, Vice President Lieberman will support him wholeheartedly,'' Lieberman added.
The two also have some differences on abortion, always a thorny campaign issue. Lieberman said on the ''Today'' show yesterday that he favors a law requiring parental consent for minors seeking abortions. His spokesman, Dan Gerstein, said Lieberman would insist on a judicial bypass provision, under which a judge could allow the abortion over the parent's objections.
Gore, however, is opposed to parental consent laws. He told reporters on Air Force Two yesterday that he could, however, back a parental notification law that allowed a doctor or judge to offer a waiver of the notification in some cases. But a Gore spokesman, Chris Lehane, said the vice president generally opposes even parental notification laws because they are a ''back-door'' threat to abortion rights.
Campaign aides, noting that Lieberman has a 99 percent ranking from the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League, said both Gore and his running mate are adamantly in favor of a right to abortion.
''We have agreed on issues probably much more than any other two senators you can find from different regions of the country,'' Gore said. The campaign downplayed disagreements, saying it was a Republican effort to denigrate the Democratic ticket.
The pilot voucher program Lieberman has supported is ''a very small part of his education agenda,'' Lehane said.
''This is a guy who participated in civil rights marches in the '60s,'' Lehane said, emphasizing Lieberman's traditional Democratic side.
''Lieberman's approach to vouchers has been experimental,'' said Greg Simon, a senior adviser to the campaign, contrasting Lieberman's stance to that of Bush, who, Simon said, wants to ''abandon public education.''
The selection of Lieberman, a centrist Democrat who is more conservative than Gore on a number of issues, is likely to help the Democrats woo the political middle. But Gore risks losing the more liberal base of the Democratic Party, analysts say.
That threat would be less troublesome were it not for the presence of Ralph Nader in the presidential race. Nader is drawing about 4 to 5 percent of the vote nationally, and if disaffected liberals decide to go for Nader, Gore would lose critical percentage points that could decide the election, political consultants note.
''By choosing Senator Lieberman, they have now left Ralph Nader completely open on the left,'' said Rich Bond, who advises Republican campaigns. ''There is no progressive voice to hold Ralph Nader back.''
Lieberman was not the candidate of choice for some liberal constituencies. The senator has been a sharp critic of Hollywood, saying that the entertainment industry is making it hard ''to raise PG children in an X-rated society.'' He also has argued for tort reform, angering trial lawyers.
But by the time election day arrives, liberals may be forced to back the Gore-Lieberman ticket, since the Republican alternative is so potentially damaging to their agendas, said Stuart Rothenberg, author of the nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report.
''Even though he's a Democratic Leadership Council Democrat, I don't think that will make liberal Democrats walk,'' Rothenberg said of Lieberman, who belongs to that centrist group. ''They may not prefer his selection; they may think he doesn't go far enough. But faced with George W. Bush, they'll stay relatively loyal.''
Lieberman has had a mixed record, for example, on gay rights. He has opposed gay marriages and was a backer of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which allows states to disregard gay marriages recognized by other states.
Still, ''we're totally on board,'' said David Smith, spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign, the country's leading gay rights group. Lieberman did support the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which prohibits job discrimination against gays, Smith noted.
''We see him energizing the traditional left in a very positive way,'' Smith said.
Even Hollywood is not likely to make a big fuss about Lieberman, and the community is not big enough to make an electoral impact in California, said Bill Carrick, a California Democratic political consultant.
''He's right on all the issues'' in California, Carrick said. Gore is leading by 10 percentage points in most polls in the state.
Lieberman's choice did draw some derisive comments from a Dallas civil rights leader, Lee Alcorn, who told a radio show host Monday that he was ''concerned about, you know, any kind of Jewish candidate,'' and that he was ''sick of the Democratic Party taking the African-American vote for granted.''
The remarks were quickly denounced by Kweisi Mfume, head of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, who called the Dallas NAACP president's comments ''repulsive'' and ''anti-Semitic.''
[Alcorn was suspended yesterday by the association's national board, The Dallas Morning News reported.
Julian Bond, longtime civil rights leader who chairs the NAACP's board of directors, said: ''These hateful, repulsive, and ignorant remarks have no place in American political life and no place in the NAACP.''
Alcorn, reiterating that he never intended to offend anyone with his comments, said he was quitting the NAACP immediately.]
The breakthrough of being the first Jew to run for vice president on a major party ticket may galvanize some liberals who might not necessarily approve of Lieberman's legislative agenda, said Frank Mankiewicz, who worked for Robert F. Kennedy and George McGovern, both considered liberals.
''The Gore-Lieberman campaign, if they're smart, will instill some guilt in liberals for not supporting them,'' Mankiewicz said.
Lieberman's selection ''did instantly turn off a lot of the traditional base of the Democratic party,'' Mankiewicz said. ''But I suspect they'll come back.''
