US: The 2004 US presidential campaign kicked off in earnest yesterday in a Connecticut schoolroom packed with the candidate's adoring family and former classmates, assembled there to witness Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman announce: "I am a candidate for President of the United States and I intend to win."
Senator Lieberman, seeking to become the first Jewish president in American history, is the front-runner in a field crowded with Democrats struggling to raise funds for presidential primaries next year.
With his wife, Hadassah, born in a post-World War II refugee camp, standing by his side, he declared that he intended to win the election as a "different kind of Democrat", who would "rise above partisan politics" - a phrase the senator used seven times in his speech.
Mr Lieberman (60) was former vice-president Al Gore's running mate in 2000, and is known as a conservative and pro-business Democrat, and a strong supporter of President Bush's war plans for Iraq. In the street outside Stamford High School, where the candidate graduated in 1960, a demonstrator held a placard saying: "Why run, Joe? We already have a Republican."
A dozen protesters from "Jews Against the Occupation" also picketed the Connecticut senator over his long-standing support for Israel in the Middle East conflict. They chanted, "Not all Jews will vote for Joe, the Occupation's got to go." Several reporters fired questions at Mr Lieberman about his religion and whether he could overcome religious prejudice among voters, as John F Kennedy did in 1960 when he became the first Catholic president in the United States.
"Times have changed," said the senator. He recalled that Al Smith, a Catholic who ran for the White House in 1928, encountered "hateful bigotry" but when JFK ran in 1960 "he didn't experience that kind of bigotry". As Gore's running mate in 2000 it had not been an issue.
"I am not running on my faith," said Mr Lieberman, who declines to campaign on Saturday, the Jewish sabbath, "but my faith is at the centre of who I am, and I'm not going to conceal that."
Mr Lieberman is popular in Connecticut, where he is a strong backer of the state's defence industries and financial services, and with religious conservatives for his support for faith-based initiatives.
His mother Marcia (88), who sat on the stage applauding his speech, is a big hit with journalists.
She dispenses kosher lunches to reporters with notes saying: "Please be nice to my son."
"She sets the standard," said Mr Lieberman, who recalled that when he and his staff decided not to speak to the press after Al Gore announced on December 16th that he would not be running again, his mother told him that evening, "I've had a very exciting day, I've done six or seven media interviews."
The candidate's former classmates included Stamford High School's prom queen of 1961, the year Mr Lieberman was prom king. Off stage they were eager to say they recognised his potential even as teenagers. Ms Bonnie Gleason commented: "We knew he would become the first Jewish president, because he was always a leader."
The candidate seemed taken aback when asked by a reporter what set him apart from other Democratic candidates.
He replied: "The campaign is going to be a discussion. I'm going to leave it to you, the voters, to decide who can best lead this country . . . I intend to talk straight to the American people and to show them that I am a different kind of Democrat. I will not hesitate to tell my friends when they are wrong and to agree with my opponents when they are right."
Mr Lieberman said he was grateful to President Bush for seeking regime change in Iraq. "I felt from the end of the Gulf War that the United States made a mistake in not going to Baghdad and taking out Saddam Hussein." A lot of Americans "are taking a different look at the world" since September 11th, he said. Asked about the Middle East he reiterated his support for "a strong US-Israeli relationship".
Mr Lieberman is strongly opposed to oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and as a long-standing critic of "cultural pollution" has co-authored an act to penalise companies that target adult material to kids.
With his wife, he has written a book about his experiences in the last presidential campaign called An Amazing Adventure, Joe And Hadassah's Personal Notes On The 2000 Campaign, which is to be published later this month.