Lieberman touts McCain's foreign policy positions at South Florida campaign stops

Eight years after sharing the Democratic presidential ticket, U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman, of Connecticut, returned to Florida to campaign for Republican presidential candidate John McCain.

Lieberman, an Independent senator who crossed party lines to endorse McCain, stressed McCain’s foreign policy credentials and commitment to Israel and the embargo against Cuba at several South Florida campaign stops.

Republicans hope McCain’s foreign policy and defense background will be a campaign theme that will resonate with Jewish and Cuban voters, two key South Florida constituencies.

“The question is who has the most experience getting things done, and that’s the person I want being the president of the United States,” Lieberman told voters at a town hall meeting at The Shul of Bal Harbour in Surfside.

Lieberman also addressed voters at a town hall meeting Sunday at the Brigada 2506 in Miami and on Monday at Bon Ami Café, a kosher restaurant in Hollywood.

His visit coincides with Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s multi-day tour of the Middle East, his first to Iraq since January 2006.

“I’m glad his making this trip to Iraq and Afghanistan,” Lieberman said while traveling from Hollywood to Surfside aboard McCain’s “Straight Talk Express.” “I’m wishing he had gone earlier because he was making decisions, actual life and death decisions about what policies we should follow without talking to the generals….There’s an irony here that Barack Obama can safely go to Iraq today because the United States did what John McCain said we should do.”