Joe Lieberman, like Dick Cheney, brought virtually nothing to his ticket. Al Gore completely over estimated anti-Bill Clinton tensions. Clinton had astronomically high approval ratings, but Al chose to distance himself from his party's most popular politician in decades and instead selected Bill's biggest critic in the party to be his runningmate.
Dick Cheney absolutely brought something to the ticket. Part of my rationale for voting for Bush in 2000 is that, while I thought Dubya to be dumb, his choice of Cheney was confirmation that he was smart enough, at least, to surround himself with smart people. [And indeed, he built a (mostly) solid cabinet for his first term.]
He added gravity and foreign policy experience that Bush just didn't have. And he beat the snot out of Lieberman in the debate.
