Republican vice presidential candidate Dick Cheney said Joseph Lieberman would be “wasting his time” if he goes on the attack when the two meet in a head-to-head debate Thursday night.

        “People don't want to hear it,” Mr. Cheney told the Enquirer in an interview Tuesday night in Montgomery, where he watched the presidential debate at the Montgomery Inn.

        Mr. Cheney watched the face-off between Al Gore and George W. Bush in a private room at the restaurant while he dined on ribs with Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, Hamilton County Prosecutor Mike Allen and Jane Portman, wife of U.S. Rep. Rob Portman, who played Mr. Lieberman in Mr. Cheney's debate rehearsals.

        Thursday night at Centre College in Danville, Ky., the two vice presidential nominees will meet in a 90-minute debate.

        There has been some speculation that Mr. Lieberman might raise the issue of Mr. Cheney's conservative voting record while in Congress in the 1980s, when he voted against programs such as Head Start and the Clean Air Act.

        “If he wants to talk about my votes 20 years ago, that's fine by me,” Mr. Cheney said. “I plan on talking about the future of this country. I certainly don't plan on talking about all the votes he has made in Congress over the years.”

        Mr. Cheney praised Mr. Port man for his work during the debate preparations, which took place in Washington, D.C., and at Mr. Cheney's home in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

        “Rob worked at it very hard, he did his homework, he had down all the Democratic positions on the issues,” Mr. Cheney said. “He was a big help.”

        Mr. Portman was head of the legislative liaison office in Presi dent Bush's White House. Mr. Cheney was President Bush's secretary of defense.

        Mr. Cheney said he was “ready to go” for Thursday's debate in Danville. “You don't want to over- train, but I've worked hard, and I'm ready,” Mr. Cheney said.

        "All I want to do is go out there and make the case, that it's time for new leadership in Washington,” Mr. Cheney said.
       

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