Lieberman strikes back in final days

EAST HAVEN, Conn. -- Going on the offensive in the closing hours of his primary campaign, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman yesterday accused his challenger, Ned Lamont, of spreading ``lies" about his record, and sought to distance himself from President Bush on Iraq and a host of other issues.

Appearing at a senior center alongside former Georgia senator Max Cleland, a decorated Vietnam veteran and triple amputee who was defeated by a Republican challenger in 2002, Lieberman called it ``a load of hogwash" to suggest that he is Bush's ``best friend and enabler."

The Connecticut Democratic incumbent recounted a list of policies in which he has broken with the president, including areas of war conduct.

``My opponent has done his best to distort my record, spending more than $4 million of his own money to mislead people -- or try -- into thinking that I am someone I am not," Lieberman said. ``This is not unlike what Republicans did to Max Cleland."

``I campaigned against George Bush because I believe that his agenda was wrong for our country and our future," Lieberman added. ``Look at the whole record. Don't vote on one issue."

With the Democratic primary tomorrow, polls have shown Lamont surging in large part because of the war issue. A Quinnipiac University poll released Thursday had Lamont leading Lieberman, 54 to 41 percent, in a race where he started in the single digits. In the poll, 94 percent of Lamont backers cited Lieberman's position on the war as one of the reasons they're backing the man who's trying to take his Senate seat.

While Lieberman reiterated past critiques of the way Bush has handled Iraq, he quickly added that bringing US troops home now would be ``a disaster for the Iraqis and for us." Lieberman believes Bush should have built a broader coalition before launching the war and moved faster to create an autonomous government in Iraq.

He said Lamont would ``need training wheels" in the Senate and would be too partisan to be an effective lawmaker.

``I don't hate the Republicans," Lieberman said. ``That doesn't make me a bad Democrat. It makes me a better senator."

Lamont dismissed the criticism, saying that he has offered voters a positive message of a new direction in Iraq and economic growth strategies for Connecticut. Lamont added that he wanted more debates than the one Lieberman agreed to.

Lamont said Iraq is foremost among the differences between the two candidates. Lamont supported a recent Senate resolution that would have removed virtually all US troops from Iraq by next summer, while Lieberman voted against that as well as a more modest proposal for ``phased withdrawals" backed by Senate Democratic leaders.

``The senator wants to keep the troops there. I want to bring them home," Lamont said.

Earlier in the day, Lieberman campaigned in a pair of predominantly African-American churches. Flanked by two prominent black leaders -- Mayor Cory Booker of Newark, N.J., and Eleanor Holmes Norton, the House delegate from the District of Columbia -- Lieberman recalled marching with Dr. Martin Luther King and continuing his work on civil rights while in the Senate.

Holmes Norton urged voters to look past their disagreement with Lieberman on the war issue to return him to the Senate.

High-profile black leaders have come to the state on Lamont's behalf as well in recent days, including the Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, members of the congressional black caucus, and actor Danny Glover.