Republican leaders have reasoned that it is better to have a senator who is a frequent supporter for President Bush’s foreign policy like Mr. Lieberman, than an avowed opponent like Mr. Lamont. Thus, as the war becomes more of a defining issue in the campaign, the three-way Connecticut Senate race takes on the characteristics of a classic two-party battle, but with Mr. Lieberman increasingly compelled to take over the Republican role.

Republican help for Mr. Lieberman may not be enough, though. As in most elections in Connecticut, the state’s unpredictable independent voters hold the balance. In Connecticut, independents — defined as people who do not identify with any political party — are a larger group than either Democrats or Republicans.... Polls show more independents have turned against the war since May, with 65 percent now thinking that going to war with Iraq was the wrong thing to do and 59 percent favoring either a troop reduction or total pullout from Iraq. The problem for Mr. Lieberman is that more than one-third of his independent supporters disagree with his support of the Iraq war. Can Mr. Lieberman hang on to these anti-war independents?...

If Mr. Lieberman becomes identified — intentionally or not — with the White House view of the war, he could lose more of his anti-war independents. Mr. Lieberman may find that because of Iraq, the political center has finally passed him by. And if that happens, he’s a goner.

Even if Lieberman loses his Senate seat, it is clear that he finds a deeper experience in running — the chance to step into the role as a national figure and statesman. America needs national figures who are statesmen and stateswomen. Yet however attractive that role may be to some in Congress, including their ability to attract campaign contributions at the national level, the voters who count most come from only one place....

Rightly satisfied with the public support he received as candidate for vice president, Lieberman wrongly ignored how good his fortune was at being re-elected to the Senate in 2000. He continued his bid for statesman on and off the Senate floor, seeking the presidency in 2004, and choosing Iraq and Bush — the wrong issue and the wrong political leader to support — while continually attempting to shape his statesmanship.

Lieberman's thirst to be perceived as a statesman blurred his political judgment and caused him to misjudge the value of statesmanship to voters.

Even when statesmanship is well-placed on the political stage it does not necessarily translate into leadership. If the voters, young and old, wish for one quality in their elected officials today it is leadership — and preferably in new directions.

Thumbs down to the campaign of U.S. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, D-Conn., for turning at best a matter of semantics into a full-blown campaign issue. The Lieberman camp raised more than a few eyebrows this week when it attacked Ned Lamont, the Greenwich multi-millionaire and businessman who is the Democratic Party nominee for Lieberman's seat, for claiming to be "a teacher" in his ads and on his Web site. While Lieberman doesn't contend that Lamont does teach part-time on a voluntary basis at Bridgeport's Harding High School, his campaign accused Lamont of misleading voters into thinking he's a full-time teacher. While it's questionable in the first place to claim that part-time teachers aren't really teachers — there are no doubt many part-time teachers who would argue otherwise — it's downright confounding that Lieberman would choose Lamont's teaching, of all things, as a campaign issue. Furthermore, Lamont's campaign ads with his former students explicitly says Lamont was both a "volunteer" teacher and that he "had another job running a business," and is not a full-time teacher. Lieberman and his campaign staff should stick to the relevant matters at hand instead of clamoring over non-issues. Otherwise, it could be a very long autumn until the election.