BRIDGEPORT, Conn., Sept. 8 — It was the sort of awkward moment that Senator Joseph I. Lieberman now faces regularly: He and the mayor of Stamford, both Democrats, recently appeared in a city park that Mr. Lieberman helped win millions for, and talked about their long friendship — and about how the mayor is not supporting him for re-election this fall.
Jim Capinera answered the phone last week at Lieberman’s stark campaign headquarters in Hartford.
“Joe Lieberman has a right to come to Stamford — it’s his town and his state,” said the mayor, Dannel P. Malloy, who, like many Democratic officials, has abandoned Mr. Lieberman for the party’s new Senate nominee, Ned Lamont. “When you do good work, you deserve to come and visit the projects you’re working on.”
Mr. Lieberman, as a three-term incumbent, never needed anyone to explain his right to visit Stamford before. But the senator is now running on his own party line, and he has begun a complicated, occasionally clumsy tango as he tries to woo Democrats, Republicans and unaffiliated voters without the backing of any party.
Since his defeat in the Aug. 8 Democratic primary, Mr. Lieberman has been seeking Democrats while appealing to Republicans with tough talk about terrorism that is similar to President Bush’s. He is mulling creating nonpartisan “citizen town committees” because he must build a new voter-turnout operation from scratch. And he is calibrating his language to try to appeal across party lines without seeming inconsistent or awkward — though, at times, he does.
No longer the Democratic nominee, he has lost a handful of union endorsements, and his allies in the A.F.L.-C.I.O. may stay neutral. His campaign must replace and train hundreds of field workers that the state party usually deploys to help turn out voters. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, usually on his side, is now providing fund-raising and strategy help to Mr. Lamont. And there is no party organization that can quickly gather its members for the large campaign rallies that can be a shot in the arm.
Independent candidacies are rare, because party affiliation provides so many advantages: Fund-raising aid, battle-tested organizers, policy and strategy assistance, volunteers and an apparatus that can attack the candidate’s opponent without the candidate appearing negative.
But interviews with Mr. Lieberman and his advisers make it clear that he has made a strategic bet: That his stature, name recognition, appeal among Republicans and power to deliver federal money to Connecticut will more than compensate for the lack of a party behind him. He has spent much of August highlighting federal projects he has supported — such as the $6 million park expansion that he and Mayor Malloy celebrated — and suggesting that a Senator Lamont, as a liberal in a Republican-controlled chamber, would not deliver as much. Mr. Lieberman said that if he is re-elected, he will continue to caucus with Senate Democrats.
Yet as Mr. Lieberman acknowledges, there is an element of making it all up as he goes along.
He hesitated when asked in a recent interview if there was any Republican endorsement he would not accept, knowing that his ties to President Bush have cost him before. He is trying to strike a balance between Republican and Democratic endorsements and appearances; for instance, he suggested, he was waiting for the right timing and opportunity to invite a Republican friend, Senator John McCain of Arizona, to campaign with him.
“I haven’t asked him — yet,” Mr. Lieberman said in a recent interview.
“This is a very different kind of race than anything that’s been run before,” he added. “Maine had an independent governor, and there was Jesse Ventura of Minnesota. I’ve taken a look at those. But as far as we can tell, we’re doing something different here. The moment is different. So we’re putting together a campaign in a way that makes sense for the moment.”
Mr. Lieberman has hammered away at polarizing partisans in his campaign, though he is reluctant to say just whom he is referring to, other than Mr. Lamont, whom he once criticized as having too many ties to Republicans.
“People are sick of the partisanship and sick of the old party rules,” Mr. Lieberman said on Friday.
Mr. Lieberman has managed to hire one prominent Democratic media consultant, Josh Isay, who demonstrated partisan flexibility by working for Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg last year. (He already has a Republican pollster, who also works for Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania.) Yet other Democrats have left his campaign, leaving Mr. Lieberman’s staff of loyalists to shoulder many new tasks — in particular, building its own get-out-the-vote operation without relying on state and town Democratic organizations that can move voters to the polls.
Sherry Brown, who took over as Mr. Lieberman’s campaign manager last month, said her team needed new ways to identify and mobilize voters beyond using the traditional lists of registered voters that the parties use to plan turnout strategy. The citizen committees are one idea; she also said the senator would rely more than usual on assistance from unions, environmentalists and other groups that have endorsed him, such as the Chamber of Commerce.
Vets for Freedom, a group with ties to top Republican strategists, is also planning to rally Republicans to vote for Mr. Lieberman, using commercials and other organizing tools. Alan Schlesinger, the Republican challenger, is trailing far behind, with only nominal support from his party leaders.
“The biggest question for us is the ground war: Where do you target for votes and how do you find and move people without a party organization?” said Ms. Brown, who oversees a paid staff of 25. “It’s something we have to develop.”
Lieberman advisers declined to discuss their strategy in detail, saying they did not want to tip their hand. But Ms. Brown said the senator would go after voters in the two major parties — and Connecticut’s many independents — and would highlight his support for a higher minimum wage and access to better health care for the working class.
She said that Mr. Lieberman’s popularity was strong enough across party lines to counter setbacks; she said invitations to him to march in local Democratic parades have been fewer than before, but added that he has received more invitations overall than he could ever accept.
Mr. Lieberman’s loss last month was also, to some extent, a loss for the state’s Democratic Party apparatus. He has been a consistent fund-raiser for the party, helping add as much as $1 million to its coffers in some election years. He could tap his national base of donors for help, too. The newcomer, Mr. Lamont, may now end up devoting money and precious time to aiding the party.
Connecticut voters have a history of embracing independent candidates, most notably Lowell Weicker, a former Republican senator elected governor as an independent in 1990. And the makeup of the electorate appears hospitable to an independent bid: The largest bloc of registered voters, nearly 830,000, belongs to neither party, while there are 657,860 Democrats and 413,093 Republicans, as of last month.
“Connecticut tends to support mavericks — Chris Shays, Weicker, Lieberman — who show an independent streak and are willing to buck their own party,” said Douglas Schwartz, director of the Quinnipiac University Poll.
While Mr. Lieberman has, as Mr. Weicker did, two advantages to help overcome the lack of a party — broad name recognition and a centrist image — the political dynamics have changed. The electorate today is sharply divided over the record and conduct of the Bush administration, and Mr. Lieberman appears to some as a sore loser who has tried to have it both ways — running as a Democrat and then as an independent. (Mr. Weicker became an independent before his 1990 run.)
“Lieberman’s fate as an independent will depend on how he is viewed, and I think the bloom is off the rose as far as his image in the state,” said Mr. Weicker, who lost his Senate race to Mr. Lieberman in 1988 and who is supporting Mr. Lamont this fall.
Mr. Lieberman said he hoped to create the sort of grass-roots, nonpartisan political movement that helped support the third-party former governors that he has looked to — Angus King of Maine and Mr. Ventura of Minnesota. Asked if there was enough time to do this, with less than 10 weeks until the general election, Mr. Lieberman said he was not sure.
“It’s an open question,” he said. “But it’s my desire to create a real, independent citizens’ movement in this race.”
Tom Swan, Mr. Lamont’s campaign manager, said there was no evidence that Mr. Lieberman could inspire such citizen brigades.
“How does he come across as anything but a whiny self-centered career politician trying to cling to power?” Mr. Swan asked.
Mr. Lieberman has walked a political tightrope at almost all of his campaign appearances, and has sometimes stumbled. Recently he called himself a “noncombatant” in the three Congressional races where Democrats are challenging incumbent Republicans; his aides amended the statement a day later, saying he would support the Democrats.
Lieberman advisers acknowledged that this episode was awkward, saying the senator was working through the right language to describe his support for Democratic Congressional candidates who have endorsed his rival, Mr. Lamont.
Adding to the confusion, two days after the “noncombatant” comment, Mr. Lieberman attended a motorcycle rally with one of the Republican incumbents, Congressman Christopher R. Shays, a close ally. Lieberman aides did not alert the press corps to the joint appearance, but according to a report on Fox News, Mr. Lieberman said that the Democrats should have considered the effects of his independent bid on their Congressional candidates before electing Mr. Lamont.
“Well, I guess I should say they should have thought of that during the primary,” Mr. Lieberman said in the Fox segment. “But here we are.”
At other times, Mr. Lieberman has reasserted his party credentials, calling himself a “proud Democrat.”
Yet there is a fine line between party fidelity and his new pride as an independent, with Lamont supporters accusing him of caring only about “the party of one.”
During a campaign stop in New London this week, Mr. Lieberman was dogged by reporters pressing him to explain whom he saw as his base of support.
“People treat the parties as if they are the only thing that matters,” Mr. Lieberman said, adding that he hoped his run would show that there was a “higher loyalty to our state and our country.”
Patrick Healy reported from New York and Jennifer Medina from Bridgeport.
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