Joe Lieberman on the Campaign Trail

— -- ABCNEWS' Talesha Reynolds was on the campaign trail with the Connecticut senator and 2000 vice presidential nominee during his run for the presidency. For the latest report, scroll down.

He did it his way …

ARLINGTON, Va., Feb. 3 — The lucky burgundy and gold striped tie was absent when Senator Lieberman hit his campaign stops in Wilmington Delaware Tuesday morning. He had forgotten it at home in DC. He said he would put it on later but never did. Good luck charms may not have been powerful enough to change the inevitable.

After returning to D.C. from Delaware, Lieberman spent most of the day in private with his family and took time to nap in the afternoon before having dinner and watching returns.

Shortly after 8 pm Senator Lieberman went to his Arlington headquarters with Hadassah and his children to thank his senior staff and tell them of his decision to drop out of the race. He then placed calls to Senators Kerry and Edwards before heading to the Hyatt hotel to give the speech he had written on a yellow legal pad.

There was little visible emotion from Senator Lieberman or his family as they stood on the stage in the small ballroom with Connecticut elected officials including Chris Dodd, John Larson and Rosa DeLauro. Whatever they were feeling was tucked away for a moment out of the spotlight.

With a smile on his face, Lieberman got in what may be his final dig at Howard Dean. "In this campaign, I may not have shouted the loudest," (he paused here) "but I am proud that I took the toughest positions in support of what I believed was right for my country."

There were groans of disappointment from the audience when Lieberman told them "Today the voters have rendered their verdict and I accept it." But the prevailing mood seemed to be pride and resignation.

Sources close to the campaign were in agreement that 2004 just wasn't Lieberman's year. His friend and DLC head Al From told ABC News that Lieberman's critiques were instrumental in Howard Dean's collapse, but he was not the beneficiary of his own efforts. Nevertheless, From said, he "ran a good and honorable campaign."

Lieberman didn't linger long to shake hands. He exited through the same door he entered as music piped into the room. Gone was the ubiquitous "Can't Stop this Thing We Started" and in it's place was a melancholy version of his favorite tune, Frank Sinatra's "My Way."

Wednesday afternoon Lieberman will speak at Hartford's City Hall to thank Connecticut residents for their support and then make the transition back from presidential candidate to junior senator.

Stranger Things Have Happened

TULSA, Okla., Feb. 1 — Sen. Lieberman learned of his New England Patriots' victory from the flight crew of his charter plane from Oklahoma to New Mexico Sunday night. Despite having visited two Super Bowl parties in Oklahoma City, he didn't see much of the game, and spent most of half time speechifying at a house party.

There was one event he didn't miss, though, and it was a doozey. At the Tulsa Boat Show, Sen. Lieberman and a few hundred others watched Twiggy the Waterskiing Squirrel do her thing. Outfitted in a rodent-sized Stars and Stripes lifejacket, Twiggy glided across a wading pool pulled by a remote control boat while the crowd looked on in amazement.

Sen. Lieberman called the performance "thrilling" and said it was evidence that "anything is possible in America." And just like Twiggy, Lieberman is managing to stay afloat in the rough waters of the presidential race and hanging on for dear life. He was thrown a rope early in the day in the form of endorsements from two of the largest papers in South Carolina, The State and the Greenville News, and from the Seattle Times. The Senator called the editorials a sign of his nationwide support.

As reporters tried to pin him down on how well he needed to do in the next set of primaries to stay in the race, Lieberman said he plans to do well and is looking beyond Feb. 3 to the next week of contests. Despite having just $350,000 on hand after debts at the end of 2003, Lieberman says his campaign has a "nest egg" sufficient to carry him through Feb. 10.

With just one day of campaigning left before what he once called "Tidal Wave" Tuesday, the day he said he would break out of the pack, Lieberman will spend time in New Mexico and Arizona before heading back Oklahoma and Delaware. He will spend primary night in Arlington, Va. The campaign says the location was chosen to indicate where Lieberman will focus his attention next and not because he may withdraw if he doesn't do well on the 3rd.

Ads: Lieberman is airing "President" in Arizona and Delaware and "Clear" in Oklahoma.

The More Things Change, the More they Stay the Same

TULSA, Okla., Jan. 28 — There are certain things you just don't see in New Hampshire, cowboys being one example. But in Oklahoma, of course, they are out in abundance. One audience member at the Oklahoma Democratic Party's presidential forum in Oklahoma City was straight out of Gunsmoke, wearing a tall ten gallon hat, shiny black boots and a thick mustache that curled up at the ends.

At The Oklahoma Store in McAlester, an homage to the general store of the Wild West with one cent candy in jars and empty Van Camp's Pork and Beans cans serving as condiment containers, another man in a less obvious rumpled leather hat, declared himself a "real cowboy" before asking Lieberman about the estate tax's effect on farmers like himself.

For the most part, though the attire and landscape are drastically different, and the askers have decidedly un-New England accents, the questions are the same: health care, the future of the Supreme Court, Iraq exit strategies. And Senator Lieberman's answers are the same too, a fact he prides himself on.

The Senator is now banking on the hope that his answers gel with the people of this state and others with Feb. 3 primaries. But the day got off to a rocky start when Senator Lieberman mispronounced Muskogee when talking to reporters before his first event. His staff cringed in the corner, as a local journalist corrected him. Gaffe aside, Lieberman is upbeat, if not post-Iowa Dean-like in his energy level. No matter who was doing the asking, he insisted all day that he did in fact do better than expected in New Hampshire (if you close one eye and squint with the other) and that his campaign still has some life in it.

Thursday Lieberman brings his Cup of Joe to Tulsa and campaigns in Oklahoma before heading to South Carolina for another make or break debate. The campaign is in agreement that he needs a repeat of his Jan. 22 performance to regain momentum.

A 30 second bio spot called "Great Country" is running in South Carolina, Delaware, Arizona and Oklahoma. In Arizona the minute long bio ad "I Love America" is also in rotation. And in Oklahoma the "Bold" ad on middle class tax cuts is playing as well.

Staying Positive: Hey, it worked for Edwards…

MANCHESTER, N.H., Jan 22 — At the last debate, JIL bungled the moment that was intended to make him look good - his invitation to the other candidates to sign a letter in support of the Help America Vote Act, a reminder that he (and Al Gore and all Democrats) were wronged in Florida in 2000. At Thursday night's debate there were no gimmicks. No letters to sign, just his own message that avoided slighting anyone else on the stage. Thursday night, the attack dog rolled over and played nice.

During the two hour debate, Peter Jennings gave Lieberman a few opportunities to criticize his competitors, but the Senator never took the bait. Every answer was about himself and he even managed to get in a few jokes and earn some applause. During the event and at appearances in recent days his speech has been littered with the words "affirmative" and "positive," perhaps to try to counteract his high unfavorability ratings in polls.

At his after party in a smoky pool hall adjacent to his Manchester headquarters, Lieberman told supporters, "Praise be to God, this was a great night. And you know what, we all needed it. This was the best debate I've had." He added that he hopes "that here in NH, it's going to lead to just the same kind of popular uprising that happened last week in Iowa."

Lieberman was so happy he grabbed Hadassah and cut a rug in the middle of the crowd of supporters. The song they danced to was one that often plays at Lieberman's events, Bryan Adams' "Can't Stop this Thing We Started."

Could Integrity One Beat the Real Deal Express in a Drag Race?

MANCHESTER, N.H., Jan 21 — The Lieberman campaign got a much-longed-for addition Wednesday when Integrity One rolled into Manchester. The charter bus was supposed to arrive in time for Lieberman's afternoon walk along Elm Street, but it was stuck in traffic. By the time it got to town, the sun was mostly set, but the Senator's silver hair and huge smile was still clearly visible along its side. Next to Lieberman's photo, giving the thumbs up, are the words "Integrity" and "Independence."ABC News, thrilled to escape the cramped quarters of the press van cum ice box cum trash receptacle, took her seat in time to witness the ceremonial laying down of duct tape to separate staff and press. (It should be Noted that the duct tape was provided by a reporter.) When the Senator boarded he took a beeline to the back to chat up reporters.

Earlier in the day, Senator Lieberman indicated he was preparing to challenge John Kerry as the primary approaches, something he has often been reluctant to do before now, as he was focused on Dean and Clark. Lieberman cited an RNC report that Republicans had a thick book of potential arguments against Kerry, while they did not have the same for himself, and he mentioned Kerry's position on the war and trade as possible targets.