DERBY — Nearly every morning, the regulars take their posts in booths at McDonald's to talk politics over coffee. Most are veterans who served in World War II, Korea and Vietnam, so the Iraq war is an ongoing topic. That topic got an extra buzz Friday when Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Ned Lamont stopped by in the company of retired Gen. Wesley Clark, the former NATO commander and a potential presidential candidate in 2008. Lamont, followed by an entourage of reporters, shook hands with the veterans, and was quickly pressed on whether he would support a Constitutional amendment banning desecration of the U.S. flag. "I fight for the flag every day," he responded, declining to take a position. On the Iraq war, Lamont was more definitive.

"This administration rushed us into war. Now, the veterans are speaking up and saying this war is not making us safer," he said in a part of his stump speech that criticized his opponent, Sen. Joe Lieberman, for giving the Bush administration a "rubber stamp."

Lamont defeated Lieberman in the Democratic primary in August. Lieberman is running in the general election under the flag of the Connecticut for Lieberman Party.

Derby native John Matto, a 44-year-old veteran of the Gulf War, was one of many at McDonald's who agreed.

"We don't belong there," said Matto, who became disillusioned after he fought to drive Iraq out of Kuwait in the early 1990s. "When we were there, you got the impression that we weren't fighting

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for the freedoms and things we said we were," he said.

Across the fast-food restaurant, Clark, swarmed by admirers, was working hard to win a vote for Lamont from "Wild" Bill Menna, a Republican and former Ansonia mayor. "When you fight a war in Iraq, someone has to be on the ground. Rumsfeld did not give us the troops," Clark said in reference to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. "We won Kosovo in the Balkans. The way we did it was with diplomacy.

"I briefed Joe before the Iraq war," Clark said, referring to Lieberman. "I thought he understood. He had all that experience and he still rubber-stamped this administration."

Clark and Lieberman were rivals during the 2004 Democratic presidential campaign.

Menna, 83, said Bush is the "worst president we've ever seen." But Clark's arguments did not move his support away from Lieberman.

"Deep down, Lieberman is a Republican. That's why I support him," Menna said. Sitting next to Menna, Joe Guliuzza, 65, of Seymour, held a different view.

"Lamont is going to help us out," Guliuzza said. Lamont and Clark also spoke at a rally in Storrs outside the University of Connecticut student union.

"George Bush says stay the course," Clark said. "How can you stay the course when you're in a ditch? Joe Lieberman has been part of that ditch."

"When this president rushed us into war ... he didn't listen to the military, and that's one of the reasons we have this mess on our hands," Lamont said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.