YPSILANTI, Michigan - Republican presidential candidate John McCain had a special guest to help him appeal to independents voting here on Tuesday — Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, a former Democrat who is now an independent.

Lieberman, the party’s vice presidential nominee in 2000,  urged moderate and conservative Democrats in Michigan to vote for McCain rather than participate in their party’s all-but-meaningless contest.

“We are electing a commander in chief at a time of war, and there’s no candidate in either party better prepared to be the commander in chief we need,” Lieberman told voters at a campaign event here.

Lieberman won re-election to the Senate as an independent in 2006 after losing the Democratic primary to a candidate who criticized his support for the Iraq war. In the Senate he continues to vote with Democrats on most issues.

Independent and Democratic voters could prove crucial in Michigan’s closely contested Republican primary. Democratic candidates have not been campaigning here because their national party ruled that the contest does not count. State rules allow voters to cast ballots in either contest.

Independent voters helped McCain beat former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in New Hampshire last week, and the Arizona senator is hoping for a repeat.

“We’re depending on Republicans, Democrats, libertarians, vegetarians, Trotskyites … we’re hoping to get a big turnout from everybody,” McCain said earlier in the day outside a polling place in Traverse City, in the state’s northwest corner.

 Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage. 

- Photo credit: REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton (McCain greets Lieberman at a rally in Ypsilanti.)