Maura Keaney and Edward Anderson;
Tessa, Bob, Mike,Joyce, Martin Goldberg
Gabe Rosenberg, Sarah Aziz, Melissa Ryan and Sarah Darer.
In addition to blogging, in just so happened that the blogging community was in need of a pick-up truck to carry a huge paper -mache´ sculpture of President Bush kissing Joe Lieberman, that had been created by Jeffrey Talbot and his son and I just happened to have purchased one. I ended up driving it all over CT in pursuit of Lieberman:
Why we hated Lieberman:
A great write-up of the campaign:
I wrote the party rules: see below
Critic delights in taunting Lieberman
It’s been heartwarming to watch as Joe Lieberman’s Democratic U.S. Senate colleagues welcomed him back into the fold, just as if he’d never abandoned his lifelong party affiliation long enough to win re-election.Lieberman was taken back into the Democratic caucus and given the chairmanship of the Senate’s Homeland Security Committee, just as he had hoped.
Not even Lieberman’s confession on national television that he might be forced to switch to the Republican side could cool the Democratic ardor.
"I’m not ruling it out," said Lieberman, "but I hope it doesn’t get to that point."
Exactly what "that point" might be is anybody’s guess.
In a U.S. Senate where he is considered — at least for now — the 51st Democratic vote, it will certainly pay Lieberman to keep everyone guessing.
Meanwhile, back in Connecticut, one of Lieberman’s longtime critics is doing his best to remind everyone of Joe’s third-party re-election pedigree.
John Orman is a professor of politics at Fairfield University and a Democrat who disagrees with Lieberman’s support for the Iraq war and a variety of other issues.
More than a year ago, Orman ran a brief and unsuccessful protest campaign to take the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination away from Lieberman. Lacking any money, a discouraged Orman was forced to call it quits after a few months.
Then Greenwich millionaire Ned Lamont jumped onto the antiwar, anti-Lieberman bandwagon.
Lamont beat Lieberman in a bitter Democratic primary, which forced the incumbent to use a backup option he’d been preparing for months. The day after the primary, Lieberman handed state election officials more than 7,500 signatures supporting his bid to run as a candidate of the Connecticut for Lieberman party.
At the time, Orman protested that there really was no such party, and that Lieberman was simply manipulating the election system to invalidate the outcome of the Democratic primary. Election officials disagreed and Lieberman said he’d been forced to take that route in order to allow all of Connecticut’s voters the opportunity to vote for him.
Lieberman promised over and over to be an "independent Democrat" if elected to a fourth term. With lots of support from Republican and unaffiliated voters, Lieberman won with 50 percent of the vote.
Orman’s response was to trot down to his local registrar’s office to try to switch his party affiliation from Democrat to Connecticut for Lieberman, which is something no one else has done.
Although that switch isn’t official yet, Orman waggishly proceeded to convene a one-man party organizational meeting and elected himself "chairman."
Chairman Orman also passed some rules for the party, including one requiring that, "If you run under Connecticut for Lieberman, you must actually join our party."
Another of his tongue-in-cheek party rules reads as follows: "If any CFL candidate loses our party’s nomination in a primary, that candidate must bolt our party, form a new party and work to defeat our party-endorsed candidate."
Sounds like Orman is having a blast.
“Lieberman Party” Hijackers Win HoJo Skirmish
by Melissa Bailey | January 19, 2007 8:48 AM |
Melissa Bailey Photo
The occasion was the second organizational meeting of the Connecticut
for Lieberman Party, the vehicle created to propel Connecticut’s junior
senator to a general election win in 2006 after he lost the Democratic
primary to anti-war challenger Ned Lamont. Lieberman created the “party”
to have a line on the November ballot. Then he forgot about it.
John Orman (pictured at right), a political science professor at Fairfield University and a longtime outspoken Lieberman critic, contacted the Secretary of the State’s office to legally join and then take over the abandoned party, which has a guaranteed ballot line in the next Senate election. Orman came to a Milford Howard Johnson hotel Thursday night with a tall agenda to make the party a soapbox for political theater and Lieberman criticism.
Number two on the agenda: A call for a “sore loser law,” otherwise known as the “Lieberman Law,” preventing Lieberman-style political party-hopping for losers of primaries.
Before Orman kicked off the meeting in the small conference room, Stuart Korchin walked in the door. Standing by the cookie table wearing a red rain jacket and a reappearing smirk, Korchin challenged the prof on his chairmanship and the direction in which he’s taking the party.
“The purpose of your smart-alecky wrangling with the Secretary of the State” is not what the voters wanted when they elected Lieberman to a fourth term in November, charged Korchin.
“You don’t amount to a hill of beans as far as Joe Lieberman is concerned,” he said, calling the CFL party a joke.
Orman kept an affable, but serious, debating demeanor. “I think the people of Connecticut have been pushed to the side, don’t you agree?” When 70 to 80 percent of Americans oppose a troop surge, and Lieberman supports it, the senator’s not listening to voters, argued Orman.
“He’s spoken open and often on the fact that he does what he thinks is the right thing,” said Korchin. “I wish there were more politicians like him.”
The two men — who both claim to be chairman of the CFL — are wrestling for control of Lieberman’s party, which Lieberman has made clear he wanted no affiliation with after winning re-election. The senator retained a Democratic Party registration. He goes by the letter “I,” for independent, not CFL, in the Senate.
Korchin, who’s from Cheshire, seeks to keep the party open to further its original purpose: Reelect Lieberman.
Orman’s vision? “An experiment in citizen activism and people-powered democracy.”
Orman filed paperwork with the Secretary of the State documenting his first organizational meeting, in which he nominated, seconded, discussed, and elected himself chairman. The state has accepted the CFL rules he submitted.
Korchin claims he registered as a party member in August then nominated himself chair, but “the people of the Secretary of the State’s Office were not aware of my registration. There was a glitch.”
Korchin exited the HoJo after the face-off, declaring he would hold his own CFL meeting on Aug. 9 at his Cheshire home.
The Agenda
The conference seats filled with a mix of small-town Democratic Town Committee members, bloggers, vloggers, and Democrats disillusioned with Joe. Some came to hurl jokes and relish political theater. Others came with a petition, ready to orchestrate a Lieberman “accountability” campaign. CTBob, who appointed himself unofficial CFL media relations director, manned the video cam wearing a “Kiss” button. Orman’s one-man party having blossomed to six members, the voting got under way. First order of business: Elect a chair. Someone nominated Orman. “In the spirit of inclusion,” said Orman, sweeping his arms wide open, he nominated his absent adversary, Korchin.
Orman won the tussle by a 5 to 1 vote. The vice-chair? Jonathan Kantrowitz, the guy whose truck haunted the senator’s campaign this summer bearing the infamous Bush-Lieberman Kiss float. Kantrowitz ran for U.S. Congress twice in the Fourth District. Orman has run for Congress once; another time he battled Lieberman for the Democratic Party Senate bid before dropping out. “He and I disagree on one thing,” admitted Kantrowitz. “He’s into the issues. I just think it’s great political theater.”
Voters approved a series of recommendations to their “glorious namesake” senator. Goals on the CFL agenda include asking Lieberman to:
• “Stop misleading Connecticut voters by saying one month before the last election that no one wants to bring the troops home more than Joe Lieberman and then calling for a robust, substantial and sustained troop increase in Iraq.”
• “Stop blindly supporting Bush’s Iraq war policy since over 75 percent of Connecticut citizens do not support those policies.”
• “Stop cavorting with FOX network conservatives to bash those opposed to the war in Iraq.” The latter drew dissent: “I think it makes it clear where he stands — he should spend all his time cavorting with FOX,” opined Kantrowitz.
• “Call for a sore loser law in Connecticut named the ‘Lieberman Law’ to prohibit major party candidates from running in the election after they lose a party primary. Our party also favors moving up the deadline for petitioning candidates to one month before the primaries.”
Two members of the Democratic Party State Central Committee leadership, fresh out of a monthly meeting Wednesday, reported the group had voted unanimously in favor of pressuring the state legislature to pass such a “sore loser law.”
Kantrowitz (pictured) then read aloud some more proposals: • A pledge “to NOT support the candidates our party nominates,” the way the Republican Party ditched Senate candidate Alan Schlesinger and some Democrats didn’t support Lamont.
• A pledge, “following the lead of our glorious namesake, to report ALL campaign expenditures as petty cash.”
• A pledge “to only support candidates who will promise, if they lose the primary, that they will form a new party named after themselves. We will support the candidate of that new party rather than the winner of our primary.”
Orman, in a clear grasp at seriousness, rejected the laws without a vote. He ended on a less theatrical, more earnest note: “We’re doing all this in good fun,” but when The New York Times takes notice, there’s a chance to push a platform. Orman said he could see the party running candidates against Democrats who had supported Lieberman over Lamont in November, to “hold them accountable.”
The course forward remained uncharted: “Nobody has ever tried to take over a fake political party and use it to keep [a politician] accountable,” said Orman. He expected to call another meeting in the next month or so.
“We may need to meet again:” With the State of the Union coming up on Tuesday, he noted, Lieberman “may be kissed again.”
John Orman (pictured at right), a political science professor at Fairfield University and a longtime outspoken Lieberman critic, contacted the Secretary of the State’s office to legally join and then take over the abandoned party, which has a guaranteed ballot line in the next Senate election. Orman came to a Milford Howard Johnson hotel Thursday night with a tall agenda to make the party a soapbox for political theater and Lieberman criticism.
Number two on the agenda: A call for a “sore loser law,” otherwise known as the “Lieberman Law,” preventing Lieberman-style political party-hopping for losers of primaries.
Before Orman kicked off the meeting in the small conference room, Stuart Korchin walked in the door. Standing by the cookie table wearing a red rain jacket and a reappearing smirk, Korchin challenged the prof on his chairmanship and the direction in which he’s taking the party.
“The purpose of your smart-alecky wrangling with the Secretary of the State” is not what the voters wanted when they elected Lieberman to a fourth term in November, charged Korchin.
“You don’t amount to a hill of beans as far as Joe Lieberman is concerned,” he said, calling the CFL party a joke.
Orman kept an affable, but serious, debating demeanor. “I think the people of Connecticut have been pushed to the side, don’t you agree?” When 70 to 80 percent of Americans oppose a troop surge, and Lieberman supports it, the senator’s not listening to voters, argued Orman.
“He’s spoken open and often on the fact that he does what he thinks is the right thing,” said Korchin. “I wish there were more politicians like him.”
The two men — who both claim to be chairman of the CFL — are wrestling for control of Lieberman’s party, which Lieberman has made clear he wanted no affiliation with after winning re-election. The senator retained a Democratic Party registration. He goes by the letter “I,” for independent, not CFL, in the Senate.
Korchin, who’s from Cheshire, seeks to keep the party open to further its original purpose: Reelect Lieberman.
Orman’s vision? “An experiment in citizen activism and people-powered democracy.”
Orman filed paperwork with the Secretary of the State documenting his first organizational meeting, in which he nominated, seconded, discussed, and elected himself chairman. The state has accepted the CFL rules he submitted.
Korchin claims he registered as a party member in August then nominated himself chair, but “the people of the Secretary of the State’s Office were not aware of my registration. There was a glitch.”
Korchin exited the HoJo after the face-off, declaring he would hold his own CFL meeting on Aug. 9 at his Cheshire home.
The Agenda
The conference seats filled with a mix of small-town Democratic Town Committee members, bloggers, vloggers, and Democrats disillusioned with Joe. Some came to hurl jokes and relish political theater. Others came with a petition, ready to orchestrate a Lieberman “accountability” campaign. CTBob, who appointed himself unofficial CFL media relations director, manned the video cam wearing a “Kiss” button. Orman’s one-man party having blossomed to six members, the voting got under way. First order of business: Elect a chair. Someone nominated Orman. “In the spirit of inclusion,” said Orman, sweeping his arms wide open, he nominated his absent adversary, Korchin.
Orman won the tussle by a 5 to 1 vote. The vice-chair? Jonathan Kantrowitz, the guy whose truck haunted the senator’s campaign this summer bearing the infamous Bush-Lieberman Kiss float. Kantrowitz ran for U.S. Congress twice in the Fourth District. Orman has run for Congress once; another time he battled Lieberman for the Democratic Party Senate bid before dropping out. “He and I disagree on one thing,” admitted Kantrowitz. “He’s into the issues. I just think it’s great political theater.”
Voters approved a series of recommendations to their “glorious namesake” senator. Goals on the CFL agenda include asking Lieberman to:
• “Stop misleading Connecticut voters by saying one month before the last election that no one wants to bring the troops home more than Joe Lieberman and then calling for a robust, substantial and sustained troop increase in Iraq.”
• “Stop blindly supporting Bush’s Iraq war policy since over 75 percent of Connecticut citizens do not support those policies.”
• “Stop cavorting with FOX network conservatives to bash those opposed to the war in Iraq.” The latter drew dissent: “I think it makes it clear where he stands — he should spend all his time cavorting with FOX,” opined Kantrowitz.
• “Call for a sore loser law in Connecticut named the ‘Lieberman Law’ to prohibit major party candidates from running in the election after they lose a party primary. Our party also favors moving up the deadline for petitioning candidates to one month before the primaries.”
Two members of the Democratic Party State Central Committee leadership, fresh out of a monthly meeting Wednesday, reported the group had voted unanimously in favor of pressuring the state legislature to pass such a “sore loser law.”
Kantrowitz (pictured) then read aloud some more proposals: • A pledge “to NOT support the candidates our party nominates,” the way the Republican Party ditched Senate candidate Alan Schlesinger and some Democrats didn’t support Lamont.
• A pledge, “following the lead of our glorious namesake, to report ALL campaign expenditures as petty cash.”
• A pledge “to only support candidates who will promise, if they lose the primary, that they will form a new party named after themselves. We will support the candidate of that new party rather than the winner of our primary.”
Orman, in a clear grasp at seriousness, rejected the laws without a vote. He ended on a less theatrical, more earnest note: “We’re doing all this in good fun,” but when The New York Times takes notice, there’s a chance to push a platform. Orman said he could see the party running candidates against Democrats who had supported Lieberman over Lamont in November, to “hold them accountable.”
The course forward remained uncharted: “Nobody has ever tried to take over a fake political party and use it to keep [a politician] accountable,” said Orman. He expected to call another meeting in the next month or so.
“We may need to meet again:” With the State of the Union coming up on Tuesday, he noted, Lieberman “may be kissed again.”
10 Years Ago Tonight: Blogger Power Drives Ned Lamont’s Primary Win
August 8, 2016UncategorizedTen years ago tonight – Aug. 8, 2006 – was one of the giddiest nights of my life; when Ned Lamont defeated Joe Lieberman in Connecticut’s U.S. Senate primary. The week before, I was in a conference room with our DFA-NJ exec board when I got a phone call from Jim Dean, Democracy for America’s chair. “What are you doing right now? Can you get up to Connecticut with us for Ned – like now? “ Gov. Howard Dean, Jim’s brother and DFA’s founder was now DNC Chair (back when DNC deserved respect) and was neutral in the CT primary (memo to DWS). But if you were for Howard in 2004, you were for Ned in 2006; Ned’s campaign was buzzy, audacious and – like Dean in 2004 – resolutely against the Iraq War. Volunteers were showing up every week and plowing into everything that needed doing – research, petitions, fundraising. People were just getting into cars and showing up. And Jim? He was all in – and a Connecticut resident.
Lieberman, who ran for VP on Al Gore’s ticket just 6 years prior had become the Democrats’ Halliburton-defending, Bush-kissing Iraq War cheerleader. The pressure to be “patriotic” meant going along with all Bush’s WMD-lying, flag-waving, chicken hawking bullshit. Hillary Clinton bought it. A lot of Dems did. And Lieberman was their king.
We just got into a car. I brought Hunterdon DFA’s Sharon Kasper; so excited she was bouncing up and down in the passenger seat. We got there late, and crashed on Aldon and Kim Hynes’ couches. He was Ned’s tech director, she his scheduler. We worked out of Ned’s Bridgeport field office – in the middle of Lieberman country. A storefront print shop we took over. The scene was crazy, the work output astonishing. Canvass crews and phone banks for hours in a tight, wild space, dodging vast reams of paper, machinery with pointy things and styrofoam cups all over the floor. Cookies and voter lists on every table surface. Pizza boxes. All the land lines are use (it was loud). And at least two dozen people standing outside where cell reception was better. SEIU showed up in giant purple buses.
Sharon was a beast. It was bloody hot, but she pulled 3 canvass shifts every day, then worked the phones. It changed her life; she moved to D.C. right after. I stayed in the office, but not on the phone. Every time I opened my computer, the field director chewed me out. She was doing her job, but DFA’s Arshad Hasan explained to her about Blue Jersey. “Every time she blogs something, people in New Jersey get in their cars and drive here. You don’t want her to stop.” I still remember what it felt like seeing waves of Blue Jersey readers walk in those CT doors. Here’s what else I remember:
Hat/tip Tim Tagaris for the victory party shot, Spazeboy for the Kiss photo.Commanders of the Interwebs
10 years ago & what came after
- Reaction in the bloggers’ room to Lieberman’s concession? Huge.
- Amazing local CT bloggers; national ones too. Still friends.
- Chris Matthews on MSNBC calling bloggers the Pajamahideen (he meant exactly what you think he meant).
- New York Times trying to explain to its readers what bloggers are – um, hilarious.
- The sheer genius of Ned’s blogger corps, who helped run a nimble, creative, internet-savvy campaign with stuff nobody over at Lieberman HQ could ever dream up. Example? “The Kiss,” a giant papier-mâché sculpture of the smooch Bush laid on Lieberman after his State of the Union. Mounted on the back of a pickup truck, it showed up everywhere Lieberman did, humiliating him, infuriating his supporters, entertaining reporters. (Me!) And the CT blogger corps videoed it all, pumping it out – for free – on YouTube to gazillions of hits. How it’s done.
- Tim Tagaris, who marshaled all that blogger talent, went on to run Bernie’s groundbreaking small donor fundraising ($27 average, baby)
Agile, savvy campaign driven by those it inspired vs. a duller, establishment operation with no message that resonates
- If the victory’s big enough, somebody will jump into the pool with all their clothes on. And that will be awesome.
- Sound of 3,000 people chanting Bring them home! Bring them home! when Lamont talked about the war.
- How Ned’s win ushered in a wave of candidates who spoke out against the War, including Linda Stender who nearly toppled the Republican incumbent in NJ’s 7th that year – my district.
- Ugh – Bob Menendez’ really squishy statements about Ned and Joe.
- They joyless, fuddy-duddy Lieberman campaign. They didn’t know what hit them. All their methods were yesteryear – from their ugly negative ads (which Team Ned decimated) to stunts using lobbyists disguised as regular voters to disrupt Lamont events. Then getting exposed as fakes (by our friend Aldon, who went public).
- Two black men and a black lady in a killer suit helped a rich white business dude from Greenwich win a Primary. Like it was the most normal thing in the world. From then:
In the end, Lieberman roared back, running as an independent with Republican pro-war support and winning back his seat. A cynical move, and a waste. In 2008, he endorsed McCain and gave a keynote at the Republican National Convention. Despite all that, he was allowed to caucus with Senate Dems – and keep his seniority. Same party, btw, that freaked when independent Bernie Sanders, who caucused with the Dems for years, ran as a Dem against Hillary Clinton.The point was driven home all week that while Lieberman’s supporters did quickie drive-by visits with little one-on-one voter contact (example Hillary Clinton), Lamont’s cheerleaders came, stayed for days and did retail politics on their feet for hours. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton talked to voters outside polling places all day. Maxine Waters went door-to-door with Lamont; the woman’s a rock star.
Oh, man. It is so time to clean house.
Bloggers at my 65th Birthday party:
And we are all Still loud and inappropriate.
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