Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Connecticut for Lieberman Follies

I love it when people "hack" the government. My favorite "hack" previously was when San Franciso began deputizing the managers of their medical marijuana distribution centers to make them immune from arrest under federal law. The law had originally been passed to prevent local copy from being prosecuted for breaking federal laws while enforcing local drug laws - which is exactly what it was used for, although this didn't exactly match the original intent.

Anyhow, I might have a new favorite. For anyone who didn't follow the Senate campaign in Connecticut, it went down like this:

Lieberman (previously a Democrat), lost the Democratic party primary in Connecticut to Ned Lamont.
Rather than gracefully bowing out, Lieberman vowed to run as an "independent" candidate, created his own party (Connecticut for Lieberman), and ran for the Senate seat as a member of that party. (Getting large amounts of funding from Republican sources, I might add). He 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 actually won (I'll never understand that one) with 50% of the vote.

However, having registered the party to run as it's candidate, nobody bothered to follow up with it after the election. So "government hacker" (and Fairfield University Political Science Professor) John Orman decided to do it himself. He popped on down to the state office and registered himself as the sole member of the party, and subsequently elected himself chairman.

He has restricted membership to "critics of the senator and anyone named Lieberman". Since this party won in the last election, they automatically get to field a candidate when Lieberman's term expires in 2012.
Ormans party chairmanship has now been officially recognized by the Secretary of State, pending any lawsuit over the matter.

Another party rule reads: “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.”

I love this guy. This will be interesting to keep an eye on...