As I mailed my check off to Uncle Sam, I drew a pie chart in my head of how much the government was spending on the things that are important to me (education, health care, homeland security) vs. the continuing drain on our nation’s resources otherwise known as the War in Iraq. No one is happy when mailing that check to the IRS, but when I know so much of what I’m paying is going to fund a war that was entered on false pretenses, for which we have no clear exit strategy, a conflict whose cost has wrought havoc with our economy; well, it makes me downright livid.

It got me thinking about Connecticut’s greatest cheerleader for the war, Senator Joe Lieberman and a conversation I had last week with the newly elected chairman of the party that bears his name, Dr. John Mertens.

The saga of the fictitious party created by Lieberman to enable his Senate run after being defeated in the Democratic primary by Ned Lamont in 2006 is the stuff of which political theater (not to mention a Wikipedia battle) is made.

When Senator Lieberman won his re-election battle but despite pre-election promises neglected to join his own party (nor did all of the twenty-five signatories to his petition), Dr. John Orman, a professor of politics at Fairfield University and outspoken Lieberman critic, changed his party registration to CT for Lieberman on November 15th, 2006. On December 21st of that year Orman filed a set of party rules with the Secretary of State.

In January 2007, Stuart Korchin filed a different set of party rules with the Secretary of State. Orman called an organizational meeting of the party in January 2007 at which Korchin appeared and said there would be a different meeting in August. Orman was nonetheless elected Chairman by those present; however, Korchin continued to claim that he was Chairman of the party.

Mertens stands behind John Orman as the legitimate Chairman. “I’d gotten copies of the paperwork that they’d both filed with the Secretary of state’s office and it was clear that Korchin didn’t understand what a democracy was.”

Not only that, but when, Mertens asked Korchin about the details of the August meeting, Korchin refused to provide them – even to a lawyer on the behalf of the other party members. What’s more Korchin filed no paperwork with the secretary of state about the meeting. “That’s not the way a democracy works. In the United States, every voter is entitled to join any party they wish, and they have a right to go to party meetings,” Mertens said.”

Party shenanigans aside, in the summer of 2007 Mertens approached Orman: “I think we need to use this party to do something real. Let’s turn it into an anti-war party, let’s use it to promote responsible government.”
At a statewide party caucus held on March 6th in Hartford with more than 50% of the party members in the state in attendance, Mertens was elected chair by unanimous vote. Members passed new party rules, and have nominated five candidates for state representative (see http://www.ctforlieberman.org)

Part of what motivates Mertens are the roadblocks put up by the Secretary of State’s office to his own Independent bid for Senate in 2006. “I’ve got two motivations: to counteract Joe Lieberman’s support for the Iraq war – he misrepresented his position on the war prior to the elections in 2006, running a commercial the day before the election that said ‘vote for Joe Lieberman, he’ll bring our troops home…’ We should use his party to point out that his position on the war is not the position of the majority of people of CT…I also want to use the party to run people for office the way we were denied doing in 2006. I want people to understand that we live in a democracy and what that means –that people should have ballot access and are free to join any party they want and participate in that party. I’m doing this to prove it. I can’t imagine any American being against what I’m doing. That’s the way America’s supposed to work.”

Wouldn’t it be deliciously ironic if the vanity party created by Senator Lieberman to keep himself in power ended up being a truly independent voice for the voters of Connecticut?