Oh dear, Republican State rep. entering CT Senate race as Independent

[Greeby]

http://lamontblog.blogspot.com/2006/07/republican-state-rep-files-to-run-as.html

Sen. Lieberman (Lieberman-CT) has started a trend, according to Kevin Rennie, via Hotline on Call:

Just when you thought the Connecticut race for the U.S. Senate could grow no odder, Republican state Representative Diana Urban today took out petitions for an independent run, creating the possibility of a four way race should Democrat challenger Ned Lamont defeat Senator Joseph Lieberman in the August 8th primary. Lieberman has also taken out petitions.

Urban, 56, will be running as an anti-war candidate and in a brief telephone interview sounded like a Republican version of Cindy Sheehan.


And Joe still refuses to unite the Democratic party in November by supporting the primary winner.

Whatever happens, though, it seems certain that Sen. Lieberman (Lieberman-CT) will be the most pro-Bush candidate on the November ballot when it comes to Iraq.
posted by tparty at 9:45 PM

[rosesaylavee]

1. Food fight.

I feel bad for CT voters as the national focus on this election will only intensify the embarrassment of their pols behaving badly. I predict whoever embarrasses least will win... this will become more and more the issue over all others including Iraq.

Democracy is not a tidy process, is it?

What would be great is if this widening of the race actually causes the 4 to discuss real issues - that would the best scenario to come of this. But, the likelyhood it will degenerate into a food fight is greater given what has happened to date.

[Greeby]

3. Well, the full list of candidates now looks like this

Joe Lieberman - either Democratic or Independent
Ned Lamont - Democratic
Alan Schlesinger - Republican
Diana Urban - Independent
Ralph Ferruci - Green
Lowell Weicker - Independent (not sure if he's still running, but he still is listed at http://www.thegreenpapers.com )

[rosesaylavee]

6. Six candidates...

Hope we don't hand this state over to the repubs this fall but it sure looks like it to me looking at that lineup. It will be interesting to see what the new polls say in about two weeks after the dust settles from the petition filings.

[Ian David]

9. I heard Gary Coleman and Mary Carey are running for LIEberman's seat...

If Ned Lamont wasn't running, I'd vote for Gay Penguin

[CTyankee]

12. Oh, please

Let's not get over dramatic here. What we are witnessing in CT is, I hope, an unfolding shift of politics that has to do more with the public's gradual understanding of what a disaster this war and repub. policies have brought upon the people. This is not a food fight, at least not with Ned's campaign. He's a serious guy and very intelligent. Ned would not waste his time in a "food fight," trust me.

[whalerider55]

13. The line between daram and comedy...

can be very thin. as a neighbor to the north (MA) my 2 cents aren't worth 2 cents in CT, but here they are.

In Texas, we've had a RINO run as a Dem and hold a formerly dem/gerrymandered republican congressional seat. in CT, maybe what we are seeing is republican running independently to the left of the dem, against a dem-loser who threatens to run to the right of the dem winner and the republican. regional adjustments.

either way, it ain't good news for the dems.

if this is a trend, i'll need a road map. dinos, rinos, indies, greens, morons, bigots...
it's all getting too complicated for me. and i consider myself to be a follower of the political game.

sheesh
whalerider

[CTyankee]

18. No, you don't see much if anything on Urban

and you sure get a lot of news and commentary about Ned Lamont. So I don't think this is at all significant. Maybe it's a bit of "me to-ism."

Ned's campaign is the genuine article. He may lose, but his campaign is transforming our politics even as we speak. It may be that he is the precursor to another, more successful challenger, if he doesn't win. But this is the beginning.

[AirAmFan]

2. So Democraatic votes now could be split THREE ways in November,

if as you might expect Urban doesn't draw many Republican votes.

Even if Lieberman beats Lamont in the primary, this helps Republicans, if some former Lamont supporters vote for Urban.

[LaurenG]

4. Well it's their (Connecticut voters) choice

If they decide they like more of the same that's what they'll get. I feel bad for those who know better and have to live there though.

[brooklynite]

5. I -TOLD- Paul he got out too early...

Paul Streitz, the other Republican candidate for the Senate nomination works down the hall from me, and dropped out at the Republican convention. If he'd stayed in the fight, who knows what would have happened...

[rosesaylavee]

7. Hey, not too late for him to get a petition

going and run as an independent... the more the merrier, don't you think? :)

[purji]

8. The republicans didn't want to run a good candidate

They want Joe to win so they can trot him out every time they claim they are bi-partisan.

[Ian David]

10. Joe "Rumkowski" LIEberman: Judenrat

Judenrat
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Judenräte (singular Judenrat; German for "Jewish council") were administrative bodies that the Germans required Jews to form in each ghetto in General Government (the Nazi-occupied territory of Poland) and later in the occupied territories of the Soviet Union.

These bodies were responsible for local government in the ghetto, and stood between the Nazis and the ghetto population. They were generally composed of leaders of the Jewish community (with the exception of in the Soviet Union, where Jewish organizations were eliminated in 1930s). They were forced by the Nazis to provide Jews for use as slave labor, and to assist in the deportation of Jews to extermination camps during the Holocaust. Those who refused to follow Nazi orders or were unable to cooperate fully were frequently rounded up and shot or deported to the extermination camps themselves.

In a number of cases, e.g., in Minsk ghetto, Judenrats cooperated with the resistance movement.

"The Community Council - the Judenrat, in the language of the Occupying Power - is an abomination in the eyes of the Warsaw Community..." - Chaim A. Kaplan, 23rd April 1941.


More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judenrat

Bush sends our kids to war, and Joe LIEberman pleads, "Give me your children!"

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/lodzdep.html

[originalpckelly]

11. This is the scariest development in politics since the first Civil War...

Very scary. The political parties split four ways before.

[unblock]

14. brilliant! we need some faux republicans to siphon off their votes!

let's sign up some spoilers to run as independents and court republican votes!

this would be a great gig for some young democrat lacking an obvious paper trail!
you could quote colbert in all your speeches!

:rofl:

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

15. Good. Give the people real choices.

The more the better.

[Nothing Without Hope]

16. Sounds like it could be a deliberate attempt to take votes specifically

from Lamont, if this person is running as an antiwar candidate. If she REALLY is against the war, surely she would do better to support Lamont, even if he is not of her political party. Anyone know anything about this "Republican version of Cindy Sheehan"? If she is honest about this, I salute her willingness to get out there for what she believes in, though her timing and location are unfortunate. A second anti-war candidate in that race is likely to take votes away from Lamont more than from Lieberman, but an unknown (at this stage) seems unlikely to win.

[Czolgosz]

17. Sound like a concerted effort to divide anti-incumbent votes as in Texas'

cluster-fuck of a gubernatorial race where "ex"-Republican Kinky and "ex"-Republican Strayhorn are running as "Independent" candidates and thereby virtually guaranteeing the re-election of the James "Rick" Perry, the Republican douchebag incumbent (unless either Kinky's or Strayhorn's campaign collapses before November) because the anti-incumbent is strong but not so string that it can stand to be split three ways.

[farmbo]

19. Urban is a Lieberman stalking horse...Holy Joe doesn't miss a trick.

eom

[iconoclastNYC]

20. Very cool.

I think the media will ignore him tho.