{news} CT Post columnist- Ferrucci (and Nader) steal the debate with Lieberman

[Green Party-CT]

Capitol ViewJoe's challengers make some dentsArticle Launched:10/22/2006 08:01:05 AM EDT
It doesn't appear that Alan Schlesinger is going to take enough votes away from U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman for Ned — or as CBS News star Bob Scheiffer said, "Ted" — Lamont to win the November election. Schlesinger, "The Voice of the Valley," as it says on his always-closed Shelton campaign office, tried the other afternoon at The Bushnell to point out Lieberman's appeal to moderate Connecticut Republicans the incumbent will need to win.
 But as Schlesinger heads for what the polls call single-digit support, Lamont and Lieberman talked around him, literally and figuratively, on a crowded stage that was testament to democracy, with the appearance of Green Party candidate Ralph Ferrucci and Timothy Knibbs, the Concerned Citizens nominee.
 There was Ralph Nader, Green Party icon and 2000 presidential spoiler, shuffling into The Bushnell's main auditorium like Methuselah. Better yet, he was Jacob Marley's ghost, rattling the chains — in this case a folder of papers — as a reminder of the last time Lieberman tried to have it all by running for vice president and senator at the same time.
 I was thinking it was too bad that Nader — born in Winsted, up there where Route 8 runs out of four lanes, shifts to starboard and winds toward the Berkshires — isn't a Senate candidate. He would have had a blast nailing Lieberman for his service to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, for exporting jobs out of the country and supporting anti-consumer legislation.
 As it was, Ferrucci scored big points on the issue, but it would have made a nice scene for Nader, a little reward for him at age 72, to get under Lieberman's hide once more with pronouncements about the incumbent's political past, present and future. It didn't take very long for Bill Curry, the guy who couldn't beat the crooked John "Why Should I Resign if I've Done Nothing Wrong" Rowland in the 2002 gubernatorial race, to spot Nader. Curry drifted down an aisle toward Nader like a slightly under-inflated parade balloon, his ego tenuously tethered, his head still big enough to take out a streetlight if one were handy there, high above the crowd.
 It wasn't much of an audience either, with less than half the orchestra-level seats filled for the mid-afternoon WFSB-TV taping.
 The exercise was marred by microphone problems and at least two miscues by Schieffer.
 The TV station seemed more interested in cashing its checks for the never-ending series of attack ads, than actually understanding this crazy Senate race and the national attention it has accumulated since Ned Lamont dropped his membership in Greenwich's exclusive Round Hill Club and emerged, out of the blue, to become Lieberman's bete noire.
 Incredibly, the station actually tried to, briefly, prevent reporters from witnessing the taping, thinking they could keep a lid on it until its broadcast about 30 hours later.
 The TV station, which over the last few years has had a negligible presence in the state Capitol, seemed to have no familiarity with the newspapers and reporters that have been covering this Senate circus since the late winter, when Lamont and Tom Swan, his campaign manager/doppelganger made their marriage in political heaven.
 Lamont, who seemed less bug-eyed than the first debate with Lieberman, touched his usual anti-Bush themes. He said the savings from an Iraqi withdrawal could be used to expand health-care coverage. He made at least one mistake when he referred to "47 million people with health insurance" when he meant those without coverage. "We will never fix Washington with more partisan game playing," Lieberman said in what has been his standard public stump pronouncement, even as his campaign has shown no restraint in attacking Lamont on anything and everything. "We will only fix Washington by putting the interests of the people who elect us ahead of politics."
 Maybe the big disappointment, for sheer entertainment value alone, was the relative restraint Schlesinger exhibited so soon after his comic, scary, borscht-belt routine in Stamford a couple days earlier.
 But in a state where President Bush has one of the lowest approval rates in the nation, promising to march to the Republican tune in Washington isn't exactly a great marketing plan.
 At the end, I think Schlesinger offered many reasons to vote for Lieberman, who opposed recent jingoistic legislation.
 "Nah, he was the deciding vote against the flag-burning amendment and actually voted against English first," Schlesinger said. Still, if seen by enough Republican voters who haven't made up their minds on Lieberman, Schlesinger's nearly coherent performance might have finally lifted his candidacy out of the single-digit ghetto he's had in the polls.
 Is it enough to take votes from Lieberman and lift Lamont? I don't think so In the end, or at least before the various campaign aides offered up their people for post-debate spin, there was a lot of meat to chew on. Knibbs, who was conveniently positioned to the right of Ferrucci on the stage, sounded like a slightly conservative version of the Green Party, until his final appeal to the anti-abortion vote.
 Ferrucci, an artist and bread truck driver, was going for a look more appropriate for a country-music wards ceremony than a political debate — was less nervous than he's been, but still appeared to be in deep water.
 "We really need to pull these troops out right now," he said as the debate continued to return to the main issue facing the nation. "If we're going to sit there as long as it takes, we'll never leave Iraq."
 While Knibbs and Ferrucci, the fringe candidates, took up 20 percent of the hour, they did add a couple more fronts against Lieberman. If he wins on Election Day, as it appears he will, barring a late-surging anti-incumbent mood in the state, Lieberman can't say opponents didn't take their best shots at him.
 Ken Dixon's Capitol View appears Sundays in the Connecticut Post. You may reach him in the Capitol at (860) 549-4670 or e-mail him at dixon.connpost at snet.net.


       
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    Tim McKee cell (860) 778-1304 or (860) 643-2282
   National Committee Member of the Green Party(Connecticut)
    Cliff Thornton for Governor- Campaign Manager


  Paid for by Thornton For Governor, Max Wentworth, Treasurer-   www.VoteThornton.com
   



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