Weicker, War, and Third Party Politics

Perhaps to make it up to the people of Connecticut for imposing an income tax during his single term as a third-party governor in the early '90s, Lowell Weicker is offering to help get pro-war Joe Lieberman out of the Senate.

There hasn't been a meaningful senate race in Connecticut since Lieberman beat Weicker (then a Republican) back in 1988.

And Weicker also hopes to join with the ACLU to challenge a horrible campaign finance bill about to be signed by Governor Jodi Rell. That law would ban direct political contributions from lobbyists and state contractors and allow Republican and Democrat nominees for office to qualify automatically for public campaign funds. To obtain the same public money, third-party candidates would have to mount a petition drive and obtain signatures from eligible voters equal to 20 percent of the turnout in the most recent election.

(Grabbing more taxpayer money and elbowing out third-party challengers is a nice touch for a political "reform" bill aimed at addressing corruption by members of both ruling parties.)

Comments

[Warren]

Did I mention how much I hate threads appearing out of sequence?

I did, but not yet.

[joe]

Nobody could possibly be dumb enough to be as confused about public financing of campaigns as Alissi pretends to be.

[Jennifer]

In all fairness, concerning our loathsome state income tax: the Republicans have had the state for quite awhile now, and I don't see them using their power to rescind the tax. No, they're keeping it AND raising other taxes as well. A riddle:

Q. What happens when the Party of Fiscally Responsible Small Government takes over one of the most laughably corrupt states in the country?

A. I'm at a loss to describe it, but I have to live with it every single day. What in the world was I thinking, when I moved here?

[mtc]

I'm that dumb joe, you'll have to explain what's wrong with Alissi's comments.

Jennifer- you moved here for the weather.

[Eric the .5b]

Where's M1EK to rage against the evil of third parties?

[Isaac Bartram]

So, joe, explain again why any of my money should go to some candidate I don't want to support. ie, any of them.

[Warren]

mtc,
Please don't feed the joe.

[Lowdog]

It's either public money for any motherfucker who wants to run for office or for nobody. Either make everybody jump through hoops to get it or don't, but it's got to be fair.

Of course, people lucky enough, like joe, to actually think that one of the parties has their interest in mind are going to think it's a great idea for the big 2 to get public money.

The rest of us, who are smart enough to know that neither party has our interests in mind, are not going to think it's such a good idea.

[Adam]

pro-war Joe Lieberman

A regular Attila the Hun, that guy. War war war war war. He just can't get enough.

[MP]

Lowell Weicker pushed hard for the ADA. Between that and the CT income tax, he's on my permanent sh*t list.

[SR]

"A regular Attila the Hun, that guy. War war war war war. He just can't get enough."

I'm assuming you're being sarcastic, but Joe Lieberman's love for all things war-related is well documented:

Lieberman backs war on Yugoslavia '98: antiwar.com/szamuely/sz081000.html

Lieberman backs war on Yugoslavia '92:
cato.org/pubs/fpbriefs/fpb-019.html

Lieberman co-sponsors Iraq Liberation Act '98:
lieberman.senate.gov/issues/security.cfm

Lieberman co-sponsors legislation calling for "No Fly Zone" and military intervention in Sudan '99 and '05:
lieberman.senate.gov/issues/security.cfm

Lieberman votes for Gulf War I and Gulf War II:
slate.com/id/2086727/
newamericancentury.org/iraq-091302.htm

Lieberman supports missile defense:
slate.com/id/2086727/

Lieberman is a member of the superhawk organization "Project for the New American Century":
rightweb.irc-online.org/analysis/2005/0502ally.php

[SR]

Insert "w w w ." (no spaces) before all of those addresses except for the last one to get them to work. (Darn spam filters!)

[Ted]

You can either have the taxpayers fund the election, or you can have the lobbyists fund the election and then have the legislators fund the lobbyists with taxpayer money. (In theory there are other options, but none of them are likely to actually happen).

I say we eliminate the middleperson.

[Gene Berkman]

Lieberman supports war on a bipartisan basis - Bush Sr's war on Iraq in 1990, Clinton's bombing of Yugoslavia in the late 1990's and the current Iraq War.

Weicker is a big-government supporter himself, and introduced a bill to ration gasoline in the 1970s when he was in the Senate. It provide that people would get permission to buy gas on odd or even days, and if someone bought gasoline on the wrong day, they would be arrested - not just a ticket.

Almost every election offers a choice of unacceptable candidates - and Lieberman vs Weicker is about as bad as, say Bush vs Kerry.

[Rick Barton]

I make it that Weicker is somewhat less statist than Lieberman on domestic concerns ( of course we're talking awful and Gawd awful here) so the fact that Lieberman is such a war-turkey makes Weicker the preferable of the two for sure.