John Mertens blows it

UPDATE: Here's Dr. Orman in his own words as to WHY he worked to keep the "Connecticut For Lieberman" Party alive...before Mertens decided to use it for his own purposes.

"This is an experiment in democracy. Nobody has ever taken over a fake party from an incumbent senator and tried to turn it into a mechanism for accountability."

- Dr. John Orman (@ 48:40 in the video)

And now, here's the original article from this morning:

(CT News Junkie photo)
Egomaniac and selfish assclown Professor John Mertens has succeeded in losing the "Connecticut For Lieberman" party line on the 2012 ballot because he's such a jerk.

(As a journalistic lead, that statement probably leaves something to be desired; but then again, I really never aspired to be a professional journalist!)

By not garnering at least 1% of the vote in his ridiculous and narcissistic run for senate, Trinity College Professor Mertens has caused the CFL line to miss the qualifying threshold for 2012.

For someone who's supposed to be so smart, he's quite the jackass.

To recap what happened, in 2006 Sen. Joe Lieberman (and it truly pains me that a dedicated public servant like Chris Dodd is forced to retire, while a political hack like Lieberman is free to enjoy the many tasty fruits of Senate life for at least two more years) was defeated by Ned Lamont in the senate primary, so he created a sham party called CFL and, while never actually becoming a member of that party, ran for reelection and won with the help of Connecticut Republicans, who abandoned their own nominated candidate in a massive show of non-support and voted for Lieberman.

Then, as soon as Lieberman won, he dropped the CFL party. Dr. John Orman, a political science professor at Fairfield U., saw an opportunity to take over the dormant party to use against Lieberman in 2012. So he registered as the very first member of CFL and held a convention, gained support from other Democratic activists who also registered as CFL, and he was appointed chairman. His intent was to keep the ballot line active until 2012, when he would use the line to embarrass Joe Lieberman. The way to keep the ballot line active was to cross-endorse a sure-win candidate and easily collect enough votes to exceed the threshold. Working Families Party does this every time with favored Democrats.

Shortly before he died, Dr. Orman transferred stewardship of the party to John Mertens, who was entrusted with the original intent of the newly hijacked party. What he did instead was steal the party that was rightfully pilfered by Dr. Orman, and used to fuel the Trinity professor's giant ego.

Because, let's face it, seeing your name on every ballot in the state (over 1 million of them) is a huge ego boost. And Professor Mertens let himself be seduced by that need to seek attention. For a while he was treated semi-seriously, like a real third party candidate. But every interview seemed to point out the sheer hopelessness of his run, while missing the importance of keeping the ballot line alive.

So now the results are in, and John Mertens blew it. He got about 1/2 of a percentage point, which means the party is officially dead.

Good work, douchebag.