Editor's Note: This column emerges from the archives. Published in Dead Tree Media, July 22, 2006. It never made the blogosphere. Based on the fact that this past election cost us $1.5 billion as a country, and the only thing I saw of community action was some Obama fans cleaning litter in New Haven one weekend, I think this still holds water.

Instead of reading Ned Lamont's name, think of the $600 million that Obama just spent to earn the title President-Elect. I have added some updates and changes in italics.

Additionally, I think that the election of Obama provides an opening for progressive third parties, because the Democratic Party is split between Blue Dog, pro-war Democrats and anti-war activisits. With the Republicans nearly extinct in certain places, this creates an opening worth exploring with a different type of politics as explored here. Thus, the question is:

 

Can the modern political party be a vehicle which transforms communities from the bottom up, instead of running from the top down?

 

What if the Willimantic Greens started a needle exchange program for the heroin addicts? The state won't provide needles. We have a solution to stop the spread of AIDS among heroin addicts - what if we raised funds to fix that?

 

What if Ned Lamont, instead of raising funds to buy airtime, decided to raise funds or give his own (like his Halliburton stock) to finance the middle school sports program in Windham? (which was recently cut when this was written). On Third Thursday, the parents, students and boosters were out selling candy to raise $30,000 to save the athletic teams cut by the Board of Education because of a budget crisis.

 

Nevermind the perversity of seventh graders having to sell junk food so they can participate in an activity that will teach them healthy exercise habits for the rest of their lives, but can we get a multi-millionaire to spend campaign funds on doing good in the community instead of running vanity commercials, like him singing karaoke?

 

The publicity he would get from doing that simple act of wealth redistribution would easily be worth the $30,000 in television ads (probably a dozen 30-second spots in prime time).

More on Voting and Community Action...

 

The most vital thing about today is tomorrow. Whatever happens today, what we do tomorrow, the fifth of November, is what matters most. The hardest work of democracy happens in between presidential elections.

 

Clearly, we failed to do heavy lifting since 2004 because our democratic institutions are not equipped to handle 70 or 80 percent of registered voters showing up.

 

Inside Grace Lutheran Church, more than half the voting booths were empty. Why?

 

Because even though the registrar had prepared with extra machines, they had only two women checking in voters who lived on streets A through L, and two more checking in voters who lived on streets M through Z.

 

In Asylum Hill, most streets begin with letters A through L (Ashley, Collins Imlay, Farmington, Forest, Gillete, Laurel). The streets M through Z are less populated. So this would have taken Shirley Surgeon's office in City Hall the foresight to realize the differential.

 

So the whole 90 minutes we stood in line, less than half the voting carrells were being used. It didn't quite make sense. I am sure that these problems occur all over the country in some form or fashion.

 

The new ballots proved confusing for some. I for one love the idea of paper ballots. I even took a picture of mine!

 

One voter spoke no English, and my bet was that he couldn't read either. Mike McGarry, who was handing out ballots, asked me to help him because I speak some Spanish. The man only wanted to know where to blacken the oval for Obama.

 

I didn't want to know who he voted for, I just wanted to insure that he understood how to fill out the card. But he didn't care. He wanted to vote Obama, and his voter intent is reflective of millions today.

 

Obama is a lucky man. He is the right man at the right moment in time, and we better hold him accountable for the dreams we want to see realized.

Link ...

 

An active, passionate third-party registrar of voters in Hartford, a leader like Urania Petit, would be a boon to democracy.

 

Unfortunately, a heck of a lot more people read the Hartford Courant editorial page than this column, and a few weeks back, the sinking ship editorialists at America's oldest daily newspaper surmised that Urania Petit's candidacy for registrar was a systemic redundancy.

 

The editorial dismissed Petit's bid to become the Working Families Party registrar of voters without actually addressing the merits of the issues. So I beg you: Don't listen to the corporate hacks scribbling for the master's dimes. Urania Petit will bring effusive energy, excitement and new ideas to the registrar's office. She deserves your vote.

 

When not more than 20 percent of voters on average turn out for elections in Hartford, we have a sick system. Petit agrees. The two parties have failed utterly in their ability to create a healthy civic life here in the nation's poverty capital. Petit wants to see 70, 80 percent voting rates in Hartford.

Link...

 

For about 45 minutes tonite, I hung out down at the Asylum Hill Congregational Church with about 50 other people for a Candidates Forum. Sponsor Hartford Organizing for Power and Equality provided excellent pizza, and an opportunity for candidates to sound off.

 

I went to shoot some politicos for file photos. And for the most part, only incumbents are running, and my opinion is pretty set about them.

 

This was for state candidates, so Steve Fournier, the Green runnign for Congress in the Hartford, didn't get a platform. But he sent out a decent e-mail about his experiences that's on his website here.

 

And, most importantly, I was surprised to realize that both Craig Stallings and Larry Charles are challenging Marie Kirkley-Bey for the Fifth district seat in the House of Representatives.

 

Kirkley-Bey has held that seat for eight terms, or 16 years, I think she said. She survived a primary challenge this August from Abe Giles.

 

So, here, in about 25 words are less, my impression of the candidates saying "Elect me because:"

 

Link to see what the Candidates said...

 

Barbara J. Ruhe of Wethersfield sent a letter to the Editor at the Hartford Courant congratulating Gov. M. Jodi Rell and I back in March 2007.

 

Gov. Rell and I bumped into each other at a parade, and we took our picture together. The Courant printed it. What a hoot!

 

Ruhe wrote: “The picture was the epitome of class on the part of the governor and grace on the part of Mr. Krayeske. Both qualities are rarely seen in the public realm and even more seldom celebrated.”

 

For that, I sent her Ruhe a thank-you postcard from Malta in October 2007, when I had the chance to express my gratitude to complete strangers who defended me in that hour of need. She didn’t have to say anything at all.

 

Fast-forward to August 2008, and I get an email from Ruhe. She’s an attorney, a Republican, and she is running for state senate against stale incumbent John Fonfara.

 

Ruhe and I set up an interview, and at the appropriate hour, I arrived at her law offices. I noticed not just my postcard from Malta, but standard CT GOP paraphernalia, like a signed note from former Gov. John G. Rowland.

 

Her impassioned defense of Rowland almost made me like the guy.

 

“John Rowland was the first governor in this state that paid attention to the needs of children,” Ruhe said.

Link...

 

Abe Giles hung up the phone with me before I could ask him what he thought of Mississippi’s famed civil rights activist, Fannie Lou Hamer.

 

I called him to inquire about a number of topics, and I started with the hard one first. Maybe I should’ve led with Hamer.

 

But I wanted to know how Giles’ business, G & G Enterprises, Inc., won the low bid on the Contract for Miscellaneous Services #4076, On Demand Moving and Storage Services of Personal Effects of Evicted Tenants.

 

The scope of services in Contract #4076, when put out to bid, originally called for the winner to move the voting equipment, too.

 

Let’s put aside the fundamental question of why the city has to subsidize landlord-tenant relationships rather than working to guarantee housing for all, and focus on why the contract when Giles signed the contract July 13, 2007, it didn’t have that voting equipment provision.

 

“The only reason why, because people like you ask damn, dumb stupid questions,” Giles said. “You didn’t start it, it started years ago. That’s the only reason why.”

 

Link...

 

Scene: The back room at Hartford's Wood-n-Tap pub, Monday July 7, 2008. A group effort moneymaker, aimed at achieving public financing thresholds for state representative Kelvin Roldan and candidate for state representative Hector Robles.

 

Organizers advertised it on a Facebook page. More than 35 people, including City Hall's usual suspects from City Council, like Lieber-crat Cal Torres, from the mayor's office, like Glendowlyn Hall, and from the Registrar of Voters office like Sammy Vazquez paid to populate the room. They noshed on hors d'oeuvres with members from the Democratic Town Committee and others in political circles.

 

I. Rep. Kelvin Roldan

Roldan, the 29-year-old state representative, maintained I am not fair to him. In March 2007, I wrote a column about him landing a plum $90,000-a-year job at the Hartford Board of Education. He also makes $30,000 or so a year as a state representative.

 

In total, Roldan slurps in $120,000 at the public trough – a pittance compared to what Dick Cheney's pals take from the U.S. treasury, but still, Roldan is part of Eddie's coterie and your friends are your mirrors.

 

And I think that $120,000 in taxpayer salary for a 29-year-old man, no matter how accomplished, is too much. Roldan could argue that it is the same salary as a Superior Court Judge, and I would argue back that hey, a Superior Court Judge has to have had at least three years of school and another decade as a lawyer in practice.

 

Roldan swears that he works hard for his money. And he uses his salary for good. Like he said he financed exactly half of his trip to Kalamazoo, MI last month to learn about Promise Zones, a program that helps a municipality to borrow money through bonds to pay for high school graduates to go to college.

To Finish Parts I through VII...

 

Thanks Ned Lamont. I've never said it before, but I feel I need to pay you some gratitude.

 

Thanks, Ned, for reminding how valuable Habeas Corpus is. You spent $15 million or so of your own money - a sum that boggles my mind. You could have bought yourself a 100-foot sailboat and run it with a full crew for four years or so. You could have bought a bunch of houses out of foreclosure and made a mint flipping them.

 

Instead, to speak for the Constitution, you put yourself through hell. And you survived. Anyone who doubted your sincerity should eat their hats. I heard you on Jon Dankosky's Where We Live Wednesday not once, but twice. I tuned in at 9 a.m., driving to New Haven. I even called in, and asked a question - 275-4266.

 

On my way home at 8 p.m., I tuned in again. I wanted to hear my question, and I wanted to listen to David Sirota again. I agree with him. You are a revolutionary. I'm sorry I didn't see it sooner.

 

You bought a platform, and you took a huge defeat. You invested $15 million and you lost, yet you stood back up, dusted yourself off and jumped back on your horse. You demonstrate self-confidence and maturity.

Link...

 

Good governance is good balance. Politicians, bureaucrats, and citizens all make trade-offs, both under the table and overtly.

 

So on balance, Ed Vargas is a good candidate for First Senate District in Hartford.  He speaks of policy, particularly education, with rare fluency. Vargas’ flaws go down a lot smoother than do those of his opponent, his one-time ally, Sen. John Fonfara.

 

First time I met Vargas a decade ago, I was a Hartford newbie reporting for the Advocate. I encountered Vargas at the head of the teachers’ union picket line behind 10 Prospect Avenue, leading a protest about an aspect of society’s general disrespect for education.

 

When I met him Tuesday morning May 6 at First and Last Bakery and Café on Maple Avenue for an egg sandwich and a cup of coffee, he’s a new incarnation of himself.

 

His deep voice still exudes a gravely confidence. He's shaved his beard. And he's retired from teaching. He's cut back the time he puts into the union. He is focusing his energy on the campaign.

Link...

Ed. Note: This is my print column, written on Feb. 5, run on Feb. 6 in the Hartford News.

 

Yep. I pulled the lever for Obama this morning. In the pouring rain, I moseyed to Grace Lutheran Church, filled in the appropriate bubble, and cast my vote for the freshman Senator from Illinois.

 

As I took pictures in the Hartford Civic Center Monday evening and listened to Obama, I was skeptical. I understand it is likely that Teddy "Camelot, Jr." Kennedy knighted Barack and brought him to the Round Table because of a personal grudge against the Clintons.

 

I understand that most of what Obama promises – affordable college, universal health care, regular raises in minimum wages, raises for teachers, an end to the Iraq War, an end to the War in Afghanistan, 40 mpg fuel standards - he may never deliver upon. But he's talking a language that isn't perpetual warfare, terror and fear.

 

I also understand that once the primary is over, and the corporate wing of the Democratic Party - the Democratic Leadership Council – assumes control of the Dems' platform, his rhetoric may change. Although Obama is not a member of the DLC, he has taken campaign contributions from them.

Link...

 

Obama has just left the building. I'll have some thoughts on it later, but here are some pix for the time being.

Clearly, it was emotional, hopeful and uplifting.

And I hope this conveys some of the magnatude of the event. He rented the Civic Center, and more than 16,000 people showed up to see a presidential candidate. It was impressive. Families, children on shoulders, the elderly, the disabled, heck - I even saw one campaign volunteer on his way to emptying a bed pan, carrying a full little portatoilet across the floor of the civic center.

 

It was dedication and certainty, belief in something large. Barack's rhetoric is convincing. He says all the right things, like withdrawing the troops from Iraq, energy independence, funding education, etc etc.

 

I could sit here and nitpick with his policy proposals - I think college education should be free - he wants to make it affordable. Paul Krugman in the New York Times today said that Hillary's health care plan was better than Barack's. But Hillary is well funded by the health care industry she purports to regulate.

 

Nor does Hillary have a story like Obama's - child of a teenaged mom, raised by her and grandparents - and she died at age 53 of cancer. The crowd responds to that. He's one of us, or so it seems.

 

Hillary, on the other hand, spoke in front of a select audience at Yale today. Could she have filled the Civic Center? I don't know. It seems like she packed people into the Learning Corridor last week. But this was something different. Does she generate this kind of excitement? I don't believe so.

 

Listening to him talk about my country in terms like he employs - this language of hope, previously the domain of Bob Dylan and Woodie Guthrie - makes me want to like him, even if he is going to go back on his promises (some of them, for certain, which ones, it remains to be seen).

 

Obama's biggest applause of the night came not from talking about health care, constitutional restoration, 40 mpg cars, or ending the war, but about humanitarian intervention to end the genocide in Darfur.

 

I have been thinking alot lately about linear history and how we judge events too swiftly after they just happen. I want to sleep on this one, and think about how this fits in with what has come before, and what will follow it. Symbolically, how do we interpret this?

 

In the coming days, many will weigh in on it. I saw tons of journos there - everyone from John Murray at the Waterbury Observer to blogger CTBob, to Ken Dixon of the CT Post, Chris Keating, Rick Green and Mark Paz from the Courant, the Yale Daily News, and a ton of others. Ctnewsjunkie and the New Haven Independent will have stuff, too.

 

Link...

 

W hat marks professional graphic design? A photo and text interplaying to convey trust and confidence in a particular candidate's ability to lead.

 

The designer did just about everything right here - Barack's million-dollar eyes face the text, a solid facial expression projecting "Constitutional Law Professor," and simultaneously says "Trust me with my finger on the nuclear button."

 

The photo screens out nicely for textual legibility. A subtle drop shadow highlights the red pull out box to the left.

 

Yet the combination of word and image here makes me a little uncomfortable, not like Dukakis-in-a-tank anxiety, but a kind of unacceptable incompetence, a misunderestimation, as it were, of mettle that residents of 1600 PA Ave. can't reveal.

 

With change being the central focus of the Obama campaign, couldn't they at least get the whole word on the page?

 

It's new, because on the front, a January 3, 2008 quote from Barack appears on the front, so I imagine they had thousands of images to choose from for this particular four-color piece.

 

It seems to be a national distribution because of the way the Connecticut for Obama online addreses are printed in. And of course, it features a union bug.

 

But would Hillary's campaign send out a direct mail piece with "C" missing from "Change"? I doubt it. I've gotten Hillary mailers. I thrown them out, but I've never seen anything so poor.

 

And no, I'm not making too big a deal out of this, considering the work that goes into stage managing the executive office. It would be like if the famous photo op said "Ission Accomplished."

 

Link...

 

OKAY, anyone who visits this website today absolutely, positively must, 100 percent go to Current.tv and greenlight the "To Be Green" documentary. If we can maintain our number one ranking, we get on national tv.

 

You have to register to vote on the site. Like in real life. It's no big deal. But please, do this one for Cliff. And me. And the struggle. It only takes a minute.

 

University of Hartford grad and current Hartford resident Dave Pond and his company Little Tree Media produced the short documentary, which is on the verge of being aired nationally on Current.tv.

 

Thornton for Governor hired Dave to do the commercials for our campaign. He got an inside look at the campaign, and with this footage, he produced this film after Nov. 7.

 

As of right now, we are ranked #1 on Current.tv. If by Monday, April 16 at 6 pm we maintain our first place ranking, Dave's video gets aired on national TV. Please go vote.

Link...

 

Hillary Clinton thinks I am her friend. At least that's how she addressed a letter to me the other day. "Dear Friend," it said.

I have no idea how she got my address (perhaps she bought a subscription database from some magazine, or maybe Russ Feingold gave her a list). I really don't want any mail from her either.

But since she thinks we're buddy-buddy, and she asked me what was important, I was honest with her. On the lines her campaign staff provided, I wrote that she needs to renounce her support for the Iraq war, that Bush needs to be impeached, and that AIPAC's dominance over Israel-Palestine-US policy demands to be challenged.

I sent her a small campaign contribution in the hopes that my thoughts will be taken more seriously because of it.

Link...