Mertens relishes Lieberman party label

John Mertens shares few things in common with Sen. Joe Lieberman; in fact he appears to detest the Connecticut senator.

Last year Mertens, a Trinity College engineering professor, appeared in a political advertisement knocking Lieberman for his opposition to including a public option in the health care bill. Lieberman's resistance was a key reason the public option failed to make it in the final bill, producing what in Mertens' opinion was a much poorer piece of legislation than it could have been.

It also grates on Mertens that Lieberman is a military hawk who enthusiastically endorsed the decision to invade Iraq and escalate troop levels in Afghanistan, both military campaigns Mertens opposed.

Ironic, then, that Mertens is running for the U.S. Senate seat, the one Christopher J. Dodd is vacating, as the candidate of the "Connecticut for Lieberman Party." Stranger still that Lieberman backers could provide many of his votes. One has to wonder how many voters who are not paying very close attention, and are not happy with the major party candidates, might turn to the guy who appears to be backing Lieberman.

When I recently sat down with Mertens, I asked why he would run under that party label.

"Someone was going to use it," he said. "Why not me?"

Clearly he gets some impish delight over running his guerrilla candidacy using a party label created by the centrist Lieberman.

The state's junior senator launched Connecticut for Lieberman after he lost the Democratic primary to Ned Lamont in 2006. But after using it as a device to win the general election, Lieberman ignored the "party" and the ballot access that comes with it.

Lieberman's critics seized control of the party, making note that the name was the seeming self-centered Connecticut for Lieberman, rather than Lieberman for Connecticut. Mertens is the party chair.

Mertens, who tends well to the left on the political spectrum, characterizes himself as a problem-solver who has the courage to take clear stands on the issues in a way the major party candidates will not. With little money to run on, Mertens is making aggressive use of the new social media. His website - mertens2010.blogspot.com - does contain detailed positions on a wide variety of issues.

Some of those stands are a bit outside the mainstream. Mertens would legalize recreational drugs and have the government distribute them, while steering addicts into recovery programs. This is a far better option, he said, than helping criminal organizations thrive through an illegal drug trade, throwing much of the population in prison and pretending America can win the drug war.

On health care, he feels the reform bill did not go far enough. He would adopt a national version of the model that Massachusetts has put in place. Employers and individuals, he said, must have the choice to purchase a public basic health care insurance plan. In our meeting Mertens quoted someone who called health insurance companies "evil," saying the label fits since their primary motivation is to insure the healthiest people, deny coverage whenever they can and maximize profits. You won't hear too many politicians taking that position in the "Insurance State."

His approach to high unemployment would have made FDR proud, while creating the threat of cardiac arrest among the tea party crowd. Mertens is pushing for a domestic Marshall Plan that would include "a federal jobs program that offers a minimum wage job with health insurance to anyone who is willing to work, anywhere in the country."

Mertens list of positions does not include any headings for addressing deficit spending or the growing national debt.

As you read this Mertens is at the "Burning Man" festival in Nevada's Black Rock Desert. He feels passionately about the freewheeling event that brings together artisans, countercultural devotees and the merely curious, because he said it demonstrates how people can work together peaceably outside of traditional political, social and economic constraints. It concludes Monday, but the main event was Saturday night's burning of a massive, man-like icon.

No, John Mertens is not your typical Senate candidate and perhaps the last person anyone would expect to be running under the Lieberman banner.

Paul Choiniere is editorial page editor.