Monday’s Day newspaper carried the death notice of another third-party movement in Connecticut, this of the admirable grassroots variety.

Staff Writer Martha Shanahan reported that James Andriote, who organized the Independence for Montville Party in 1996 and served as its only chairman for its 20 years, had not refiled the paperwork to maintain its spot on the ballot.

Andriote, a strong fiscal conservative, saw his new party as a means to unite townspeople who shared his desire for low-cost governance and were unhappy with the major party choices. Democrats have long been the dominant party in Montville, though with a more centrist version than found in Connecticut’s cities.

Andriote never won election under the IMP banner, but in its early years the party had some ballot success, before participation dwindled.

It joins other defunct minor parties in Connecticut. Those that had brief success were tied to the star power of particular candidates.

In 1990, former Republican U.S. Sen. Lowell Weicker won a three-way race for governor running under the “A Connecticut Party” banner, strategically and alphabetically named to get top spot on the ballot. Once elected, Weicker’s controversial push to pass the state’s first income tax did not help the ACP brand.

After Weicker opted not to seek a second term, his lieutenant governor, Eunice S. Groark, ran as the A Connecticut Party candidate in 1994, losing in a three-way race to Republican John G. Rowland. The party soon faded away.

In 2006, when U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman lost in the Democratic primary to anti-Iraq War candidate Ned Lamont, he formed the interestingly named Connecticut for Lieberman Party to stay on the ballot for the general election (it seemed to us Lieberman for Connecticut would have shown a bit more humility).

In that general election, Lieberman won a three-way race. Speculation that Democrats would turn on Lieberman because he had bucked the party’s chosen candidate quickly faded when it turned out the Democrats desperately needed him in the fold to control the Senate 51-49. All was forgiven.

But the party did not disappear immediately. In 2010 an independent candidate — and major Lieberman critic, John Mertens — grabbed the unclaimed Connecticut for Lieberman Party label to get on the ballot for the state’s other Senate seat, then held by Chris Dodd, who easily won. Still, that was sweet irony.

Agree or disagree with him, Mr. Andriote's third-party efforts appeared steeped only in doing what he considered best for his town. After all, he didn't call it Montville for Andriote.