Below the break is my e-mail to Brendan Sharkey, Democratic State Representative in Connecticut, regarding the Ned Lamont campaign here in my great state.
Representative Sharkey -
Who is John Hartwell?
I am a housewife living in Westport, CT who was very active as a volunteer in the Howard Dean campaign. I was the MeetUp coordinator for Governor Dean here in Westport during the 2004 primary campaign and I spent a week up in Salem, New Hampshire right before their primary, where I met Tom Swan, up in Salem helping out Governor Dean, who now is on leave from CCAG and the campaign manager for Ned Lamont. Here in Westport, I worked very closely with John Hartwell for an extended period of time. John Hartwell is now Ned Lamont's treasurer.
Through my close friendship in the state Dean campaign with two volunteers up in the New Haven DFA group - Margie Clark (Hamden) and Melissa Sterry (New Haven), I spent time in DFA New Haven MeetUps under their leadership and watched that group deconstructed by disrupters from the Branford area - Keith Crane and Ed Anderson - who tore that group apart so they could take it over to rebuild it into a campaign group even as they launched a nasty little on-line effort called DumpJoe.com. Jim Dean was aware of this negative political activity and did nothing to intercede. As a result, Margie and Melissa stepped down as leaders of the New Haven DFA and the group now has re-emerged as an organizational tool for Ned Lamont.
Disclosure -
I remain good friends with Melissa and Margie. I have cut off communication with all others in the Dean organization.
Melissa Sterry is being cc'd on this e-mail to you. She was not aware I was writing this to you but I feel since she is mentioned she should know what I've written to you.
My own fledgling political activity stopped there. I was totally dismayed at the negative game-playing and the destructive energy. My husband was coincidentally diagnosed with cancer at around that time so I have turned my attention to my family and local community matters, chiefly to see through a protest and federal investigation of a contaminated site bought by Diane Farrell and the town of Westport for community use while caring for my husband through treatment.
I am now a re-unaffiliated voter (former Democrat who unaffiliated because of the Iraq Resolution and the Patriot Act). I will not be voting in the Democratic primary on August 8 but I am concerned about what I am seeing happen to politics in the state because of the Ned Lamont campaign. I am also not a supporter of Diane Farrell and I will not be voting for her or for Chris Shays in the coming election.
The little I know of state politics leads me to contact you to inform you that you and other state party leaders should be very concerned on behalf of the state Democratic party because of who Ned Lamont's campaign staffers are and to question why they are doing what they are doing.
I see tremendous unpredictable destruction to the state Democratic party as a result of the tactics and strategy of the Lamont campaign. The on-line nature of these tactics and strategy are quite familiar to me - I was an active blog commenter on DailyKos and the DFA website for a long period of time - and although I do not support Senator Lieberman and will not vote for him, I vehemently oppose the destructiveness of the Lamont campaign, as it is being staged by a handful of former Dean supporters and based on much misinformation, speculation, and mischaracterization of both Senator Lieberman and his record.
The risk/benefit analysis about whether the state party should sit to the side as the Lamont campaign takes down Joe Lieberman is one that should include the fact that if Ned Lamont and his staff either win the primary or significantly weaken Joe Lieberman, the shift in political power in this state will be to include the loss of a state senate seat (Ed Meyer's seat); a three-way senatorial race with a significantly weakened Lieberman, an extremely wealthy (self-funded) neophyte who is a scion of a Republican financial family, and a nationally targeted GOP candidate; and a virtual political wolfpack that will be powerful in both the state and nationally created from the linked websites supporting the Lamont campaign in the state of Connecticut and nationally - MyLeftNutmeg, ConnecticutBlog, Spazeboy, and NedLamont locally, and DailyKos and Firedoglake nationally - chief among them.
More than an attempt to unseat Joe Lieberman, I see this virtual and political merge as totally deconstructionist and vendetta politics at its worst - all initiated by a handful of former Dean supporters, perhaps with the blessing of Jim Dean, in order to take control of state party politics. For this, you should be worried.
I can't help but wonder who is funding the wolfpack forming in the state of Connecticut.
Lieberman told the voters to ask "Who is Ned Lamont?"
I believe you all should ask "Who is John Hartwell?"
I also believe a close look at Ned Lamont's financial statements is in order.
I sent an e-mail to Joe Lieberman today via his website, asking him to think about the same question.