New Haven Independent

“It’s grassroots support like this that’s going to get Ned on the ballot,” said Vale of the hundreds of petition-drive volunteers at work since last Wednesday to get the roughly 14,000 (or 2 percent of all registered state Democratic) signatures it will take to get Ned Lamont’s name on the ballot against incumbent U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman in the August Democratic primary. Another route to the primary ballot is to get fifteen percent of the town committee delegate votes at the party convention May 20. Lamont-sters want both.

Thursday’s event took place on the fifth floor of 205 Church St., where the Meriden-based Lamont campaign formally opened an Elm City office.

“We’re in it to get on the ballot, and we’re in it to win,” said the communications director for the campaign, Liz Dupont-Diehl. Dupont-Diehl called Lamont’s the first petition effort of its kind since a 2003 change in Connecticut books that made the petition path to candidacy more feasible. She echoed Vale that although there would still be two weeks after the convention to get the 14,000 qualifying signatures toward the campaign goal of 35 to 40,000 signatures, the more the sooner the better.

“The convention is an insider’s game. Arms are going to be twisted and heads are going to be cracked,” said Vale. He gave another nod to open house no-shows who didn’t want to give up door-knocking time and interrupt efforts to win Ned surer footing at the convention.

Then Vale got to work growing the team. Lamont petitioners won’t be like haphazard grocery-store harassers of old (45 percent of whose signatures get tossed as illegitimate, Vale said). This drive is to stay strategic: targeted by neighborhood at listed registered Democrats, with regular turnover of petitions to notaries for authorization. And meticulously lawful: no letting a partner take the other side of the street with your registered petition, no repeat signatures, no forgetting to check ID to make sure names are real.

Even so, the campaign is steeling for a legal challenge. Vale asked petitioners to use blue pens, discouraging sabotaging Xeroxers. “We want everything to be nice and organized for the upcoming lawsuit!”

Vale cleared up cloudiness over what a signature at this stage actually means: “Signing this petition doesn’t mean supporting Joe or Ned. Signing this says you think the Democratic Party should have a choice in August.” And every little bit helps. “One signature is one signature. Get ‘em notarized and get ‘em into us!” he spurred.

New volunteers like Art and Mary Hunt left ready to push up their sleeves. They said they’d gotten news of today’s training on line, where pro-Lamonters have been busy and effective. “We think we need a Democrat — a real Democrat — to represent us in the Senate,” said Art.

“Basically, I’ve been complaining so much and so loudly for so long, this is a wonderful opportunity to go out and do something,” said newly-trained petitioner Phoebe Boyer (pictured below, at left, with Annie Lamont). She classed today’s political climate of “civil rights being taken apart” as “downright frightening” — enough to pull “pensioners” like her back into the fray. Lamont struck Boyer at a Hamden event last week as a man to set things right. “He could answer a question straight out. He doesn’t seem to be doing it for himself, but because he can do it.”

Annie Lamont, Ned’s wife, took the new Church Street office floor to confirm that Ned is doing it for “all of us.” When Lieberman’s stances of pro-war and pro-federal intervention in the case of Terry Schiavo got too much for Lamont, “Ned called first on established political leadership. He couldn’t find anyone to take up the mantle. Ned’s frustration at the direction of the country is the same as ours.” Her own venture capitalism firm, on top of her husband’s as a Greenwich-based CEO, further confirmed that the Lamonts do have some cushion to keep a serious campaign alive.