While House Democrats continue their assault on logic while promoting a full-time program to protect their status, one of the real charmers of the Connecticut Democratic Party has once again shown why the Citizen’s Election Program should receive a proper burial at sea.

 We have Jeff Cohen of National Public Radio and the CT Mirror to thank for Thursday re[port on that icon of probity Abe Giles, the King of the North End, former legislator and Hartford ward healer extraordinaire, who lapped up thousands of dollars of CEP money and spread it to the faithful in 2008.  Giles is a generous man. He once allowed dozens of voters to use his home as their address for registration purposes.

Giles, trying to win back his seat in the House of Representatives, got $25,000 in CEP money, repeat taxpayer money, to run his campaign. Half of it went to “campaign activity” that barely past the smell test and the rest….?

According to the Cohen:

Records show he paid his grandson $1,000 for campaign buttons.  It’s unclear from the records if that payment was for a reimbursement. And he paid $1,000 to an old acquaintance in town from Atlanta to work as a singing bus driver and a campaign aide.

“He got overpaid. He got somebody else’s check and took off,” Giles said. “I didn’t even try to get it back. He was going back to Atlanta, or wherever.”

Giles also paid his own company $800 for rent for his campaign headquarters. He paid Working Families Party Board of Education member Sharon Patterson-Stallings at least $2,000 for canvassing.

And Democratic veteran Prenzina Holloway got $2,000 for grassroots political work. Giles said he wasn’t exactly thrilled with what he got.

A singing bus driver?

Giles was unsuccessful in his efforts, losing to State Rep. Marie Kirkley-Bey, D-Hartford.

Democratic Legislators who would be unemployable in the private sector and see their government jobs as their only avenue to pass the time of day, are eager to keep the CEP  afloat.

That would include State Rep. Chris Caruso, D-Bridgeport, State Rep. Gary Holder-Winfield, D-New Haven, and an assorted of other dead beats who are terrified about the idea of having to go out and ask citizens to contribute hard dollars to their visionary quests for future service.

But you can’t keep a guy like Abe  Giles down, even if you indict him or accuse him of what some would call good natured larceny.

“As a matter of fact, I’m not a taker, I’m a giver,” Giles said. He said he has always tried to hire people from the community to work on his campaigns. “And that’s the only reason. It wasn’t no kind of quid pro quo or anything like that.”

For the time being, we are trying to get a hold of one of those Go with Abe buttons.