According to TheHill.com, Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman is willing to play a starring role at the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to be held Sept. 1 - 4, 2008.  Lieberman, whose support for presumptive Republican Presidential nominee John McCain has been steadfast over the last few months, is ready to speak to the assembled delegates before a prime-time national audience, if RNC officials so desire.

“If Sen. McCain, who I support so strongly, asked me to do it, if he thinks it will help him, I will,” Lieberman said in a brief interview.

Sen. Lieberman faces the possibility of retribution from his Senate Democratic colleagues if he does, in fact, speak at the Republican National Convention - especially if GOP retirements and the poor generic GOP/DEM ballot spell significant gains for the Senate Democratic Caucus in November.  Here at home, Sen. Lieberman seems to already be a man liberated from the bonds of Party politics, having won his 2006 re-election with the support of moderate Democrats, unaffiliated voters, and many Republicans.

A Lieberman keynote address at the Republican National Convention wouldn’t be the first time that a Democratic Senator addressed GOP national delegates.  In 2004, Georgia Sen. Zell Miller gave a famous (or infamous, depending on your view) keynote address to the Convention.  The pendulum does swing both ways, as Republican Presidential namesake Ron Reagan addressed the Democratic National Convention in Boston the same year.

In other Convention news, they named the official blog of the 2008 Convention - Grand Ol’ Blog.  You can get regular updates on the status of the Convention via the handy new blog.

Planning for the Republican National Convention is already underway, as you might imagine.  The 2008 Convention in Minneapolis promises to be the most environmentally friendly, tech savvy Convention in history.  Convention planners announced yesterday the intersection between the two as they introduced their newly updated website.  You can check it out by visiting www.gopconvention.com.

The new site features a wealth of information for those that are interested - including bloggers.  There is an entire page dedicated to information about blogging the Convention, including how to get credentials.

 You would do yourself well to check it out.

With the primary process well underway and the battle for delegate counts incredibly tight, the Republican National Convention may well be the sight of a monumental showdown for the Republican nomination. Planning for the Convention, to be held in Minneapolis, Minnesota on September 1-4, 2008, is already in full swing even though many of the delegates to that convention have not yet been named. Yesterday, the organizers for the Republican National Convention held a video conference to announce that Ustream.tv will be the official provider of live, streaming video from Minneapolis.

The 2008 Convention promises to be an exciting event, and the organizers have done a great deal, using technology, to build a better event. They are placing a heavy emphasis on a “Green Convention”. They are reaching out to bloggers to bring them closer to the action. And with Ustream, more people than ever before will be able to see the Convention from an entirely different perspective than ever before.

All this may well whet your appetite and get you asking the question, “where do I sign up?” In Connecticut, the process for selecting delegates to the Republican National Convention is spelled out in the State Party Bylaws. As a winner-take-all state, the 27 bound delegates will be pledged to vote for the winner of the Connecticut Presidential Preference Primary on the first ballot. The winning Presidential candidate’s campaign committee will recommend a slate of delegates to the State Party Chairman, Chris Healy, for selection. Chairman Healy will then bring the slate to the Republican State Central Committee meeting in March for approval.

With the Presidential contest close, Connecticut’s thirty delegates are becoming more and more valuable every day.  A quick glance over at the RealClearPolitics delegate count for the Republicans shows a tight race.  Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney is in the lead, with 59 delegates, while Gov. Mike Huckabee has 40, and Sen. John McCain has 36.  Thompson has 5, Paul has 4, and Giuliani has 1.  A candidate will need 1191 delegates (50% + 1) in order to win the nomination at the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis.

Connecticut has been allotted 30 delegates to the national convention by the Republican National Committee.  Per the State Party Bylaws, 27 of the delegates are bound to vote for whomever wins the Connecticut GOP Presidential Preference Primary on February 5th.  The three unbound delegates are Chairman Chris Healy, Republican National Committeeman John Frey, and Republican National Committeewoman Patricia Longo.  In Connecticut, the delegates are “winner-take-all”, meaning that all 27 will be obliged to vote for the primary winner on the first Convention ballot.

In the event that the Convention required more than one ballot, or if released by their candidate, delegates can vote for whomever they choose.