As you've probably heard, this year's Connecticut Senate race isn't the usual binary battle between a Democrat and a Republican, what with "Independent Democrat" Joe Lieberman busting up the kissy-kissy duopoly of Ned "D" Lamont and Alan "R" Schlesinger. But for Wednesday afternoon's debate at the Bushnell theater in Hartford, the three-candidate roster swelled to an almost unmanageable five, with Green candidate Ralph Ferrucci and Timothy Knibbs of the Concerned Citizens Party joining the fun.

Sadly, although the format was democratic, host station WFSB-TV was not. It originally refused to let reporters from other news media into the debate (a policy revoked after considerable criticism) and then placed a 27-hour news blackout on the event, refusing to distribute even a snippet until 7 p.m. tonight.

We may never have known what kind of Stalinist airbrushing went on in the homegrown Pravda of the WFSB newsroom had not the intrepid Connecticut Blog heroically smuggled out some bootleg audio. The sound quality is kind of sucky, but the note-perfect resonance of Ned Lamont's solo on "Casey Jones" still cuts through the static like smokestack lightning.

Best line delivered by a guy with nothing to lose:

Knibbs: "Mr. Lieberman has called for Rumsfeld to be removed, maybe that's because he's on the short list to replace him."

WFSB-TV Relents on Debate Embargo [Hartford Courant]

Listen to the debate. [Connecticut Blog]