Maniac on your left, what can you do?

[PorkchopDJG]

Bad situation at the card club the other night. I sit down at the 6/12 LHE table and soon realize that the guy behind me is pretty much raising every hand. I can no longer limp without it being 2 and possibly 3 bets back to me eveytime because people are isolating the maniac. Then when I wait for good hands and raise usually everyone including the maniac fold behind me and I get nothing. Also if I just limp with big hands I am usually having to still face several opponents because maniac will raise and several behind may also come along as well but not re-raise because they fear I have something big. It also wasn't helping that the maniac was hitting hands, especially against me.
Eventually he burned through about 3 racks of yellow ($600) and left but I seemed to be the only one at the table that didn't get any of it. It also should be noted that nobody left the table during this time so I couldn't change to a more favorable seat and also the waiting list was huge so I couldn't change tables either.
What are the best options in this situation?
How would you react and modify what you are doing?

[W. Deranged]

Porkchop,

This can be a very frustrating, but actually powerful situation. You can't isolate, you always seem to be playing pots multiway without much control, etc. But, realize you have several things going for you.

1. He Who Closes the Action... -- One nice thing about the spot you're in is that you can very often close the action. Since the guy on your left is raising all the time, very often the action will come back to you with no one left to act. This is a powerful spot. You can make very accurate assessments of your odds without risk of getting raised behind you.

2. Pot Building -- One great thing about this spot is that when you make a huge hand, you are in a perfect position to check-raise and trap everyone for multiple bets one-at-a-time after the dude on your left bets. This is an awesome spot. When you make sets, flushes, etc... you will make more than you normally would in this spot.

3. Protection Leverage -- You can use this guy to protect your marginal hands postflop. You mentioned that when you raised pre-flop you still got a lot of action even if he raised after you. Sure. People will compensate for maniacs pre-flop. But I imagine you'll find that post-flop, you can still very effectively bet into the maniac and uses his raises to face opponents with double bets, and thereby protect your hand.