One AndersonScooper posted this video of the recent townhall of Chris Murphy in Simsbury earlier this week. I saw it over at Connecticut Local Politics where you can read the comments of Genghis Conn about what he saw there.
Since
last
fall's review of the spending habits of Congressional
campaigns, the state's candidates
have continued to find thrifty, questionable and downright foolish
ways to spend their money between October and March, several months
before voters start paying attention to them.
Democrats
in ostensibly competitive districts (Courtney, Himes, and Murphy) have
spent much less of a percentage of their income on average than
their Republican counterparts.
Chris Murphy's campaign, a
disciplined machine, has raised and saved the most and, not
coincidentally, has the lowest and most consistent burn rate.
John
Larson is the only candidate spending more than he is
raising. He
was actually left with less cash on hand at the end of March
than
when he started this electoral
cycle.
Sean Sullivan is the worst GOP candidate of the
year. (Tony Nania would compete for the title if he were for
real.)
Jim
Himes nearly matched Chris Shays in cash on hand, in large
part
because of Shays' pattern of big spending and Himes' past thriftiness.
But Himes raised less and spent more than Shays early this
year, diminishing
his progress.
CD
Candidate
Cash on hand
Jan 1 07
Raised
Jan 07 -
Mar 08
Spent
Jan 07 -
Mar 08
Cash on hand
Mar 31, 08
Burn
rate
Jan 07-
Sep 07
Burn
rate
Oct 07-
Mar 08
Total
burn rate
1
Larson
236,969
652,432
682,850
179,552
87%
155%
109%
2
Courtney
47,599
1,465,808
318,722
1,194,685
20%
25%
22%
2
Sullivan
-
230,450
101,462
128,988
23%
72%
44%
3
DeLauro
16,124
624,773
473,024
167,873
83%
66%
76%
4
Shays
61,544
1,608,255
532,072
1,137,726
37%
29%
33%
4
Himes
-
1,379,992
274,781
1,105,212
11%
27%
20%
5
Murphy
50,703
1,791,612
297,675
1,544,639
16%
18%
17%
5
Cappiello
-
654,655
232,039
420,316
24%
43%
35%
5
Nania
-
31,989
21,943
10,046
-
77%
77%
Burn rate = (total spent + debt)/ total raised.
More on the spending
habits of each candidate, and an update on April spending below.
Now that the secret is out, here's a different kind of invite from CT Opposes the War to protest the unholy troika of Bush, Kissinger, and Cappiello:
FRIDAY, APRIL 25, 9 AM to 1 PM
PRESIDENT BUSH @ HENRY KISSINGER'S HOME (FUNDRAISER FOR DAVID CAPPIELLO, CHRIS MURPHY'S CHALLENGER)
50 HENDERSON ROAD
KENT, CT 06754
It's time to take our message to end the War on Iraq to Bush again!!! This time, he will be at the home of Henry Kissinger, architect of the secret war on Laos and many other foreign policy blunders. We will send updates as we get information. We will coordinate transportation if you contact us directly -- contact John Murphy murphy [AT] ccag.net or 860.995.3389
Lest we focus exclusively on the contempt for domestic and international law demonstrated by our Commander in Chief, who knew that Connecticut is harboring a war criminal? This accusation has been made in multiple countries based on multiple acts by Henry Kissinger:
The charges include: (1) Indochina. Most conspicuously, defying the constitutional chain of military command in personally choosing the (civilian) targets for the illegal (invading other countries without telling Congress happens to be unconstitutional) bombings of Laos and Cambodia to "pursue" the enemy into its imaginary "lairs." (2) Bangladesh. He chose as his diplomatic "back channel" to China a ruthless Pakistani dictator who soon rained genocide on the country later known as Bangladesh because he was given every indication he had Henry's approval. (3) Indonesia in East Timor: which more or less resembled what happened in Bangladesh. (4) Greece in Cyprus: ditto (with a possible suborning of an inconvenient journalistic investigator's assassination thrown in for good measure). And finally, as number five, Hitchens's centerpiece, and a masterpiece: Chile.
Kissinger reportedly consults with lawyers about the possibility of arrest before traveling to any other country. Like Chris Crocker, Kissinger just wants you to leave him and George Bush alone! (More details below.)
Update (4/21): CT Opposes the War is asking people to register for the protest on their Web site.
(And why don't they ever pick on Larson? Get him on that Stairmaster, Chris Healy. - promoted by mikect)
But where is Joe Courtney?
In 2006 Chris Murphy defeated Republican Incumbent Nancy Johnson by 22,000 votes. His colleague Joe Courtney squeaked out a victory over Rob Simmons by a razor thin margin of 91 votes. Conventional wisdom would suggest that Courtney would be considered the more vulnerable of the two in 2008, but the National Republican Congressional Committee doesn't seem to think so.
Roll Call (subscription required for the full article) obtained a memo from the NRCC listing 23 top targeted Democratic incumbents. Republicans have taken aim at Chris Murphy but left Courtney off of their list.
The purpose of raising campaign money is to spend it
- in a timely,
targeted, and effective manner. Some candidates focus on the
first half of that guideline and neglect the latter
portion. If campaign donors critically examined the
spending habits of some Connecticut candidates, they might have second
thoughts about contributing again.
To get a sense of how much
and how well funds are being spent, take a look at Congressional
campaign "burn rates" - how much of their incoming funds federal
candidates are spending in these early days of their campaigns.
Dist.
Candidate
Cash on hand
Jan 1, 2007
Raised
Jan-Sept 2007
Spent
Jan-Sept 2007
Cash on hand
Sept 30, 2007
Burn
rate
1
Larson
236,969
419,857
364,142
292,684
87%
2
Courtney
47,599
898,294
178,128
767,765
20%
2
Sullivan
-
132,384
30,686
101,698
23%
3
DeLauro
16,124
367,265
303,795
79,594
83%
4
Shays
61,544
838,489
306,242
593,791
37%
4
Himes
-
617,676
70,976
546,699
11%
5
Murphy
50,703
1,057,795
166,914
943,583
16%
5
Cappiello
-
268,802
64,434
204,368
24%
Burn rate = (Total spent during 2007 calendar year + debt as of Sept.
30)/ Total raised during 2007.
As
the biggest spender in a competitive district, Chris Shays is shedding
37% of his contributions as he goes. This is more than three
times the spending rate of Jim Himes, the most frugal and efficient
federal candidate in the state, who has departed with only a small
fraction (11%) of the funds he has raised. Despite Shays'
long
head
start, Himes has nearly as much cash on hand as his opponent.
If this pattern continues, Shays will soon fall behind his
challenger, in large part because of his wasteful spending.
Himes
Shays
Himes advantage
Average raised per quarter
308,838
279,496
Raised 29,341 more
Average spent per quarter
35,488
102,081
Spent 66,592 less
More on what they're
spending all that money on below.
This is a scan that's been making the rounds in the blogosphere in recent days, of a mailer from the GOP in upstate New York:
Between the messaging mess surrounding Spitzer's plan, national Republicans desperate for any traction trying to pin the surprising special election performance of MA-05's Jim Ogonowski on his immigration stance, and even Dodd's Lou Dobbs moment during the last debate (choosing immigration as the issue on which to attack Hillary), immigration seems set to replace national security/terrorism (issues where the GOP is now losing to Dems) as the fallback quasi-racist scaremongering bludgeon of the current cycle.
The fifth congressional district in CT actually witnessed a moment that marked the end of the effectiveness of the Republican national security/terrorism attack in 2006, when Nancy Johnson's memorable "24" ad, lauded for its deadly effectiveness by the consultant and pundit class at the time, actually backfired, moving her numbers down. Republicans had won two straight national elections on the issue, from Max Cleland in 2002 to Kerry in 2004, and it blew up in their faces in 2006. Murphy wiped the floor with Johnson.
And this cycle, the cash-strapped and directionless NRCC seems to be targeting the fifth CD as a battleground for their next boogeyman issue, too, as indicated by an article just up at Politico.com:
Connecticut state Sen. David Cappiello (R) said he plans on highlighting illegal immigration as a major theme in his campaign against freshman Rep. Christopher Murphy (D-Conn.), suggesting the issue has potency even in suburban districts far from the U.S.-Mexico border.
Cappiello said that the issue "runs very deep" in Murphy's northwestern Connecticut district, which is largely affluent but also has a large share of working-class voters in Danbury and Waterbury, where immigration has become a passionate concern.
Murphy is quoted in the piece slamming Spitzer's proposals, taking no chances of repeating Hillary's flustered debate moment. And Cappiello's baggage (cough, Galante) is also duly noted.
But it's obvious that with almost no money in their coffers, with party ID and approval at miserable lows, with no consensus top-of-the-ticket right-wing candidate to rally around, with their credibility on national security and terrorism completely shot, the GOP is desperately trying to nationalize this new boogeyman issue early. (They should also be heartened by the fact that Murphy seems to enjoy gratuitously stabbing his progressive allies in the back, rendering them impotent as potential raised voices in his defense.)
In any case, one year from now, if the NRCC can scrounge up enough spare change from their couch cushions to support an actual challenger instead of just defending their many vulnerable incumbents, there's a chance CT-05 may once again be getting a front-row seat to the national Republican fearmongering message machine. If so, we can hope it will flame out just as spectacularly as it did in 2006.
Fundraising numbers seem to be down in the third quarter across the board in CT Congressional races, but this is a real nosedive for Cappiello:
The FEC reports are starting to trickle in and David Cappiello followed up his breakout fundraising quarter, one that put him on the radar of the national Republicans and raised him almost $200,000, with a rather weak effort of $70,470 ($48,961 spent for a CoH of $204,368).
To recap, here are the other numbers that have been reported so far:
Sean Sullivan (R-CT-02): $100k in 3Q, $132k total this cycle Joe Courtney (D-CT-02): $260k in 3Q, apx. $1 million total this cycle, $770k cash on hand Jim Himes (D-CT-04): $250k in 3Q, over $610k this cycle
More numbers should be coming in later today - from Murphy and Shays in particular.
Update: Murphy comes in at $220k for 3Q, $1 million+ this cycle, w/ $940k cash on hand.
Afterdowningstreet.org is reporting that Canton civil rights attorney Harold Burbank has began a campaign to challenge Congressman Chris Murphy for his seat in 2008 over the issue of impeachment.
Further, impeachpac.org is reporting that Burbank has approached the Connecticut Green Party for their endorsement and his candidacy is under review.
Said Burbank, "It is time to stop kidding ourselves about the necessity of impeachment, to end the human, financial and legal costs of offending decades of international human rights law and policy which the US helped to create, that is solidy grounded in the the most prescient of our US Constitution principles."
"Congressman Murphy, an attorney and Congressman sworn to uphold the Constitution, refuses to acknowledge that our wars of aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan offend the most basic protections of the US Constitution for our people."
Our citizens, military, treasury and futures stand at extreme at risk due to the criminal war adventurism of the Bush administration, which will only be stopped by impeaching GW Bush, Richard Cheney and Condoleeza Rice."
Despite overwhelming evidence that this administration lied and scared us into current wars, with no end in sight, and which threaten wider war in Iran, Syria and beyond, it is time for the people to elect candidates who will say "No" to more soldiers, more money and more unending risks in middle east and threatened new imperial wars. I will be that kind of candidate and that kind of congressman."
"My first act as congressman will be to submit articles of impeachment against any exective branch official who continues to lead us in these wars, and who does not uphold the Constitution by ending them immediately."
Connecticut's 5th district voters will have a clear chance to help end these wars on election day. I will also campaign tirelessly and immediately to persuade Congressman Murphy to submit impeachment articles now, which he has said many times that he will not."
Burbank said that he would consider withdrawing his candidacy if Congressman Murphy submits articles of impeachment immediately, and calls for immediate defunding of the wars. Meanwile, he is seeking enodrsements from his friend and former client Ralph Nader, and had email from Cindy Sheehan yesterday encouraging his candidacy."
"On some issues Chris Murphy has worked hard for his constituents, but he lacks the courage to lead in crisis. Unlike Ralph Nader and Cindy Sheehan, he does not grasp that if the administration is not impeached, his children and mine will confront WW III. There are no progressive experts in the fields of international relations, law, politics and religion who doubt this outcome unless the US immediately withdraws from the middle east, and begins to work with the United Nations to formulate new policies for regional peace and stability there. The UN is hard at work on such policies already, but Congressman Murphy does not seem to know or care about them."
Burbank's public service to date includes posts as Connecticut and Maine assistant attorney general, Penobscot Indian Nation (Maine) director of human services; Veterans for Peace delegate to the United Nations and charity groups for the disabled and poor of Africa. He holds the BA and MA degrees in international affairs plus the JD, and is admitted to the Conneticut, Connecticut federal, Maine and US Supreme Court bars. Currently he is a solo civil rights lawyer based in Canton, Connecticut, where he has lived for 17 years. He has been married 27 years to Marianne Humphrey of Canton, Connecticut, and has two children, one each in high school and college."
He would appreciate hearing from anyone interested in his campaign at hburbankii@att.net
(This sounds like it could be big... - promoted by tparty)
Yesterday, Attorney General Richard Blumenthal filed suit against several subprime lenders in Connecticut who had conspired to defraud consumers with predatory lending practices. You can read the press release here.
As subprime lending practices continue to grab headlines, one has to wonder how far this will go.
One obvious person of interest is none other than State Senator David Cappiello, the GOP's candidate for Congress in Chris Murphy's 5th Congressional District.
David Cappiello, a star GOP recruit who is trying to take on Freshman Dem. Rep. Chris Murphy, lists his full-time occupation as a Mortgage Loan Officer for Danbury-based "Charter Funding." Charter Funding has, so-far, not been sued by Blumenthal.
But after a close look, things get very murky very quick.
Charter Funding, it turns out, is a business name of a secretive Tuscon, Arizona-based subprime lendor, First Magnus Corp. First Magnus is a privately-held lendor that operates around the country under literally dozens of different names, often within the same state. It is a registered foreign-owned corporation, but I'm not sure who its shareholders are.
In any event, First Magnus mortgage shops are franchised out to people like Cappiello (who can apply for franchises and broker licenses online), who then market mortgages (again, mainly subprime) typically to people who have no business getting mortgages.
A number of franchisees have been prosecuted for fraud.
On August 21, First Magnus filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and posted the following on its website (http://www.firstmagn...)
In light of the collapse of the secondary mortgage market, First Magnus will not fund any future mortgage loans, and is no longer accepting any mortgage loan applications or funding any mortgage loans previously originated and not yet funded. We explored all options before taking this action but were left with no viable alternative.
First Magnus values the relationships we have formed with all of our broker partners over the years and appreciate the trust you have shown in us. We are saddened that we will no longer have the opportunity to work with you.
For information about loans already submitted to First Magnus, please contact us at 520.618.9000 or call our toll-free hotline number: 1.866.901.7655.
My question: how many of these bad loans were written by Sen. Cappiello?
How many people have lost their homes because of shady ARMs he handed out?
More importantly... were any of the loans issued under predatory or fraudulent circumstances?
Is Blumenthal's office investigating Chater / First Magnus? Is Cappiello out of work?
It's not every day that a major mortgage lender collapses, and it's not every day that a major mortgage lender employing a major congressional candidate collapses.
(An update on the emerging beltway CW... - promoted by tparty)
In the Washington Post's online political blog The Fix by Chris Cillizza listed Connecticut's Jim Himes as one of the nation's top ten congressional candidate recruits for 2008:
Jim Himes, Democrat for Connecticut's 4th District: Fundraising isn't everything in politics but it's close. So, when Himes, the chairman of the Greewich Democratic Committee, showed $353,000 raised in the 2nd quarter we were impressed. Yes, we know it's not that difficult to raise money in the wildly affluent 4th District, but it is still a very solid sum. Himes has cleared the primary field, another positive sign for national Democrats. Rep. Chris Shays (R) is the last Republican House member left in the upper northeast thanks to his willingness to buck his own party and the costliness of the New York City media market that covers the district. It looks like the incumbent is in for another tough and costly race in 2008. Can he withstand a continually deteriorating national environment?
He also reported that renowned pollster Stan Greenberg predicts very big gains for Democrats in the Congress:
As in, big gains for Democrats in both the House and the Senate in 2008. "Do not think conservatively," said Greenberg during a panel discussion on the impact of Iraq on polling and the coming election. "The idea of a 50-seat-plus majority is real."
"Clearly the Ethics Committee that Congress has today doesn't work," said Murphy, D-5th Dist. "The process that's in place right now requires congressional members to investigate their friends and colleagues.
"It's time for a change. The voters sent me here to drain down the swamp that's become Washington, D.C. That's what I intend to do."
Murphy is calling for an independent panel, made up of members of the public, that could initiate and investigate complaints made against members of Congress.
While the lawmaker said the idea isn't new, it's been repeatedly met with resistance by congressional leadership. Murphy's call for an independent ethics panel comes on the heels of a report due in coming weeks from the Special Task Force on Ethics Enforcement that will include recommendations on whether to appoint an outside investigator.
Look, the reality is that there will be many more investigations of ethics issues if this became a reality – on both sides of the aisle.
But even if we see 100 ethics investigations in the first year, the whole point is to prompt a modification of behavior from our Congressional reps to keep themselves off of the list, with ethically challenged staffers swept out quickly to preserve the Congressmen/women's good names. I doubt the effect will be to send more Representatives to jail – it'll just make gray-area activities taboo.
If you're so inclined, you might want to send Congressman Murphy a note of thanks for getting behind this proposal, and asking others from the CT delegation to follow his lead.
Hobbled by his connection to the most corrupt group of politicians ever assembled in any political party's history, the GOP's David Capiello will toss his name into the meat grinder that almost every GOP candidate will have to face in the state of Connecticut because of the meat grinder they have created for the soldiers in Iraq.
From Sunday's edition of Beyond the Headines. While Murphy saw first hand an explosion too close for comfort his compatriot republican Chris Shays (CT-04) was doing his best John McCain impersonation (see below).
(An important and well-researched diary from MikeCT -- take time to take action after reading! - promoted by Maura)
Progressives who supported Democratic Congressional candidates last
year hoped that the new majority would finally push forward
long-delayed progressive initiatives and articulate a positive vision
for public policy, rather than merely blocking the worst excesses of
the GOP. To spark discussion of a cross-cutting progressive
federal
agenda, in January, Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel cited examples
of ten
important legislative proposals that could form the
foundation of a multi-pronged campaign, addressing
universal health care, voting protections, worker rights, campaign
finance reform, and other issues. Since then, most of these
proposals have been introduced as bills in the new Congressional
session. I
took a look at which members of the Connecticut delegation have
co-sponsored these bills.
Thus far, the results are disappointing (see tables below).
Only Rosa
DeLauro has co-sponsored a majority of the bills. Joe
Courtney
and John Larson have co-sponsored no more than Chris Shays,
and
Chris Murphy has signed onto only two of eight introduced
bills.
The two measures
that were universally endorsed in the House, and the only ones that
have
been given a
floor vote are those that are 1) a prerequisite for the political
support of unions (Employee Free Choice Act), or 2) are useful
in
securing middle class votes (College Student Relief Act). In
other words, the easy bills. In the Senate, half
of vanden Heuvel's ten progressive proposals have not even
been
introduced as bills.
Some of the inaction is curious. Chris Murphy, a
single
payer supporter while in the state legislature, has not yet
co-sponsored the federal single payer bill. While Rosa
DeLauro is
the sponsor of the Healthy Families Act, only one
of her local House colleagues has joined her as a co-sponsor.
Please contact your members of the delegation and ask them to
co-sponsor these bills and to advocate for a
more bold
and progressive agenda. (See contact info
below.)
(I love this idea. - promoted by Matt Browner Hamlin)
Note: The following is a general overview of a new blog I am working on called Progressive Wave. It is a re-post from Daily Kos. Simply put, we are looking for a large number of bloggers to cover our new representatives and senators in Congress. It's a damn shame that Ned Lamont won't be one of them, but we do need people who would like to do some citizen journalism in CT-02 and CT-05. If you're interested, please post here or email me at my address in my profile. Thanks!
It's great to see citizen journalism in action. A project here at Daily Kos is picking up steam - where we 'adopt' a congressional committee and keep tabs on their progress. It's a great idea, and by all means one that we should encourage; after all, a democracy thrives when its citizens participate actively within it.
Before the election I was thinking of taking a similar principle and applying it to our newly-elected Congresspersons and Senators in the U.S. Congress. Many of our newly-elected representatives come from extremely close races (such as Patrick Murphy in PA-08 or Joe Courtney in CT-02), or they are in areas that will make it a challenge for them to be re-elected every time they are up (Nick Lampson in TX-22 or Nancy Boyda in KS-02). While the Netroots-endorsed list has only included challengers, it's inevitable that we will have to begin defending our incumbents, beginning in 2008.
Nancy Johnson pulled an old political trick: Introduce a bill that might actually help seniors, then let it die in committee to screw the old bastards, just like your Big Pharma contributors want.
The bill would have eliminated penalties against seniors who missed an enrollment deadline for the new Medicare prescription drug plan. Though Johnson is the chairwoman of a health subcommittee, she never pushed for a vote, Murphy said.
"This was either an intentional bait and switch or shows an inability to lead her committee," said Murphy.
Under the penalty, seniors who missed the May 15 deadline face a minimum 6 percent increase in their premiums, Murphy said.
The House Ways and Means committee and the Health Subcommittee met a total of 12 times, Murphy said, and neither took action on the bill.
A poll commissioned by the National Republican Congressional Committee shows Johnson leading Democrat Chris Murphy by 10 points. A separate poll commissioned by Murphy's campaign says the race is a dead heat.
Both polls, however, show Murphy, a state senator from Cheshire, closing the gap.
Biased though I am, I'd trust Murphy's poll if only because the Republican poll was conducted in the context of testing anti-Murphy negative messages.
Republicans have a history of promoting questionable polls that show their guy way ahead, but I wonder why in this post-Foley moment, when there is a very real possibility that Republican voters will simply stay home on election day, the Republicans are telling people that Nancy is comfortably ahead?
Since
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