Mousepads and Shoeleather and Things to be Thankful For . . . . . .
Thank you M. for my first campaign contribution. The day will arrive when I will - with your permission - tell the world that your campaign contribution of $20.08 was the first one deposited into the checking account for Stevenson2008.
Thank you Alice Hutchinson and Jason Bartlett - and many other Democratic Party members who believe in me enough to suggest me as the first challenger for the 107 th State Assembly District to actively campaign since my good and dear friend Louise Trojanowski Marconi in 2000.
Thank you to my wonderful wife and kindred spirit Diane - who encouraged me to accept this challenge, just as Louise's husband Robert encouraged her in 2000.
Thank you to all the Democratic Party members and Green Party members and Working Families Party members and Unaffiliated voters - who turned out to help the Democratic Party in Connecticut and in America choose Barack Obama as the standardbearer for the next President of the United States - and whom I now ask to walk with me in Brookfield and Bethel to change the way we do business in the Connecticut Legislature.
My initial campaign contribution from M. of $20.08 has been matched by many other $20.08 contributors at this juncture. These contributions will not earn you any special favors, but those contributions have and will earn you the designation - along with each and every person in the Connecticut 107 th Assembly District - as my "special interest".
I completed my first two hours of door-to-door today - along with an exceptional friend of mine whom I campaigned for 26 years ago, Lynn Taborsak. Lynn campaigned that year against a stalwart incumbent who "couldn't be beat" - and accomplished two parallel important goals which America and Connecticut needs more than ever in 2008. She won her District - and also became friends over the years with the person she unseated. Coalitions are the core of governing, as a voter I spoke with today reminded me - and all of us have this 95% core of what we agree on to go along with the 5% extraneous issues which we disagree on. Every human being has the capacity to do good and the capacity to do wrong. A Danbury News-Time blogger - who blogs under five different pseudonyms at the same time while he ridicules the good which he shares with me and others - pointed out the many posts which I have placed in the blogosphere over the past four years - pointed out my quirky sense of humor which I displayed in a Top Ten list of "excuses Senator Clinton would give for bowling a 37".
Thank you, Howard Dean - for setting Americans on the right track to taking our country back from the Sophists, Pharisees and other misguided individuals who had taken America down a road where divisiveness replaced coalition-building.
Thank you Chris Murphy and thank you Ned Lamont - who is rightly referred to as America's Senator, because his campaign helped other candidates and America's voters regrow their spine.
Thank you Sal and T. - who inspired me to begin planning my campaign in January 2004. I knew that I would be doing this one day - I just didn't know exactly when that day would arrive.
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.
You can send a check to the Charter Oak chapter of the Red Cross, said the Governor to morning deejay today, urging citizens to contribute to the relief fund for the home fire that knocked 150 people out of 120 apartments in Norwich this weekend.
Can't somebody do something about this traffic, gasped the Congressman trapped on the Merritt Parkway to the morning jock about the price of gas and the situation on the highways.
Ain't nothing we can't handle, said the man pushing the broom to his friend as they stood under the grocery store awning, under the raining gray sky.
Of all the conversations I heard today, I like the man pushing the broom the best.
I was ready to pull out my hair by the time I was done listening to Chaz and AJ and Billy and Megan Dahl hang out with Governor M. Jodi Rell and Congressman Chris Murphy this morning on WPLR.
And that was after I missed the beginning of their conversation while channel surfing down I-91, on my way to a property law exam from Hartford to Hamden, by car, of course.
Apparently the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, which is a "nonprofit and historically nonpartisan" 501c(3) think tank has formed a 501c(4) issue advocacy group called Defense of Democracies (so there's, you know, no chance of getting the two confused) that's behind these ads. The advocacy group is run by Clifford May, who's also in charge of the Foundation (but, you know, the two organizations are totally independent; pay no attention to the fact that they work out of the same offices)... and May is also a former RNC Communications Director.
(I actually meant to post this as a comment to the Thursday Read 'Ems thread, but for some bizarre reason it wouldn't stick there. There's more below the fold...)
So far this week, Joe Courtney, John Larson, and Chris Murphy have come to Iowa to campaign for Chris Dodd. Megan Lubin, our Iowa blogger, and I have been able to speak to them and record their explanation as to why they're in Iowa campaigning for Chris Dodd And the fourth CT Democrat in Congress, Rosa DeLauro -- she's national co-chair of the Chris Dodd for President campaign.
Congressman John Larson (CT-01)
Congressman Joe Courtney (CT-02)
Congressman Chris Murphy (CT-05)
Clearly Chris Dodd is someone who has earned the respect and support from his colleagues back home in Connecticut. Many of his staff members in Iowa are people from CT who have known him for years. What greater sign of Chris Dodd's record of accomplishments than the people he's spent a career representing dedicating themselves to helping him attain the highest office in our land? As Congressman Courtney makes clear, it is what Chris Dodd has done and what Chris Dodd will do that makes him the best choice to "turn this country around."
Ridgefield gets a Green Thumbs Up Award: By committing to the purchase of 20% clean energy by the year 2010, Ridgefield wins a $20,000 solar energy array for the town building of its choice.
Mental health counts too: Congressmen Chris Murphy and Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island discussed their efforts to get mental health coverage included in insurance plans.
Happy as clams: Oyster beds and clam beds are making a comeback in Long Island Sound. Good news for all those clammers and shellfish lovers.
A federal appeals court has upheld the corruption conviction of former Bridgeport Mayor Joseph Ganim.
The U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals has rejected Ganim's arguments that his sentence was unreasonable and other arguments.
Ganim was convicted after a 10-week trial in 2003 on 16 federal corruption charges. Prosecutors say he received more than $500,000 worth of kickbacks and bribes by steering city contracts.
Ganim has been serving a nine-year sentence at the federal prison camp in Fort Dix, N.J.
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.
Happy Thanksgiving! I wanted to take today off, but I also want to make sure that this story doesn't get buried due to the holiday. So I'm both thankful to be an MLN front-pager and to be a constituent of Chris Murphy.
In Hartford and Washington, D.C., Republicans tried Wednesday to link U.S. Rep. Christopher Murphy, D-5th District, to the troubled Haven Healthcare nursing home chain over campaign contributions.
Murphy, who urged federal regulators to crack down on Haven Healthcare this week, accepted $2,500 from company executives in 2004 as a state senator with oversight responsibilities on health issues.
But the press releases by Republican State Chairman Chris Healy and the National Republican Congressional Committee also incorrectly claimed that Murphy's congressional campaign accepted $12,000 from Haven executives.
In response to reports in the Hartford Courant about Haven Healthcare's troubling pattern of neglect and mismanagement at its nursing homes, Chris Murphy issued a statement today calling for a range of punitive actions.
Congressman Chris Murphy (CT-5) wrote to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to request that it respond to this issue with the full extent of current law. Murphy suggested that CMS could deny payment for new admissions, insert temporary management within the facilities under question, or terminate the company's facilities from the CMS program all together.
Connecticut health care companies have a history of neglect. Let's hope Murphy's response, along with Governor Rell's, lead to necessary reforms.
Besides the fact that it's just one more piece of evidence in support of the theory that Northeastern Republicans are an endangered species, it's not like the NRCC really needed to defend another open seat financially:
The NRCC had nearly $4 million in debt and $1.6 million in cash at the end of September, and it has raised about three-fourths of the DCCC's haul this cycle.
As Gabe pointed out last month at CTLP, at this rate there's going to be little to no money for the NRCC to go on the offense against Courtney and Murphy, and very little to shore up defenses for Shays. In the face of this reality, it's likely that Shays will try to continue his strong fundraising numbers of previous quarters, knowing that he's not going to be getting much, if any, help.
To put this in perspective, the NRCC spent over $6.2 million in Connecticut alone last cycle (pdf):
MURPHY, CHRISTOPHER SCOTT - NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE - Against $1,778,387.44
JOHNSON, NANCY L. - NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE - For $97,335.00
FARRELL, DIANE GOSS - NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE - Against $1,557,709.92
SHAYS, CHRISTOPHER - NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE - For $97,335.00
COURTNEY, JOSEPH D - NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE - Against $2,690,283.08
SIMMONS, ROB - NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE - For $54,229.00
Meanwhile, at the end of September 2007, the NRCC was - nationally - over $2 million in the red, and reduced to recycling kind of pathetic generic press releases in Dem incumbent districts in CT and across the nation, ironically titled "Running on Empty."
It's really too bad, as I'm sure everyone was looking forward to more of this:
(Please welcome Rep. Chris Murphy to My Left Nutmeg! - promoted by tparty)
Last night, the House voted (again) to withdraw our troops from Iraq by a date certain, with the redeployment mandated to begin in 30 days. I supported it, as did the entire (yes, even Shays...) CT delegation. The bill passed by a comfortable, but slim, margin, and it now heads to the Senate where the Republicans have once again promised to filibuster the bill to prevent a vote on the floor.
I came to Washington to end the war in Iraq. 10 months after being sworn in, no one is more frustrated than I that we have not been able to end our disastrous intervention in Iraq. But I remain convinced that no matter the obstinance of the House Republicans, the Senate, and the President, we should continue to press our case. The withdrawal bill we passed last night may not become law, but it moves the debate forward, and makes it clear, once again, that Democrats stand against this war, and Republicans continue to support blank check after blank check for this President.
My position, as many of you know, is clear. I will not support another dime for this war that isn't connected to the redeployment of our forces. Simple as that. But that doesn't mean that I approach a vote like last night's with enthusiasm. Even with strict withdrawal conditions, it still pains me to vote for additional funding. So yesterday morning, as our Democratic Caucus convened to debate the bill, I watched Maxine Waters, Barbara Lee, and Lynn Woolsey approach the microphone. Anyone who closely follows the Congressional debate on the war knows that these three courageous women have led the anti-war movement in Washington since the war's deceitful inception. I was proud to join them earlier this year as a signer of a letter (commonly referred to as the "Woolsey Letter") to the President expressing the position of anti-war legislators who support no additional funding without withdrawal conditions attached. So in these caucuses, I listen to the opinions of Woolsey, Lee, and Waters very carefully. Wednesday morning, one by one, these three anti-war leaders made the case that the withdrawal bill before the House that day was our best opportunity to continue to keep the pressure on congressional Republicans (and some conservative Democrats) to join us in our attempts to end this war. They made a passionate case for the bill, and I concurred. Several Democrats argued from the opposite side, including Brian Baird from Washington, who made the case that Democrats should adopt a more "moderate" position than immediate withdrawal. For me, there is no moderation on this issue. We should have never gone into Iraq in the first place, and every day we stay makes the situation worse, and makes our country less safe. I listened to Baird and the others make a case against the bill - a case that fell largely on deaf ears.
So I'm proud of the bill we passed last night. And I'm equally frustrated that it likely won't become law. But I still think it's important for the Senate's impotence to be exposed, and for the President to continue to be forced to go further and further out on a limb for his failed war policy.
For me, at this point, the only alternative is to deny the President any more funding for war. That's why I voted against the war funding supplement legislation over the summer, and that's why I'll continue to advocate (in private caucuses and in public forums) that our best course now is to tell the President "no more". It's a blunt, but necessary, tool.
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.
Two weeks ago 12 year old Graeme gave the Democratic radio response to George Bush. Since then rightwing radicals have gone apopletic, attacking the boy and his family in a disgusting display, even by their standards (the usual suspects: Michelle Malkin, Rush Limbaugh, Free Republic, etc).
[The Frost family is] not living in destitute poverty, but they're playing by the rules, doing everything that we ask them to do, paying their taxes and contributing to society. […] And so this is the kind of family that we're talking about. A family that's done everything we've asked. A family that's getting by, but because their son has an injury that excludes him from most private insurance, he has no other recourse than the S-CHIP program, a stop gap solution until the family can try to find some insurance program that will cover them.
Seventeen additional Democrats have signed on to the letter to President Bush pledging to vote against any funding for the Iraq war that is not tied to a firm timeline for withdrawal. Unfortunately, none of them are from Connecticut. Here's the text, according to Greg Sargent:
Dear Mr. President:
Seventy House Members wrote in July to inform you that they will only support appropriating additional funds for U.S. military operations in Iraq during Fiscal Year 2008 and beyond for the protection and safe redeployment of our troops out of Iraq before you leave office.
Now you are requesting an additional $45 billion to sustain your escalation of U.S. military operations in Iraq through next April, on top of the $145 billion you requested for military operations during FY08 in Iraq and Afghanistan. Accordingly, even more of us are writing anew to underscore our opposition to appropriating any additional funds for U.S. military operations in Iraq other than a time-bound, safe redeployment as stipulated above.
Chris Murphy is still the only representative from CT to sign this letter, which is still being circulated for signatures and will be sent to Bush next week.
Again, he makes it pretty clear that, now that he's in office, he doesn't want the support of all the DFHs anymore:
"The dialogue in Washington is way too poisonous, and I'm here not just to change policy but also to change the tone of politics," Murphy said. "I can't be part of a process where people are called names in order to make a point - especially when that name-calling suggests one of our military leaders is a traitor."
But apparently he can must be part of a process where groups engaging in free speech are condemned on the House floor in order to make a point - especially when that name-calling suggests that a group with a membership of 3 million+ of your supposed allies who spent half a million dollars to help get you into office said something they didn't, in fact, say:
You could argue that since the verb betray and the noun traitor have the same root, the ad is accusing the head of American forces in Iraq of treason. The ad can also be interpreted - more plausibly if you consider the rest of the text - merely as questioning the general's honesty, not his patriotism. But whatever your interpretation of the ad, all the gasping for air and waving of scented handkerchiefs among the war's most enthusiastic supporters is pretty comical.
(Video of Bill Clinton talking about MoveOn on CNN tonight via Oliver Willis.)
That's the amount of hard-earned money the members of MoveOn.org - many of them constituents, volunteers, and ardent supporters - contributed to efforts to elect these two freshman Democrats when they were candidates last year. (H/T Larkspur.)
(b) It is the Sense of the Congress that the House of Representatives--
(1) recognizes the service of General David H. Petraeus, as well as all other members of the Armed Forces serving in good standing, in the defense of the United States and the personal sacrifices made by General Petraeus and his family, and other members of the Armed Forces and their families, to serve with distinction and honor;
(2) commits to judge the merits of the sworn testimony of General David H. Petraeus without prejudice or personal bias, including refraining from unwarranted personal attacks;
(3) condemns in the strongest possible terms the personal attacks made by the advocacy group MoveOn.org impugning the integrity and professionalism of General David H. Petraeus;
(4) honors all members of the Armed Forces and civilian personnel serving in harm's way, as well as their families; and
(5) pledges to debate any supplemental funding request or any policy decisions regarding the war in Iraq with the solemn respect and the commitment to intellectual integrity that the sacrifices of these members of the Armed Forces and civilian personnel deserve.
Chris Murphy was the #1 recipient of MoveOn support among freshman Dems. Joe Courtney was #13. They were joined in their vote by Rosa DeLauro and John Larson.
This is how Chris Dodd responded when a similar resolution was up in the senate - by voting no:
It is a sad day in the Senate when we spend hours debating an ad while our young people are dying in Iraq. Now that the Senate has twice voted on this ad, it is time to move on and vote to end the war.
Pretty simple.
Why Murphy and Courtney - to say nothing of Larson and DeLauro, who have their seats for life if they want them - couldn't have responded similarly is a question for them to answer. But it's pretty clear that for whatever reason, they have decided they neither need nor particularly want the support of committed progressive activists anymore.
Since
MLN is powered by 