The most pointed, direct and brief response I've ever received from Christopher Shays:
November 12, 2008
Mr. Alan B
6672 Deleted Road
West Redding, Connecticut 06896
Dear Alan:
Thank you for your correspondence with our office. While I obviously intended to respond to you, due to the results of the election, I am required by the Speaker's office to return all office equipment and move out of my Washington office by November 21.
Because of this time constraint and the fact my staff needs to find new employment in a very short period of time, it is not possible to respond to your correspondence. I encourage you to contact your new representative, Jim Himes, who will take office effective January 3, to share your thoughts so that he will know of your concerns.
I truly appreciate the opportunity to serve you and other residents of the Fourth Congressional District for the past 21 years. It is a blessing for which I will always be grateful. All the best.
Sincerely,
Christopher Shays
Member of Congress
CS:mpm
As always, however, he failed to answer my original question.
There will be a rally for Jim Himes on Saturday, October 25, with special guest Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-Texas), Jim Himes, State Representative Andres Ayala, State Senator Ed Gomes, and State Representative Don Clemons, from 11 am to noon. The rally will take place at East End Democratic Headquarters, 1113 Stratford Avenue, Bridgeport. More information is available at (203)332-6100.
As previously noted on MLN, Bridgeport is the key to this super-important Congressional race. Those who wish to volunteer for the Himes campaign either before the election or on Election Day can contact the phone number above or go to the headquarters in downtown Bridgeport at 1016 Broad St., 2nd floor. See you there on November 4.
(A significant promotion which wouldn't have been made lightly by Sabato. - promoted by Scarce)
Larry J. Sabato, Director, U. Va. Center of Politics and author of the "Crystal Ball", writes in today's newsletter that the Democratic wave in the House and Senate races continues to build, and changes his rating of the Connecticut 4th C.D. race from Leans "R" to Leans "D". Sabato is one of the most respected (and conservative) political scientists in the field of polling and his prognostications proved close to the mark in 2006. The swing in the 4th C.D. rating is a large one as it moves not just one rating to "toss-up" but two spots from Leans "R" to Leans "D". Keep up the good work, Jim!
Yesterday, the Washington Post highlighted the importance of black voter turnout in two close Congressional races: The 4th CD race here in Connecticut and the 8th CD race in North Carolina.
In NC, Democrat Larry Kissell, a former textile plant manager, is giving incumbent Republican Robin Hayes, heir to the Cannon Mills textile fortune with a personal wealth of nearly $79 million, a run for his "money."
Kissell is one of at least 10 white Democrats in white-hot competitive U.S. House races who are counting on a surge of black voters to carry them into office. Most are challenging incumbent Republicans, and they are central to Democratic hopes of picking up as many as 25 additional seats, strengthening the party's control of the House.
Tip for the GOP: Beware of unintended consequences....
There is a certain irony in the pivotal role that blacks could play in congressional elections, given how some of the districts were drawn, [David] Bositis said. "When these districts were designed, certain assumptions were made about what black turnout would be so that the district would pretty much favor Republicans," Bositis said. "Now, all of a sudden, you have an election . . . where African Americans are enormously excited and mobilized. Not only that, you have the Obama campaign going out of its way to make sure these voters are registered and are going to turn out."
Add the dampened mood among Republicans and the situation "has the potential of putting the Democratic candidates over the top," Bositis added.
And here in Connecticut...
Hundreds of miles north, black voters are playing a decisive role in Connecticut's 4th Congressional District, home to the manicured estates of Greenwich and Darien. Republican incumbent Christopher Shays is fighting a vigorous challenge by Democrat Jim Himes, an investment banker-turned-social entrepreneur.
The battle for control of the wealthiest district in the wealthiest state in the country is being fought in the gritty streets of Bridgeport, where most of the district's African Americans live.
"Bridgeport is key to this whole election," said Gary L. Rose, who chairs the department of political science at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Conn. "It's kind of wild what's going on here. We're dealing with the very impoverished part of the district, and that's where the energy seems to be."
The importance of the black vote is so great, even though it represents just 11 percent of the district, that Shays is running ads directly aimed at Bridgeport that feature African American residents testifying about his effectiveness in Congress. Another Shays ad includes an image of Obama, in the most direct attempt by a House Republican to tie himself to the top of the Democratic ticket.
Himes based his campaign headquarters in Bridgeport and has sent mailings tailored to African American voters. He has met with minority organizations and, like Kissell and others, has made the rounds of black churches.
I missed most of the Himes-Shays debate apart from a few minutes here and there (I had the radio on in the car while driving between errands) but caught a funny exchange at the end with Shays's campaign director Michael Sohn.
Sohn's take was that Himes only had "generic ideas and cookie cutter comments", as if acknowledging the economic dire straits facing Connecticut voters is somehow "cookie cutter". And yet when asked to highlight Shays's performance, Sohn gave...
...a cookie cutter response about experience, bipartisanship (awesome) and understanding the "realities" of how Congress works.
It strikes me as more than a bit odd that the last Republican Congressman in New England (he made a joke about being an "endangered species") who makes no effort to conceal his desire to hitch his wagon to Barack Obama in what is unequivocally viewed as a change election, would make a point to remind voters that Congress is an unresponsive, unproductive institution. If anything, Obama voters who really do believe in change will come to the conclusion that changing the Presidency is not likely to be enough. We've heard the "experience to get things done" argument before, and the bipartisanship argument before, in Lieberman's 2006 campaign. I don't think it's gonna work for Shays this time around, no matter how tightly he pretends to cling to Obama.
Subtitle: Buying votes with bags and bottles, $2.50*; prominently displaying big boxes with the country of origin, priceless!
Over the course of a couple of hours beginning at 10 AM sharp two days ago, some eight to ten Himes workers were handing out palm cards in front of a health clinic for seniors in Old Greenwich. Weather was perfect. Then an hour and half late(r) three Shays staffers in cute little red vests showed up to deal with cool weather, set up a gauntlet for the public and get ready to flog their tchotzke. The "gifts"? Small, plastic reusable shopping bags and a water bottle to go along with it. Buying votes is always kind of funny to me. Buying them with cheap product from China taken out of big boxes prominently displayed so all could see and labeled with "made in China" when you're running for public office in a strong union state sort of tells the tale. Wish I'd brought my camera.
BTW, wonder where the Shays red-coats came from? Hmmm. Maybe... nah... they wouldn't be that stupid, would they?
And the beat goes on.
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* I actually don't know the cost of the items, but who cares when you've got the extra help of the national Realtors organization to share some of the campaign burden with mailings. The cost to the realtors? Well over a quarter of a million dollars, thus leaving more money to hand out the door prizes that every senior longs for. I wonder if the Shays Real Estate operation in Stamford is creating a parallel campaign organization?
Rep. Chris Shays has been the recipient of large amounts of campaign assistance and commercial buys from the National Association of Realtors PAC, according to The Hill:
Shays, who faces businessman Jim Himes, received $510,000 in assistance, including $260,000 in direct mail and $210,000 on TV ads. Both Shays and (Republican Michigan Rep. Joe) Knollenberg got about $40,000 in surveys, as well.
The immediate question that comes to mind is, why is a powerful PAC like the National Association of Realtors so interested in keeping a Republican like Chris Shays in office? To the tune of a half-million dollars? Are they just generous people, who believe Shays will work to protect the interests of the "Joe Citizens" out there?
Or might they expect a little quid pro quo from Shays should he win in November, in the form of votes that are helpful to the PAC's members?
An anti-war rally right here in Fairfield? Who would have thunk it? I am hoping to be there on Sunday with others to protest a senseless war which is my generation's Vietnam. Yes, you heard me correctly: Iraq is my generation's Vietnam.
It's been only 40 years since 1968 when our troops were over in Vietnam, and anti-war rallies took place across our country. I don't know what to anticipate in terms of the atmosphere on Sunday, as when I was telling my mom about the rally, the only thing she said to me was "don't get arrested!" Oh PLEASE! I'm sure Sunday's rally will be peaceful and civil w/ a bit of loudness but nothing to effect of 40 years ago (I think that's what my mom was thinking about) when things were a lot crazier.
Other than a candlelight vigil that I attended last year sponsored a local MoveOn.org group here in town, this will be my very first anti-war rally.
I am very pleased to say that in Friday's Fairfield Citizen-News, there was a mention of the rally right below the announcement of McCain's visit to SHU! How cool is that? I am hoping that the CT Post and other local papers will be there to get coverage and photos.....
That's it for now....I will make another post about this after the rally itself...in the meantime, peace, love, and a Dem in the White House for '08!
According to data carried on the website icasualties.org, the number of Americans killed, wounded, and medivac'd out of the country due to serious injury, disease, and combat-related psychiatric illness has now surpassed 61,000. That total includes 97 American women soldiers who've been killed and unspecified hundreds more women soldiers who have been wounded. It doesn't include most of the hundreds of thousands of American soldiers who've returned from Iraq afflicted with PTSD, but only those who cracked while they were there and had to be medivac'd out of the combat zone. And it doesn't include the 130 American soldiers who committed suicide over there.
Here are the cold numbers for the senseless war that Joe Lieberman, Chris Shays, George Bush, Dick Cheney and the rest of their neocon cabal forced us into:
killed in action: 3,859
wounded: 28,451
medivac'd out with serious injuries or disease: 29,584
Total: 61,894.
That also doesn't include the 17% of all soldiers who suffer "mild traumatic brain injury," or most of the 30% of all troops deployed to Iraq who suffer from PTSD, which now numbers in the hundreds of thousands. And the suicides only account for a quarter of all "non-hostile" deaths suffered by military members in Iraq. Furthermore, the figures for wounded and injured medivac'd out are only up to the beginning of October, more than a month ago in the deadliest year yet of this war.
Shame on those who sent them into that war and who still pretend that it is worth the dying.
Lt. Colonel Gian P. Gentile (retired), who commanded American troops in West Baghdad through last year, penned an oped in the Washington Post today titled "In the Middle of a Civil War." Pulling no punches and clearly not one of George Bush's many Pentagon "yes-men" who've said what Bush wanted them to say, Gentile outlined the futile situation in Iraq this way:
The war that I faced was an insurgency within a civil war. I wish it had been the other way around. Had it been a civil war within an insurgency, the extremes could have been targeted and controlled and the large center of the people moved toward local compromise.
The war is pointless. The troops know it; their commanders know it; the folks back home know it. But how much do you wanna bet that Chris Shays comes back from his current trip to the Middle East spewing another pile of mindless drivel about how "we're making progress" and that "we need to give the surge a chance" and other typically vacuous Shaysian double-talk?
This is very ho-hum to most conservatives and Neocons like Chris Shays and Joe Lieberman who are keeping their own military-aged children far away from service in the U.S. military and combat in Iraq. But for Americans who care, July is already the deadliest of the five Julys since the Iraq War began. 66 more young Americans have been killed this month with five days remaining. In the previous four Julys, 54 killed was the highest monthly total.
Again, for those who care about Americans killed and wounded in that pointless conflict, 147 more were wounded last week. 30,598 Americans have now been killed and wounded "over there."
(Too good to be on the sidelines... - promoted by ctblogger)
Just over a year ago, the national mainstream media went ballistic over African-American Democratic congresswoman Cynthia McKinney's confrontation with a Capitol police officer. The officer didn't recognize that McKinney was a congresswoman as she went around the metal detectors when entering the Capitol building and tried to stop her. Fox News went nuts, including right-wing inquisitor Sean Hannity, in what newshounds.com referred to as the "high-tech lynching of Cynthia McKinney." Right-wing hatemonger Michelle Malkin called McKinney "looney" and "queen-of-the-unhinged" on her website.
According to data listed on the website icasualties.org, by the end of June this year some 57, 856 Americans have been killed or wounded in combat in Iraq, or medivac'd out of the country with non-combat related injuries or diseases. It's not clear whether the total of 3,607 deaths includes the 116 American soldiers who committed suicide while on duty in Iraq.
The figure also doesn't take into account all of the heightened casualties being suffered this month.
Once again, credit for all that American blood shed and those diseased young men and women rests squarely with the Constitution State's resident Neocons Chris Shays and Joe Lieberman.
Just thought I would bring to your attention that we have surpassed another bloody milestone in that senseless war in Iraq: total casualties have now surpassed 30,000. That includes 3,598 young Americans killed, and 27,457 wounded.
Special thanks for the war's dead and wounded go to avowed pacifist war-mongerer Chris Shays and his sidekick joe Lieberman.
(Here's the link to the podcast of the Shays interview on NPR's "Where We Live" this morning. You may hear two familiar voices... - promoted by Maura)
The man is a disgrace. It's as simple as that. Sorry for getting angry, but Chris Shays is blatantly dishonest. Here are some of the things he said on Connecticut public radio station WNPR's "Where We Live" program on Friday.
First, Shays dishonestly suggested that the Bush administration is largely implementing what he called the Iraqi Study Group's "three main recommendations," when the Bush administration is doing nothing of the sort. Second, he falsely suggested that the ISG's "first recommendation" is, according to Shays, "that American troops shift from doing police work to doing military work...." Huh? The centerpiece of the ISG's recommendations was the withdrawal of American troops by the first quarter of 2008. In fact, here's exactly what the ISG report says right in its Executive Summary:
The most important questions about Iraq’s future are now the responsibility of Iraqis. The United States must adjust its role in Iraq to encourage the Iraqi people to take control of their own destiny.
The Iraqi government should accelerate assuming responsibility for Iraqi security by increasing the number and quality of Iraqi brigades. While this process is underway, and to facilitate it, the United States should significantly increase the number of U.S. military personnel, including combat troops, imbedded with Iraqi army units. As these actions proceed, U.S. combat forces could begin to move out of Iraq.
The primary mission of U.S. forces in Iraq should evolve to one of supporting the Iraqi army, which would take primary responsibility for combat operations. By the first quarter of 2008, subject to unexpected developments in the security situation on the ground, all combat brigades not necessary for force protection should be out of Iraq. At that time, U.S. combat forces in Iraq could be deployed only in units embedded with Iraqi forces, in rapid-reaction and special operations teams, and in training, equipping, advising, force protection, and search and rescue. Intelligence and support efforts would continue. A vital mission of those rapid-reaction and special operations forces would be to undertake strikes against al Qaeda in Iraq.
It is clear that the Iraqi government will need assistance from the United States for some time to come, especially in carrying out security responsibilities. Yet the United States must make it clear to the Iraqi government that the United States could carry out its plans, including planned redeployments, even if the Iraqi government did not implement their planned changes. The United States must not make an open-ended commitment to keep large numbers of American troops deployed in Iraq….
If the Iraqi government does not make substantial progress toward the achievement of milestones on national reconciliation, security, and governance, the United States should reduce its political, military, or economic assistance for the Iraqi government.
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Chris Shays, after returning from taxpayer funded trip number sixteen to Iraq:
U.S. strategy is "working as well as hoped, if not better."
I was going to write a longer post about Shays trip with Chris Murphy to Iraq and their differing reactions to our progress there, the expectations for success from the Iraqi political process, and their assessment of the GOP's new favorite buzzword "General Petraeus", but after reading the line quoted above a few times all I can say is that Shays is delusional.
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